Amanda Lester and the Purple Rainbow Puzzle Read online

  Amanda Lester and the Purple Rainbow Puzzle

  Paula Berinstein

  The Writing Show

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s twisted imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2015 by Paula Berinstein.

  All rights reserved. Thank you for not scanning, uploading, or sharing any part of this book electronically without permission. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact the author at [email protected].

  The Writing Show

  P.O. Box 2970

  Agoura Hills, CA 91376-2970

  http://www.amandalester.net

  ISBN: 978-1942361-02-2 (softcover)

  ISBN-10: 1942361025 (softcover)

  ISBN: 978-1-942361-16-9 (ebook)

  ISBN-10: 1-942361-16-5 (ebook)

  Cover design: Anna Mogileva

  Text set in Garamond Premier Pro

  Printed in the United States of America

  For Cole, Ella, Alex, Kennedy, Keenan, Alyssa, and Auguste

  Table of Contents

  A Plethora of Problems

  In Search of Blixus

  Jackie Lumpenstein and His Annotated Meat Cookbook

  Manny Companion

  All Together Again

  The Key to the Key

  A Big Blowup

  Bickering

  Simon Binkle, Ladies’ Man

  Blixus’s Trail Goes Cold

  Crocodile’s Flat

  Saving the World

  To Bee or Not to Bee

  Leprechauns

  Enter Inspector Lestrade

  Amphora’s Hidden Talent

  Gordon, I Could Kiss You

  Penrith

  Through the Sarcophagus

  In the Tunnels

  Angry Bees

  Gordon Bramble to the Rescue

  The Lockbox

  All Eyes on David Wiffle

  Stinky Locks

  A Third Way

  Revolting Parents

  The Silver Coin

  At the Zoo

  There’s Something About Mavis

  Chasing Rainbows

  Holmes vs. Hacker, Round One

  Metadata in Danger

  Breaking Up Is Hard to Do

  Now You Tell Me

  Back to the Tunnels

  Like a Myth Come True

  Prisoners!

  So That’s How He Got the Coins

  Holmes vs. Moriarty

  Insight

  Unhappy Endings

  Discussion Questions for Your Reading Group

  Q and A with Author Paula Berinstein

  About the Author

  Connect with Me!

  Other Books by Paula Berinstein

  Read on for Sample Chapters from Amanda Lester and the Blue Peacocks’ Secret

  Acknowledgements

  There are two kinds of series. Both involve recurring characters, but in one case the episodes are more or less self-contained. Amanda Lester, Detective, is the other sort: the story is ongoing, and each installment owes much to those that have preceded it.

  Finding test readers for any book past the first can be tough. Sure, you can ask people who haven’t read the others, but even though each title should stand on its own, you can miss continuity errors. That’s why you have to ask much of your beta readers: you want them to stick with you from book to book so they’ll spot those problems.

  That is why I am so grateful to the people who made it through to this third Amanda Lester book: Alex Hetzler, Alyssa Spillar, Keenan Spillar, and Barbara Wong, as well as my husband, Alan Chaney. You guys are the best!

  My cover designer, Anna Mogileva, continues to produce amazing work. She spoils me. I don’t know what I’d do without her.

  And of course, there’s Alan. I honestly don’t think I could do any of this without his love and support. Thank you, sweetie, for everything!

  1

  A Plethora of Problems

  Who would have thought a little twerp like David Wiffle could bring an entire detective school to its knees? After all, he was just a little prig with the maturity level of a toddler. Which, come to think of it, was exactly why he’d been able to mess everything up. Toddlers have way too much power, with their “No, this” and “No that,” thought his classmate Amanda Lester. But at least they don’t normally have access to priceless artifacts. Unfortunately David did, and he had destroyed it. The Detective’s Bible! On purpose. The fact that he was crazy with grief at the time only partly excused him, or at least that was how Amanda saw the situation.

