Digging For Trouble

by Linda Fairstein

  I went up to the first security guard we saw, at the entrance to the room with triceratops and asked him how to get to the dinosaur laboratory.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about, young lady. There’s nothing like that on this floor.”

  Booker was winding his way among all the different horned monsters, stopping to admire several along the way.

  “Excuse me,” I said, stopping a woman in a security uniform in the middle of the Vertebrate Origins display. “You’ve got a lab here where your staff works on processing old bones.”

  “A lab?” she asked. “Take the elevator down to the ground floor and then find an entrance to the basement beneath the Astor turret. It goes four stories deep below the ground. There’re a lot of bones down there.”

  “I said no basements, Dev,” Booker said. “Not without a police escort.”

  “I’m actually looking for newer old bones,” I said to the guard. “Ones that just arrived here this week. They’re in some kind of laboratory.”

  “Most of the labs are way underground,” she said. “There may be a couple upstairs.”

  “The museum has a fifth floor?” Booker asked.

  “Just in some places, where you see the turrets from the outside,” the guard said.

  “How do we get up to them?” Booker said.

  The older woman cocked her head and stared at my friend head-on. “You got some kind of special pass, young man?”

  “I’m just a student,” he said. “What kind of pass do I need?”

  “The labs aren’t open to the public,” she said. “That’s why they’re not on that floor plan of yours. You’ve got to show fifth-floor security something that says you work here.”

  I elbowed Booker aside and tried to make our connection more personal. “I’ve got a friend who’s doing her internship here. Can’t we just go up and say hello to her?”

  The guard thought about it. “I wouldn’t even know where to direct you.”

  I needed more help from Booker. If he’d only use what my grandmother called his Dibble-Dazzle smile, I knew the lab doors would swing open.

  I prodded him again and he got the point.

  “We promise not to stay long,” he said, flashing a grin. “Just doing a ‘hi-and-bye’ kind of thing, ma’am. We’re looking for a friend whose name is Ling Soo.”

  That smile and a bit of name-dropping to show we really had a friend here got us further than any special pass ever could.

  “I’ll tell you what,” she said. “Two more right turns and then a left, you’ll come to our biggest exhibit. There’s always three guys from security over that way.”

  She put her thumb under her metal nameplate and stuck it under Booker’s nose. “You tell one of them that I sent you. Zora Berke. And they need to tell you where the bones’ lab is—the one on five. How’s that?”

  “Couldn’t be better, Ms. Berke,” Booker said. “Thanks a bunch.”

  We were cruising in and around all the animals, following the guard’s directions, until we turned a corner and I came to a complete stop.

  Directly in front of me was the skeleton of the largest monster I’d ever seen. Its body filled a room the size of a football field, but its long neck didn’t even fit within those walls. Instead, it hung out into the hallway, its fierce-looking face—with deep hollow spaces where its eyes should have been and a jaw as wide as my bed was long—hovering just over my head.

  “What is it?” I asked, grabbing Booker’s arm.

  “You haven’t seen it before? It’s one of the newest exhibits here,” Booker said. “It’s called a Titanosaur, Dev. It’s the largest creature that ever walked on earth.”

  17

  “Mission accomplished,” I said.

  I was circling the Titanosaur, walking around his enormous display space, craning my neck so far back that it hurt, in order to look up at all the parts of his reconstructed body.

  “You mean we’re not going to keep hunting for the fossil lab today?” Booker asked.

  “Of course we are. I mean I had to find a place for Mrs. Cion to tell the museum where to set up the cots for Katie’s party,” I said, “and this is going to be the spot. I promised her I’d do that.”

  “You nailed it.”

  “How come I don’t know about this guy? This Titanosaur?”

  “Your summer school project took you to the library, and mine brought me here,” Booker said.

  I stopped behind a group of people who were in front of one of the stands, reading the information that described the dinosaur and how it was found.

  “You don’t need to do that, Dev,” Booker said.

  “But I want to know all about it.”

  “I can tell you most of it,” he said.

  “Go on.”

  “There was this farmer in a really remote part of South America, who was riding on horseback to look for his lost sheep. Instead, he stumbled on this gigantic fossil—a leg bone that was taller than he was.”

  “Sounds like something that could happen in Montana,” I said. “Where in South America did he live?”

  “Patagonia. The part of Patagonia that’s Argen—”

  “What? Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure. Why are you talking so loud?”

  “Sorry. I’m just surprised, is all.”

  “Why?”

  “Because when Katie and I were doing our research at the Puzzle Palace on Monday, it turns out that the man who led the dig in Montana—Steve Paulson—had worked in Patagonia. Katie and I argued whether that was in Argentina or in Chile.”

  “You’re both right,” Booker said. “What did this Paulson guy do there?”

  “I have no idea,” I said, “but it’s possible he was working on the dinosaur dig of this Titanosaur. I mean, that’s what he does. And also, he was terminated.”

  “Why?”

  I flipped the cover of my iPad closed. “Gotta find that out, Booker. Might be he was fired for doing something bad.”

