The Statue Walks at Night

With love to Brian and Sean Quinlan, my inspiration for the Casebusters

—J.L.N.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

S
EAN QUINN SHOVED HIS
chair back from the dinner table.

“I'm not going to take a bath tonight,” he announced to his family. “Sam Miyako said that alligators can travel thousands of miles through sewers, from city to city, and suddenly pop up in your bathtub.”

Mrs. Quinn sighed. “Sam Miyako strikes again,” she said.

Brian, Sean's thirteen-year-old brother, narrowed his eyes. “And if they're big enough,” he said teasingly, “they could crawl out of the bathtub and into your bedroom.”

“The story's not true,” Mr. Quinn explained to Sean. “In the first place, sewers are not connected from one city to another.” As his father explained to Sean about city regulations and sewer systems, Sean began to fidget.

“But Sam Miyako says it's true,” Sean insisted.

Mrs. Quinn gave Brian a stern look. “I like Sam,” she told Brian. “And I'm glad he's your best friend. But he has got to stop trying to scare the younger children.”

“I'm not so young, Mom,” Sean insisted, and sat up taller. “I'm nine.”

“Isn't that too old to believe everything Sam Miyako tells you?” Mr. Quinn asked Sean.

Sean shrugged. “I guess so.”

“I'll make you a promise,” Mrs. Quinn said. “If an alligator does show up in the bathtub, you can keep him for a pet.”

Sean thought for a moment. The idea of having an alligator in his bathtub was scary, but it was fun thinking about having one as a pet. No one else in his class would have an alligator as a pet, Sean thought. Not even Miss Know-It-All, Debbie Jean Parker.

Suddenly an alligator in the bathtub didn't seem so scary.

“Thanks, Mom,” Sean said, grinning.

The doorbell rang as Brian and Sean finished clearing the table, and Mrs. Quinn got up to answer it. In a few minutes Mrs. Maggie Gomez, the curator of the Redoaks County Museum, followed Mrs. Quinn into the kitchen.

“John,” Mrs. Gomez said. “Thank goodness you're home.”

Mr. Quinn stood. “Maggie, you know our boys, Brian and Sean,” he said.

“Of course,” Mrs. Gomez answered, and smiled. “John,” she said, turning back to Mr. Quinn, “something terrible has happened at the museum. I want to hire you as a private investigator.”

“We'll talk in the den, where it's more comfortable,” Mr. Quinn said. He turned to Brian and Sean. “Suppose you boys say good night.”

Brian and Sean said good night, then started up the stairs. But halfway up, Brian stopped.

“
Suppose
you go upstairs,” he whispered to Sean, “isn't the same as ‘You
have
to go upstairs,' is it?”

“No,” said Sean, catching on. “And ‘Something terrible at the museum' sounds like an interesting case for a pair of private investigators!”

“Like us,” Brian and Sean said together.

Growing up with a father who was a professional private investigator, Brian and Sean had had many opportunities to help him on his cases. It began because Mr. Quinn liked to “talk out a case” with himself. Talking out loud, he said, helped him think. Brian and Sean liked listening to their father. Sometimes he would stop talking and ask them what they thought about a case.

Brian and Sean especially liked that their father didn't consider their questions or comments silly just because they were kids. He said that being a kid could actually be an advantage to an investigator. A kid could look at something with a different perspective than an adult, he said. And being able to look at evidence from different angles was often the key to cracking a case.

After a while, Mr. Quinn began to treat Brian and Sean almost as if they were his assistants. Their help had paid off, too. In one recent case, for instance, Brian and Sean had helped their father prove that it wasn't a ghost who was haunting the Pine Tree Inn. In another case, Brian and Sean had uncovered evidence that called into question the authenticity of a mysterious photograph of “Bigfoot.”

From where they sat on the stairs, Brian and Sean could hear the urgency in Mrs. Gomez's voice.

“The Redoaks County Museum has what is claimed to be a foolproof security system,” she explained, “but in spite of all our precautions, two extremely valuable sketches by Leonardo da Vinci are missing.”

“Missing?” said Mr. Quinn. “Do you mean stolen?”

Mrs. Gomez sighed. “Yes.”

“I'm familiar with the galleries in your museum, Maggie, but I don't remember any da Vinci sketches,” Mr. Quinn said.

“The sketches don't belong to the museum,” Mrs. Gomez said. “That's what makes the theft even worse. They're from a traveling exhibit on loan from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. We've heavily advertised the exhibit, and it's scheduled to go on display in just one week. If the sketches aren't found by then…” Her voice broke as she cried, “I'm responsible for the safety of that collection, John! What am I going to do?”

