The Magician's Bird (8 page)

It was Misti who first noticed that something was wrong with the room.

She grabbed Laurie's arm just as Bud plunked his backpack down onto one of the wing chairs. “Bud, stop. Look.”

Bud froze. He didn't know what she was talking about, but he knew it wasn't good. She looked deadly serious, even with her sequins reflecting light onto her face. It made her look like she had disco chicken pox and didn't find it amusing.

“What is it?”

“Somebody's been here.” Misti's voice was hushed. Bud and Laurie looked around nervously. “Are you sure?” Laurie whispered. “How can you tell?”

Misti pointed at the desk in the corner. “Did you put the ledger I was looking at away? Because it's gone.”

Laurie hurried over to the desk and looked. Misti was right. The ledger was now propped neatly, with some folders, at the back of the desk.

“Oh, man,” Laurie breathed, scanning the room. “The lion. The lion bookend. Look.”

The last time Laurie had seen the lion bookend was when she put it down on the coffee table. Now it was back on the shelf. Right where it had been when she first found it.

“What's that about?” Laurie hugged her arms around herself. She didn't want to touch anything.

“Well, that's super creepy,” Bud whispered. “What does that mean? Somebody comes in here?”

“Or it's a ghost,” Misti said slowly. “This is an old house. A ghost could live here. Maybe it likes its room just so.”

“Well, whatever it is, I'm done. Let's get out of here,” Bud said, zipping his book bag shut.

Laurie shook her head. She wasn't going to let herself get scared away at the first sign of something weird. It was way too late for that. This whole thing was weird. “No way. And go where? It was hard enough getting permission to come out tonight. I don't want to waste it.”

Bud stared at his book bag. She had a point. All he had waiting for him at home was that Swedish movie. If he went home now, he'd be expected to join in the family
movie time and post-movie discussion. Miss Downey loved to discuss.

“All right. But don't touch anything. And it goes without saying, we ditch the exploring idea.” Bud hesitated. “And at the first sign of trouble, we get the heck out. Agreed?”

“Agreed.” Laurie perched on one of the chairs. Her neck felt all prickly. She didn't think Misti was right about it being a ghost, but she didn't know what else it could be. She really didn't get the sense that Principal Winkle was spending his off hours in the secret room.

“I don't think the ghost would mind if we used it,” Misti said, sitting down on the footstool and pulling her bedazzled sweatshirt over her head. “Especially if it's Maria Tutweiler! Do you think it's her? Maybe we could get a Ouija board and she could help us!”

Unless she's really a murderer, Bud thought. But he didn't say it out loud. Instead he just shook his head. “It's not Maria Tutweiler, okay? And it's not a ghost. It's just some weird thing. A person. Or a scientific phenomenon. Or we're wrong, and we just forgot moving things. But it doesn't matter, we'll just share our info and leave. Please, Misti?” His voice cracked. He wasn't going to be able to do this if she kept talking about ghosts all night.
He was creeped out enough as it was.

“Fine,” Misti said. “What did you find out?”

“It's pretty gross,” Bud said, pulling his papers out. “Apparently Marchetti was this really famous magician a gazillion years ago, right? He did illusions, plus a lot of things with some bird prop. And he was supposedly involved in all this bad stuff, like organized crime. And the feds were going to arrest him, but the crime bosses, they wanted to get him first. And he just laughed it all off. Then the night that the police were planning to arrest him, he did a show downtown at the Celestial Theatre, and one of the things in his act was a disappearing act, where he makes his assistant disappear. Except that night, he switched it around and made
himself
disappear instead. And he never reappeared.”

Misti frowned. “How is this a murder? It sounds like he skipped town.”

Bud shook his head. “That's what the cops thought, but no one saw him leave backstage. So they went to his house, and when they got there, it was completely trashed, and there was blood everywhere. Like, tons of it. I didn't print out the picture I found of the scene, because it was really bad.
CSI
-type stuff.”

Bud swallowed hard. He hadn't realized quite how
much blood people had inside. He'd almost barfed on the keyboard.

“So how is Maria Tutweiler involved?” Laurie said, leaning forward.

“Beats me. I know she knew him, but I don't know why she would kill him. LeFranco had those pictures, though. Maybe her fingerprints are on the murder weapon or something.”

Laurie bit her lip. “LeFranco said she was into bootlegging—you know, alcohol smuggling, that kind of thing. That would fit, wouldn't it? Wouldn't that mean she was mixed up with organized crime?”

Bud shrugged again. “Maybe. I hadn't thought of that.” The secret room was starting to make a whole lot more sense, and in a really bad way.

“I didn't find anything about bootlegging, though. I mostly found pictures of him and the Marchetti Bird.” Laurie passed the picture from
Life
magazine to Misti. “That's the Marchetti Bird there—that's what they called it. It was almost as famous as he was, apparently. He used it in his act, and no one ever could figure out how it worked.”

Misti examined the picture. “That quote . . . did he really say that? About the bird holding all his secrets?”

Laurie nodded and scooted over next to Misti on the footstool. “Yeah, but no one knew what he meant. Apparently it was some kind of mechanical bird, but you couldn't see any of the works, it just looked like smooth metal. But he could make it open its wings and beak and sing and all sorts of stuff.”