  So it was no wonder that when his mother, Celerie, descended on Headmaster Thrillkill’s office screaming her head off, Amanda, who just happened to be there, found it hard to be sympathetic. Yes, her son was missing, and yes, Amanda’s friend Editta Sweetgum was also missing, and—oh no! Here came her mother too, waving her arms and screaming even louder than Mrs. Wiffle. The noise coming out of her mouth was even more jarring than the earthquake repair work in the hall, and those guys seemed to be competing for the title of Loudest Hammer Man Ever.

  “I demand an investigation at once,” Mrs. Wiffle spat before she’d even made it through the door. Bang!

  “I said it first,” yelled Mrs. Sweetgum, practically stepping on the other parent’s well-shod heel. Bang, bang, clang! “After all, Editta went missing before David did.”

  Despite her loyalty to the headmaster, Amanda had to admit that this sounded juicy. She wondered if he would kick her out of his office and she’d miss all the excitement. Parent-teacher conferences were supposed to be private. But the headmaster did nothing, which in itself was rather strange. Normally he was so strict. Still, considering all the terrible things that had been going on lately, she could see how he might be distracted.

  “How dare you involve my son in such a sordid business,” said Mrs. Wiffle, who could have been a model if she’d been taller. Her pale red hair was exactly the same shade as her son’s, her eyes the same cornflower blue, and she had a look that screamed “designer.” She was rail thin, which might have explained why she was wearing a sweater in summer. Amanda thought it odd that she’d say such a thing considering that detective work involved sordid business by definition. Surely David’s mother knew that. Her own husband, David’s father, Wink, a private detective descended from Sir Bailiwick Wiffle, had been killed because of it. Clang, clatter.

  “How dare you lose my daughter,” said Mrs. Sweetgum, which made more sense, since Editta had shocked everyone by purposely running off with the notorious criminals Blixus, Mavis, and Nick Moriarty a couple of weeks before. Of course the teachers and the local police had scoured the area, but they hadn’t found a trace of her or the Moriartys.

  “I want that librarian fired,” said Mrs. Wiffle, “If it hadn’t been for her, my son wouldn’t have had to destroy that book.” Bang, bang, bang.

  Amanda sighed. It wasn’t Mrs. Bipthrottle’s fault that David had taken the Bible, and it certainly wasn’t her fault that his roommates had stolen it from him. If anything, Headmaster Thrillkill was to blame. He had been responsible for keeping the Bible safe. How it had ended up lost in the school’s basement, then stashed in an obscure corner of the library by an overzealous maid, only to be secretly removed to David’s room, had nothing to do with the librarian. Well, maybe a little, but only about a tenth of a millionth of a percent. It was Thrillkill who had kept the Bible’s disappearance secret rather than enlisting the students’ help in finding it, and now
he was paying the price.

  “I want to know who brainwashed my daughter,” said Mrs. Sweetgum, changing the subject entirely. She was almost a dead ringer for Editta, or perhaps Editta was a dead ringer for her. The woman had the same beaky nose, brown eyes, and limp hair as her daughter. The main difference was that the mother dyed her hair black, as opposed to Editta’s natural brown. It didn’t become her. “Editta would never have associated herself with those people on her own. It had to be the influence of that Amanda Lester, the one descended from that incompetent Inspector Lestrade. I wouldn’t put anything past that family.” Crash.

  Uh oh. This was getting personal. Amanda had been criticized before for being related to Lestrade, the inept Scotland Yard detective who sometimes worked with Sherlock Holmes. Fortunately she had finally come to terms with her ancestry and decided that Lestrade was Lestrade and she wasn’t and that was that. What did matter, though, was that she was being accused of something she hadn’t done and would never even think of. And by the mother of a friend she had tried to help—a mother who didn’t seem to recognize her.

  Editta’s story was certainly an odd one. When she had returned to the Legatum Continuatum Enduring School for Detectives from spring break despondent and uncommunicative, Amanda had tried to talk her out of whatever had been bothering her. That her friend had ignored her and run off to be with the Moriartys’ thirteen-year-old son, Nick, Amanda’s ex-best friend and sort of ex-boyfriend, wasn’t her fault. In fact, Amanda had been horrified and had been trying to find Editta ever since. How could her mother say such things?