“Maggie,” Mr. Quinn said in his calm, professional private investigator's voice. “Call the police about the theft. They'll be able to search the museum. Also, they'll be able to get warrants to search your employees' homes. That's something that as a private investigator I don't have the legal right to do.”

“I
have
called the police,” Mrs. Gomez told him. “That's the first thing I did. I also called our insurance company. I was told by the manager of their theft division that ordinarily they would bring in one of their own investigators immediately. But sometimes they prefer to hire private investigators, especially in cases that need to be solved quickly—like this one. He gave me
your
name, John. He knew you'd not only be efficient but would keep the situation as quiet as possible.”

“Then let's start with a few questions,” Mr. Quinn said.

Brian imagined that his father had pulled out the notebook and pen he always carried with him. A notepad and a pen, his father had explained many times before, are a private investigator's most important tools. Brian, who planned to someday become a private investigator, too, pulled his own notebook and pen from a pocket in his jeans.

“Tell me the story from the beginning,” Mr. Quinn urged, “noting exactly when you discovered that the sketches were missing.”

“The cartons arrived three days ago,” Mrs. Gomez said, “on Friday afternoon. My staff and I looked through them, checked the list, and everything was included. So I shelved the cartons in a special locked cabinet inside our large storeroom.”

“Is the storeroom kept locked?” Mr. Quinn asked.

“No. Not during working hours. That would be inconvenient. And it's never been necessary,” she said, “until now. I thought the exhibit material was safe, but this evening, when I took out the cartons to decide how to arrange the pieces in the exhibit, I discovered that two da Vinci sketches had been removed from their frames.”

“Was the cabinet broken into?” Mr. Quinn asked.

“No.”

Mr. Quinn looked up from his notepad. “Then whoever stole the art must have used a key.”

Mrs. Gomez nodded. “My key, I'm afraid.”

Mr. Quinn frowned. “How can you be so sure?” he asked.

Mrs. Gomez was embarrassed. “It's no secret that I keep the key in my top desk drawer,” she said. “I guess it's not the safest place I could have thought of, but visitors aren't allowed back in the offices.” She sighed. “After the theft I noticed that the key was not in its customary place in my drawer. Someone obviously had removed the key, then put it back. It's terrible to think that the thief is probably someone on my staff.”

“Do all the employees know about the theft?” Mr. Quinn asked.

“The museum's security guard was there when the police arrived,” Mrs. Gomez answered. “I telephoned my assistant, James Vanstedder. The other employees will be told tomorrow morning.”

Mrs. Gomez took out a piece of paper from her briefcase and unfolded it on the table. “Here's a floor plan of the museum,” she said. “You can see that the offices are together, in the back.”

Mr. Quinn asked, “Where's your key to the cabinet now?”

“Here, with me, so that I won't have to worry about losing anything else in the collection.”

“I assume all the items in the exhibit are valuable?”

“Oh yes,” Mrs. Gomez said. “Some lovely, small Monet paintings, a Rembrandt drawing, and many other beautiful pieces. Everything in the collection is extremely valuable.”

“Then I suggest that first thing tomorrow you call a locksmith to change the lock on the cabinet in which the exhibit pieces are stored. The thief could return. Most likely, he—or she—has already made a duplicate key.”

Mrs. Gomez gasped.

Mr. Quinn asked, “How small were the sketches? Could they have been slipped into someone's pocket?”

“Not likely,” Mrs. Gomez said. “One is about sixteen inches by eighteen inches. The other is a little larger. Folding would ruin them. Because the thief carefully removed the sketches from their frames, I'm guessing that he'd know better than to fold them.”

“But the sketches could be rolled, couldn't they?” Mr. Quinn asked. “And possibly carried out inside someone's clothing?”

Mrs. Gomez thought for a moment. “They
could
be tightly rolled, I suppose. But I should think it would be difficult to carry them out in that manner. Visitors to the museum are required to check all bags and jackets at the entrance. And our security guard is authorized to search bags and clothing as well. The sketches would be easy to detect, say, inside a sleeve or jacket. They would have made a suspicious bulge.”

“Something about the theft puzzles me,” Mr. Quinn said. “The missing sketches are from a famous artist. How could the thief expect to sell them without getting caught? Everyone he tried to sell them to would know the sketches belonged in a museum. Also, why would he take just the two pieces when everything in the collection is valuable?”

“You'd be surprised at the large market for stolen art,” Mrs. Gomez said sadly. “There are wealthy art collectors all over the world who knowingly buy stolen pieces and keep them in their own private collections, where they can't be discovered. Often, certain items are stolen on order.”

“On order?” asked Mr. Quinn.

“Yes,” said Mrs. Gomez. She explained, “It's not unheard-of that a wealthy art patron who has had his or her eye on a specific work of art might actually hire thieves to steal it. I suspect that is what happened with the two da Vinci sketches.”