Bud whistled. “That's pretty cool.”

“Yeah, according to this stuff, he was a really good magician. He wasn't doing kids' parties or whatever, he headlined big theaters. And the Marchetti Bird was a big part of it. He took it everywhere. And when he was murdered, it disappeared and was never seen again.”

Misti peered at the picture. “I wish this picture wasn't so bad. How big was it? No offense, Laurie, but your family needs to get a decent printer.”

“Sorry about that. It was pretty big—bigger than a regular bird.” Laurie's eyes roamed the room to find something to compare it to. “Oh, hey! It looked a lot like . . .”

Laurie went cold.

“Like what?” Misti elbowed her in the ribs, but Laurie didn't move.

“Like what, Laurie?” Bud was almost afraid to ask. All the color had drained from Laurie's face, and she looked like she was going to throw up.

Without a word, Laurie got up and walked to the cabinet next to the couch. Then she opened the lattice door in the front and stood next to it.

“Like this bird.” She reached inside the cabinet and pulled out a large metal bird. She put it down on the coffee table, and the cold, smooth metal reflected the overhead lights and made it look like it was shimmering. “Holy cow, guys,” Laurie breathed. “I think this is the Marchetti Bird.”

“I don't care! Just because she had the bird doesn't mean she killed him!” Laurie felt like throttling Bud. He was always such a downer.

“You mean the bird he never went anywhere without?” Bud said drily.

“Yeah.”

“You mean the bird that disappeared when he was murdered?”

“Yeah.”

“You mean the bird that's been hidden in her secret room that NO ONE ELSE KNOWS ABOUT?” Bud crossed his arms.

“Yeah.” Laurie crossed hers too.

“Yeah, I can see why you'd think she's innocent.” Bud rolled his eyes. “Look, I don't like this either, Laurie, but face facts! It's PROOF, okay?”

Laurie shook her head. “Sorry, but I'm going to need a little more than that.”

“Uh, Laurie?” Misti's voice was tentative. She was sitting on the floor next to the cabinet holding a small carved box. “You might want to take a look at this.”

“What's that?” Laurie grumbled. She wasn't going to let herself be sidetracked.

“Just look. This box was in the same cabinet with the bird, down on the shelf with the ledgers.” Misti held it out to Laurie.

Laurie took it slowly. Misti looked sad and apologetic,
like she was just about to kick Laurie's dog but felt really bad about it. It gave Laurie a sick feeling.

Laurie looked into the box. There wasn't much stuff in there, just an ancient wallet-type thing and some boring-looking documents.

Laurie pulled out the wallet and looked at Misti. “You are not serious.”

“I'm really sorry, Laurie.” Misti blinked and looked away.

Laurie put the box down on the coffee table next to the Marchetti Bird and opened the wallet. There were a couple of ancient-looking dollars, a library card, and a driver's license. And a membership card to the Society of American Magicians. Belonging to Mr. Alphonse Marchetti.

Bud fanned out the cards on the coffee table like he was in a casino. “Okay, so we've got a driver's license made out to Alphonse Marchetti. A membership card for some club in Washington, D.C., signed by Alphonse Marchetti. The Society of American Magicians membership card, signed by society president Houdini for member Alphonse Marchetti. And some kind of business card thing, with a picture of Magician Alphonse Marchetti
and
the Marchetti Bird. I don't see that there's any doubt that it's his wallet.”

Laurie didn't move; she just sat slumped in the chair, glaring at Bud's card arrangement. “Okay, fine, but she could have stolen it. Didn't LeFranco say she's a thief? Maybe she was a notorious pickpocket.” Laurie wasn't willing to give in yet. She knew what it was like to be framed. If Betty Abernathy had had her way when they found the treasure, she and Bud would be sitting in jail cells right now.

Bud threw up his hands in disgust, almost smacking Misti in the head by mistake. He stood up. “You talk to her, Misti. She's not listening to me.”

Misti picked up the membership card and inspected it. It was dated 1926 and looked even older than the rest of the stuff. “Is that the real Houdini?
The
Harry Houdini's real signature? This must be worth something.”

Laurie made a weird noise in the back of her throat. “Everything in here is worth something, Misti! Look around! I don't know why you guys are so convinced she's a murderer. Everyone thought she was insane last year, remember? And that wasn't true. There's got to be some explanation.”

Laurie went back to slumping and stared at the floor. This was the last thing she'd expected to find out when she suggested they do some investigating. She wished they'd never found the stupid room.

“Okay, how's this?” Bud said, sitting down again. “We don't know what this all means. It could mean LeFranco's right and she's a murderer. It could mean something else. But that's not important now, right?”

“Huh? Of course it is,” Laurie had always known it would happen someday. Bud had totally lost it. Not
important. Laurie snorted.

“I think it matters, Bud,” Misti said, looking up from her inspection of the Houdini signature. “Sheesh.”

“But not really!” Bud explained. “Whether it's true or not, what we need to do now is decide what to do. Do we turn this stuff over to the police as evidence? Or do we hide it and protect her?”