  “Ms. Sweetgum is right,” said Mrs. Wiffle. “You need to do something about that Lestrade girl.” Amanda’s father had changed the family name to Lester, but people who wanted to insult them called them Lestrade. Fortunately, she was getting used to that too. “Ever since David came to Legatum, she’s gone out of her way to make trouble for him. Why, she even hit him over the head with a drawing pad last term and wasn’t punished. What kind of a school are you running, Gaston?” Clunk.

  “I second that,” said Mrs. Sweetgum. “That Lestrade girl encouraged the Moriarty boy to corrupt my daughter. If he hadn’t played those tricks on her, she’d be home where she belongs and he’d be in custody now instead of causing grief all over the UK.” Blunk!

  Actually, Nick Moriarty, aka Nick Muffet, was causing grief all over the UK, or at least parts of it. Since he’d betrayed Amanda and the detectives, he and his parents had contaminated the domestic sugar supply, invented new types of deadly weapons, and nearly caused the extinction of a freshly discovered species of living crystal before disappearing into thin air. However, if the Moriartys indeed possessed the Bible, they would do a lot worse than that.

  Amanda was beginning to wonder why Headmaster Thrillkill still wasn’t saying anything. It wasn’t like Mr. Gruff not to hold his own, especially with two hysterical women. Perhaps it was because he felt guilty. Wink Wiffle had been his best friend and he hadn’t been able to prevent his murder. In fact, he hadn’t even realized that Wink was dead. And he should have been able to keep Editta from running off with the country’s most notorious criminal, a man he’d tangled with again and again.

  “We demand that you expel the Lestrade girl,” said Mrs. Wiffle. Clash, clang, clatter, thunk.

  “And find my daughter at once!” said Mrs. Sweetgum. Thud.

  “And furthermore, I hold you personally responsible for the death of my husband,” said Mrs. Wiffle. “I don’t care what the two of you were to each other. I’ve instructed my solicitor to file a suit for wrongful death.” Glunk.

  Wink Wiffle’s body had been discovered a few weeks previously when a powerful earthquake had struck the Lake District and exposed the remains. The detectives suspected that Mavis Moriarty had killed him but they hadn’t been able to establish proof. They had, however, found Wink’s wedding ring in Mavis’s quarters—quarters she’d occupied when she infiltrated the school in the role of cook’s assistant during spring term.

  Finally, after what seemed like minutes, Thrillkill spoke. Amanda had never been so relieved to hear his voice, which was much gentler than usual.

  “Ladies, let me say how sorry I am for everything that’s happened,” he said. Sklunk.

  “Sorry isn’t good enough,” interrupted Mrs. Sweetgum.

  “Sorry won’t bring back my Wink,” said Mrs. Wiffle.

  “You are correct,” said Thrillkill. “Wink’s death and Editta’s disappearance occurred on my watch and I take full responsibility.” He seemed to think of something, turned around to the shelves behind him, and grabbed the hair dryer sitting there. He opened a desk drawer and threw it inside. Amanda didn’t know why he’d left the thing out. He used it to melt icicles. Winter was months away.

  “So what?” said Mrs. Sweetgum. “My daughter—” BANG! “What’s going on out there? It sounds as though Beelzebub and his legions have invaded.”

  “It’s just construction,” said Mrs. Wiffle, inclining her head toward the other parent. “Ignore it.” She turned back to Thrillkill. “My son is devastated. He’ll never be the same.” BANG.

  “I demand your resignation,” said Mrs. Sweetgum, scowling at the headmaster.

  “Yes, your resignation,” said Mrs. Wiffle. “And restitution, starting with the expulsion of—” CRASH!

  “I’m afraid it isn’t our policy—” said Thrillkill.

  “Policy!” yelled Mrs. Sweetgum. “My daughter is being held prisoner by the most evil criminals in the world and you talk to me about policy?” Bang, bang, thud.

