Madhattan Mystery (19 page)

“Yeah, so my aunt's a professional actress,” Lexi said into her hand. She hadn't realized it had flown up to cover her mouth and quickly let it drop. “She's opening in a play next week at the Minetta Lane in the Village—a musical called
Shattered Glass
. Melrose is into acting, too, aren't you?”

Melrose garbled something that sounded like “Yes” or “I guess” and smacked her lips. She was gazing across the collection of show posters covering the walls and her eyes settled on a faded silkscreen of
The Sound of Music
. “Were you in that, Roz?” she asked, pointing to the poster with a forked cherry tomato.

Aunt Roz delicately wiped the corners of her mouth with her napkin before turning to look. “Mm-hmm, back in college,” she said, nodding. “I had the role of Maria.”

“The Julie Andrews part? No way, that's the lead!” Melrose's mouth hung open as if it was the greatest thing ever. She should have swallowed first. “I played the youngest Von Trapp brat in a church production in the Bronx
when I was, like, seven. I forget the name of my character. What the heck was it? Greta … or Gretl, or—Grumpy, Sneezy, Dopey.”

This time Kevin cracked up along with her. The mood was definitely ten times lighter since the subject turned to theater. Safe territory. Lexi knew for a fact that her aunt could happily reminisce on the subject for hours.

“The boys never noticed me until I'd won that role, and then everything changed just like that.” Aunt Roz snapped her fingers and her face lit up as if she had just cued the spotlight. “From day one of rehearsals the young man playing the Captain tried desperately to win my heart.”

“So, did he?” Kevin asked, leaning in with a wicked grin.

“Wouldn't you like to know?” Aunt Roz grinned right back. “There was someone else—Louie, was it? A senior who played Uncle Max. Not so much in the looks department but he used to make me laugh. Ooh, but the one I really had my eye on was the stage manager, Joe Molinaro.”

“Omigod!” Melrose said, slamming down her fork. “All those guys? You were, like, Maria Von
Man
-Trap!”

The angel of silence was suddenly back with a vengeance. Thank goodness for the timely knock on the door, or so Lexi thought until she ran to answer it. Kim Ling's beady eyeball was staring back at her through the peephole. For a split second Lexi considered pretending no one was home—but maybe she had some important news.

“I can see your tiny pointed shoes under the door, Lexington Avenue. Open up!”

Lexi slipped into the hall and quietly closed the door behind her.

“What's going on?” Kim Ling asked. “Why're you dressed like a Barbie doll? I've been leaving endless voice mails but you won't answer.”

“Oh, my phone's off.”

“I smell food,” she said sniffing. “Why won't you let me in?”

“Geez, enough with the tenth degree. My aunt's busy cooking and she needs her space. Why? What?”

“Major development! Observe.” Kim Ling held up a messy legal pad covered in scribbles and diagrams. “I researched that info you discovered at the Met—you know, Cleopatra's Needle. It turns out it's this thirty-five-hundred-year-old Egyptian obelisk—isn't that fantastic?” She pointed to a drawing of a long, fat, pencil-looking thing. “An
obelisk
. Get it?”

“Not even a little.”

“Think about the clues: shoot, needle—”

“—oval disk, park.” Then it dawned on Lexi. “Oh!
O-val disk
is really
o-bel-isk
!”

“Ding-ding-ding! Which, according to Wikipedia, is a four-sided monument with a pyramidal top, which I already sort of knew. But for some strange reason, I'd never even heard of Cleopatra's Needle.” She drummed her pen on a puffed-out cheek and her eyes darted back and forth like
the chicken clock. “There're a bunch of bronze crabs sort of holding it up—the one you saw at the Met was one of the originals that fell off or something. Anyway, the obelisk is completely covered in hieroglyphics and sits in Central Park—just opposite the Met.”

“Oh, wow. So, that's where Cleopatra's jewels are buried?”

“Exactamundo! Those other clues that had us digging through Grand Central—the perps must've been spitballin' ideas when you heard them, and that one probably got tossed out. Just an educated guess.” She thought for a second. “So, we never should've even tried to bribe that crazy Melrose chick at all. Man, was she ever messed up.”