  “Could be the dig ended when they got all the bones out of the ground.”

  “You’re thinking just like Katie,” I said. “And I’m not sure that’s such a good thing.”

  “You can’t be suspicious of everybody, Dev.”

  “Good point. I just like to be loaded with information.”

  Booker was marching straight to the first guard he saw, who was standing behind the giant left rear leg of the Titanosaur, urging some kids not to touch the exhibit.

  “I was sent to talk to you by the nice lady over near the vertebrate section,” Booker said. “We dropped by to see a friend of ours who just came to town.”

  “Yeah?”

  “She’s in the fossil lab. Her name is Ling Soo,” Booker said. “She invited us to come up for just a few minutes.”

  “But we can’t find it,” I said.

  “We’ve got fossils just about everywhere,” the man said. “Take your pick.”

  “Upstairs,” Booker said, pretty emphatically. “Like in one of the turrets.”

  The guard hesitated for a minute.

  “Miss Berke,” Booker said, “Zora Berke. She told us to come ask you.”

  “Oh, you know Zora?” the guard asked.

  We do now, I thought to myself, nodding at him.

  Booker smiled and said, “Yes, sir.”

  “You’re talking about those people who just came in from Montana this week?” the guard asked.

  “Exactly,” I said.

  “Well, then, you go out past the head and neck of Titanosaur and hang a left at his jawbone. After you see a water fountain, you’ll come to a stairwell that’s narrower than the others, that’s got a blue velvet rope blocking it off,” he said. “Go up those stairs, and Miss Soo and the team should be up there.” He turned his attention back
to the kids who were scrambling around the room.

  “May I give your name to the next guard?” Booker asked. He was always so polite and so professional.

  “You won’t need my name, son. There aren’t any guards upstairs—just staff. Our researchers know better than to rattle any of the bones.”

  We’d caught a real break. There wouldn’t have to be security guards on duty in the museum labs. The only people allowed up there were trusted employees or paleontologists working with them.

  We found the staircase and this time I ran up ahead of Booker. This turret was in a really old part of the museum that hadn’t been renovated—not spiffy like the display areas that had got all the public attention. The paint on the walls was yellowed and chipped, and the dim lights overhead were just bare bulbs.

  “Now what?” Booker asked, when we reached the landing.

  It was completely empty, except for cushioned seats all around the sides. Big bay windows opened out from the turret, and I could see way north into Central Park.

  Hallways stretched away in two opposite directions. We chose one and started walking along the corridor. There were cases lining the walls, reaching almost to the ceiling. They each held the bones of animals that had lived a very long time ago.

  “Spooky,” Booker said.

  Two guys about Ling’s age, dressed in jeans and T-shirts, were coming our way. Neither paid us any attention.

  Three more older men, deep in conversation, passed us from behind. “Looking for someone?” one turned to ask.

  “I’m a friend of the crew from Montana who brought in the new specimens this week,” I said. “Just doing a quick ‘hello.’”

  “It’s one of these rooms off to the left,” the man said. “Ask anyone you see for what you need, miss.”

  At the first doorway, I stopped and looked inside. It was a lab of some sort, but the three people inside were studying small specimens of some sort under microscopes. It didn’t seem to be work that related to dinosaurs.

  Two or three doorways later, we struck gold.

  “That’s it, Booker!” I said, again too loud for his taste. “That’s the Ditch!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The clutch of eggs that Katie found,” I said. “She named it the Ditch.”

  The giant mound, still mostly covered in plaster—but with the tops of three of the eggs already exposed—was sitting on top of a long worktable. There was a large pickax—to break up the plaster of Paris, I guessed—right next to it.

  I started to tiptoe into the room. “You’ve got to check this out, Booker. It’s the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen, next to the Titanosaur.”

  Booker came into the lab and stood beside me, our heads bent over the eggs.

  “I mean, I wasn’t even ten feet away from Katie when she—”

  “Get away from there!” A man’s voice boomed at us from behind. “Who are you?” he asked. “Who let you in here?”

  18

  I almost fell against the table from the shock of someone cornering us in a strange place—even though this time we were the trespassers. I grabbed on to the edge of the table and steadied myself to look at the speaker, who had sneaked up on us—or so it seemed to me.

  I turned my head to answer him.

  “Mr. Paulson!” I said. “Steve!”

  “Why, Dev. What are you doing up here?” The expression on his face went from clamped to relaxed in a split second.

  “I—um—my mom and I saw you all on the news last night,” I said, trying to control my stammer. “I was so excited that I brought my friend Booker to come say hi to you and your team. To—um—congratulate you on all the big news.”

  “I don’t know how you got upstairs here, Dev. You’re lucky no one called the police on you.”

  Steve didn’t seem to realize that Booker Dibble and I practically were the police in this city. I guess he didn’t know about my mom’s job.

  “The security guard let us up,” I said. “We only wanted to come for a few minutes.”

  “We didn’t mean any harm,” Booker added.