  “You should be ashamed, Gaston,” said Mrs. Wiffle, looking for something in her purse. “I thought you were Wink’s friend.”

  “I was Wink’s friend,” said Thrillkill. “You know very well that we were like brothers, Celerie. Of course I understand how you feel—both of you—and I can assure you that we’re going to make this right. Whatever it takes.” Rap, rap, rap. “Oh, blast that noise.” He stood up and peered out into the hall.

  Surely he didn’t mean he was going to make things right by expelling Amanda? How would that help? She couldn’t believe he would do such a thing, especially after having asked her to stay for the summer to make a film that would, in his words, “save the world.” She’d planned to go to Los Angeles and work with her idol, action film director Darius Plover, who’d offered her the opportunity to help him with his movie “Sand” for a couple of months. However, when Thrillkill had appealed to her sense of duty, she’d agreed to stay, even though it meant missing out on the chance of a lifetime—and having to work side by side with Scapulus Holmes.

  Poor Holmes. She’d discovered only recently how crazy he was about her. At first she was horrified, since she had never wanted anything to do with Sherlock Holmes or his descendants. The famous detective was an arrogant jerk. If it hadn’t been for him, no one would have heard of Lestrade and she wouldn’t have had to suffer the eternal embarrassment of being related to him. But against all odds, she’d found herself head over heels about Scapulus and they’d finally gotten together . . . until Nick Moriarty had turned up. As soon as Holmes had seen the tender way Amanda looked at him, he’d clammed up and had barely spoken to her since.

  She felt terrible. Yes, she had been shocked to see that Nick wasn’t dead after the explosion at the Moriartys’ sugar factory. She must have had some weird expression on her face when he’d popped up at the quarry outside Windermere with the living crystals she’d tried so hard to save. And yes, she had once had feelings for him, which might have leaked out onto her face for just a teensy moment. But those were long gone. Once she discovered who he really was—not Nick Muffet, her best friend, but Nick Moriarty, criminal—those feelings had died.

  Still, Holmes had seen something on her face that had spooked him. Was he right? Did she still care about Nick? No, it was impossible. Just because she’d momentarily pictured him holding out a welcoming arm for her, as he’d once done, didn’t mean anything. It was a slip. She knew that t
he real Nick was a heartless boy who had laughed at her for trying to save her father, not the gallant friend who’d tried to protect her from David Wiffle or broken a clock just because she didn’t like the noise it made.

  She should tell Holmes how she really felt and make everything right. He was a wonderful boy and she was mad about him. It wouldn’t take much. She’d explain everything and the hurt would melt away. But if it was that easy, why did she balk every time she felt the urge to approach him?

  “So you’re going to resign then?” said Mrs. Wiffle, breaking into Amanda’s thoughts. “And expel that girl?”

  “I didn’t say that,” said Thrillkill. “What I meant was that we’re going to find Editta and bring Wink’s murderer to justice.” He riffled the pages of a book that was sitting on his desk: School Administration for Dummies. Celerie Wiffle eyed it. He pulled the volume toward himself and onto his lap. She made a tsk tsk face.

  “I don’t believe you,” said Mrs. Sweetgum. “If you intended to fix things, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Do you realize my daughter might be dead?”

  “Ms. Sweetgum,” said Thrillkill. Amanda could tell that he was losing his patience but trying not to look like it. “If we don’t bring Editta back safe and sound, and if we don’t find Wink Wiffle’s murderer, I promise you I will resign. But not yet. Let me do my job. If you do that, I can assure you you won’t be disappointed.” Glump.

  “We are already disappointed,” said Mrs. Sweetgum. “I wish you had been more accommodating because now I’m afraid I’m going to have to add your effigy to my collection.” She pulled out her phone and tapped in a note.

  “Effigy?” said Mrs. Wiffle. Squeak.

  “Yes,” said Mrs. Sweetgum. “I’m already sticking pins into effigies of those Moriarty people. It will be a trivial matter to include Mr. Thrillkill.”