“Alexandra!” Aunt Roz's faraway voice penetrated the door.

Lexi swallowed hard as a single bead of sweat dripped off the tip of her nose. “We still don't know how the word
shoot
plays into it, though,” she whispered to Kim Ling, rushing along the conversation.

“Hopefully, not the obvious—but
needle, obelisk
, and
park
are more than enough to go on. We have to check it out ASA-humanly-P. Like, tonight!”

“Uh—I have reservations.”

“About what?”

“No, no, I mean,
we
do. At a nice restaurant—it's a family thing.”

“Dude, this is major! And I thought you said your aunt was cooking.”

“She is. We're—going out for a fancy dessert.”

There were what sounded like running footsteps coming from inside the apartment, and Aunt Roz could be heard shouting distant questions about who was at the door.

“No one important!”

“Thanks a lot.” Kim Ling parked her pen behind her ear and pointed a pistol finger at Lexi. “Okay, then tomorrow night for sure. It'll give me time to round up more excavating equipment.” And she turned and clomped down the stairs in her chartreuse cowboy boots. “Just don't wimp out on me. Time is of the essence.”

Excavating equipment? No need to start freaking out about tomorrow night's misadventure until she made it through tonight's—and she had already left Melrose's mouth in the apartment with her aunt for way too long. She rushed back inside just as Melrose was barging in on Kevin in the bathroom.

“Don't you knock?”

“Don't you lock?”

Do it now
, Lexi said to herself,
before you change your mind!
She grabbed Melrose, who looked like she didn't know what hit her but still managed to grab a fistful of lemon squares off the coffee table as they flew through the living room. “We'll be right back, Aunt Roz!” Lexi called out from the doorway and checked to make sure the coast was clear of Kim Ling. “Miss Carelli just came home and Mel's mom is a huge opera fan, so she wants to get her an autograph!” And the lies kept on coming.

Melrose must've known it was a ploy because she followed Lexi out into the hall without asking questions. She tiptoed up the stairs behind her and shadowed her maneuver as Lexi ducked under the burglar alarm sensor—the same exact routine Lexi had gone through on the first day with Kim Ling, only without that nasty alarm going off.

“Okay, what's the deal?” Melrose croaked when they finally stepped onto the rooftop, shoving the last of her lemon squares into her mouth. “You gonna push me off the roof for callin' your aunt a mantrap?” A powdered-sugar puff exploded from her lips.

“Don't tempt me.” Lexi carefully wedged a small two-by-four between the doorframe and the door to keep it from closing. “No. Look around.” She twisted to her feet and started toward Melrose, brushing dirt off her hem. “That deck chair opens all the way like a bed, there's even pillows, and, look, a ginormous table umbrella in case it rains. Plus, it's safe up here. That's the main thing.” Lexi dug into her pocket before she lost her nerve, pulled out a key that she had attached to a long pink ribbon, and pressed it into Melrose's sticky hand. “This unlocks the two front doors of the brownstone. Whatever you do, don't lose it.”

Confusion gradually lifted from Melrose's sugar-dusted face like storm clouds on a sunny day. She stood silently fingering the key.

“But you have to swear you'll only come up here in emergency situations—alone. I'm talking life or death
stuff. Oh! And you cannot tell a soul about this or I'm dead meat. Promise?”

A wailing siren came and went on West End Avenue below and Melrose still hadn't answered. The proverbial limb Lexi had crawled out on was bending in the wind.

“You don't even know me. Why you tryin' to help?”

Lexi shrugged. “Temporary insanity?” She folded her goose-pimply arms and stared deep into Melrose's squint. You would think the girl would have been jumping for joy, but she didn't even crack a smile. “I'm taking a huge risk here, okay? This'd better not come back to bite me on the butt.”

Who was she kidding? She could picture the teeth marks already.

Melrose gathered her blond mane up behind her neck and let it cascade behind her shoulders, rolling her lips like she was struggling to come up with the right words to say. “You really are somethin' else, you know that?”

“Yeah, I know,” Lexi answered with a questioning look. “And you're welcome.”