  “I was only hoping to show Booker some of the fossils—like the ones Katie found on the dig, and Ling’s teeth, from the duckbill,” I said. “And maybe now that you’re here, you can show us what this breaking-news-feathered-stuff is all about.”

  Steve put his hands on his hips, looked at the floor, and shook his head from side to side.

  “Sneak preview, Steve?” I added, trying to mimic Booker’s most sincere smile.

  “I wish I could, Dev. But I gave Chip and Ling the day off, so I’m not even sure where things are stored yet.”

  “I’m really good at figuring out puzzles,” I said, my eyes darting from shelf to shelf around the musty room. I was tempted to tell him about some of the other cases I’d solved. “Like where somebody might have put something valuable.”

  “If I remember correctly,” Steve said, “the last time you and your pals got nosy, Dev, you wound up in a mud pile up to your neck.”

  I could have sworn there was a touch of menace in his voice, but my mother would challenge me to prove that.

  “Well, it’s really dry up here, Steve,” I said. “Bone dry. Nothing to worry about in this museum.”

  “I’ll tell you what, young lady,” Steve said, rubbing his hands together. “Why don’t you give us a few days to settle in and sort out the work ahead of us. This museum holds us to pretty strict standards.”

  “I understand that,” Booker said, trying to move me along. “It makes sense.”

  “Middle of next week, get in touch with me—do you have my cell?—and we can try to plan a visit.”

  “That’s okay, Steve,” I said. “Ling gave me her contact information. I’ll just text her. I wouldn’t want to bother you.”

  “Ling won’t be here much, Dev,” Steve said. “You should have my e-mail.”

  “Why won’t she?” I asked, surprised. “Doesn’t she get to name her species and all that? I wouldn’t leave my fossils alone for a minute, if I’d found any.”

  “Ling’s got some serious work to do first,” he said, stepping aside to usher Booker and me out of the lab. “She’s got to write up our findings and have all the specimens and photographs validated, too.”

  “Why doesn’t she do that right here?” I asked, passing by him to get to the door. “At the museum, where they are.”

  “Actually, Ling has gone back to school. She’s going to work with a group of experts at Yale,” Steve said. “There’s a lot of pressure on our team to make sure Ling gets this right. I’ll be sending her pictures and information about everything she needs.”

  My head was spinning. Ling had withdrawn from Yale. I saw that fact with my own eyes when Katie and I looked her up on the program on the NYPD computer system.

  “But—but Ling doesn’t go to school at Yale anymore.”

  “Where in the world did you hear that, Dev?” Steve said, taking a step in my direction. “I don’t know where you get your information young lady, but it’s wrong.”

  “Dev must be mistaken, sir,” Booker said, nudging me to move along.

  “Yeah. Booker’s right,” I said, anxious to get on my way. “I must be confused with one of the other students I met.”

  “Don’t go spreading unfounded rumors, Dev,” Steve said. “You just stay away from Ling till I tell you she’s done with her work.”

  19

  “What do you make of that, Dev?” Booker asked. “I thought you said Steve was such a nice guy.”

  I was sitting on a bench with Booker outside the museum, winded from fleeing the lab. I think it was a combination of fear and flight.

  “I’ve got to think it all through,” I said. “Steve is a really nice guy, or he was. Maybe he’s just under a lot of pressure. But where could Ling be?”

&nbs
p; “And why did he tell you to keep away from Ling?” he asked. “We should call Yale and see what they tell us.”

  “That won’t work. There are laws—some kind of privacy thing—that forbid colleges and universities from giving out information about their students.”

  “How about if I take another shot at my undercover scholar role? It was a big hit at the library.”

  “Booker Dibble—kid paleontologist?”

  “You and Katie were just on a dig last week.”

  “Not as scholars, Booker. We were there as volunteer tagalongs.”

  “Mozart wrote his first composition when he was five, Dev,” Booker said, standing straighter and pulling himself up to full height. “I know a couple of guys at Yale who graduated from Hunter.”

  “Yeah, but what do you know about dinosaurs?”

  “The Titanosaur, Miss Quick, is roughly the size of ten large elephants.”

  “That’s not scientific, Booker. That’s obvious.”

  “Maybe it’s time to consult the commissioner on this matter, don’t you think?” Booker asked.

  “The commissioner likes it best when detectives present themselves with complete case files,” I said. “Let’s take the weekend to put all our facts together, and then—ugh, I’ll admit it—we might want to ask for her help.”

  My phone buzzed in my jeans’ pocket.

  “I think I’ve left five messages for you already,” Katie said. “How come you’re not picking up?”

  “I had no idea you’d called. You know these old buildings in New York,” I said, clamping my hand to my mouth before I let my whereabouts slip to Katie. “I mean, that staircase up to the crown in the Statue of Liberty? You’ve been there. There’s no reception whatsoever. It’s so old and the walls are so thick.”

  “Well, I spoke to Kyle,” Katie said. “I think he really misses us—well, me especially.”

  “That should make you happy,” I said. “What else do you know?”