The big finale of Aunt Roz's Day of Family Fun was a show at Radio City Music Hall. Lexi had never been there before and her first impression was—
holy cow!—
totally overwhelming. Entering the lobby was like stepping into a giant Donald Trump living room, provided Donald Trump liked lots of plush red and gold—and crowds. Long, shimmering chandeliers; a winding staircase just made for grand entrances; a gigantic Art Deco mural painted on the wall, which Aunt Roz said was a style that was all the rage in the 1930s. And the jaw-dropping grandiosity continued inside the theater itself. Lexi had never seen so many seats. They extended clear into the heavens, tier after tier, like a humongous wedding cake.

“Can you believe they were actually going to tear this down?” Aunt Roz said as the usher led them toward the stage, which was a glowing orange sunburst that was
practically as big as the sun. “I haven't been inside since the renovation. Melrose, have you ever been?”

“I saw the Christmas Spectacular once, back when I was, like, a fetus. Alls I remember is one of the camels in the livin' nativity scene takin' a dump onstage.”

That angel-of-silence thing was happening again—the fifth time that night, if you were counting, and Lexi was. Something was definitely strange with Melrose—well, stranger than usual. She had started off the evening glowing and now she was glowering, and Lexi couldn't figure out why. “Hey, Mel, my aunt used to be one of the kick-line dancers here.”

“A Rocket!” Kevin said. “Right, Aunt Roz?”

“Rockette. But that was a hundred years ago.” Aunt Roz took four programs from the usher and led the way down their row distributing them among the kids. “Oh, these are choice,” she said, meaning the seats her old friend Henry had gotten them. “It pays to know people in high places. Literally! Henry operates the spotlight from way up there.” She waved at the highest balcony as if the guy could see her pinprick of a head ten miles away.

Lexi settled into her seat, reminding herself that the hard part was over. They had already made it through half the evening without Melrose blowing her cover and now they would just have to sit through a few hours of watching the Celtic Breeze Steppers, an Irish dance troupe. In a single day she had treated Melrose to a luxurious
bubble bath and a fresh change of clothes while Aunt Roz and Kevin were at the planetarium, a delicious home-cooked meal, access to the brownstone roof in case of emergency, and now a fun night out at a New York landmark. Mission accomplished and then some! After being mistaken for homeless herself, how could Lexi
not
do a few good deeds for someone in need? She should feel fantastic. So why, instead, was she squirming in her seat and anxiously rubbing her opal?

“Oh, check out the bling.” Melrose zeroed in on Lexi's opal necklace. “That stone real?”

“Yeah. My mom gave me this a few years before she died.”

“Well, that really sucks. I mean, the dyin' part. Gum?” she said, offering a limp stick. “It's Cinnamint.” She blew her minty breath right into Lexi's face as a sample.

Lexi winced. “Nuh-uh. Where'd you get gum?” As soon as she said it, she wondered if it came off as an insult, like a runaway couldn't afford such a luxury.

“Your pants pocket. Or your
capris
, as you called them,” Melrose said mockingly. She crossed her legs, foot over knee like a man, and waggled her ankle fiercely. “Listen, I know there's somethin' you ain't tellin' me.” Now she was staring Lexi up and down. “Why'd you really wanna hook up in Grand Central? C'mon, the truth?”

Whoa. That one came out of left field
. “Um—my friend wanted some info for her story, like we said. And please keep your voice down.”

“And now—I mean, what's in all this for you? Why're you bendin' over backward for me?”

“Just ‘cause.”

Nobody wants to hear that you feel incredibly sorry for them and you're afraid for their lives
. Lexi turned away to check out the audience, wondering what had gotten into Melrose—and what had she found out?

Over the stadium of chattering heads, Lexi spotted a sea of green flooding into the rear seats.
A busload of Celtic Breeze fans maybe? But why're they all so short? Leprechauns?
She could make out the faint outline of trees on their T-shirts. Their
puke-green
T-shirts!
No way! Not again!
Her nails dug hard into the armrest, which actually turned out to be Kevin's arm.

“Ow!”

“Don't look now but this place is crawling with City Campers!” she whispered to him. “What're they doing out at night? Do not turn around.”

Lexi had to think of something fast. If her aunt found out that she had been ditching camp, it would get back to her dad and she would be grounded until she was forty.