Lupe Pack Detectives - Case of the Missing Statue: Part Three

      During those three days, we were busy as we were sending mail to Carissa’s friends telling them who we were and why we needed to talk to them as soon as possible. Some of them responded to our letters quickly, while the rest did not respond to us yet. Those that had replied to the letters had an alibi when the break, enter and theft was committed, so we were able to take them off the suspect list after we had confirmed their alibi.

      On the fourth day since the bottle was sent to the lab, I was returning from a grocery shopping trip when I noticed a plain, brown box on the doorsteps of our home. Immediately, I knew what it was because I saw Opren place the bottle in a plain, brown box, so I pushed it into the home as both of my hands were full carrying the groceries.

      “Hey, guys, the results are in,” I yelled out. “Oh yeah, I could use some help with the groceries.”

      After my siblings helped me put away the groceries, I placed the box on the table and opened it. Then I removed the packaging and found a letter inside the bottle. Solar Flare took the bottle out of the box and gently shook it. Once the letter was out, he removed the string off of the letter and unfurled it.

     “Dear Lupe Pack Detectives,

     On behalf of the Virtupets Space Station lab team, we apologize in the delay for the analysis of the empty bottle that you sent us a few days ago as we were hit with a glitch in the system. However, you will be pleased to know that the dried saliva found on the bottle belonged to a Mynci. It has been a pleasure working with you and we look forward to assisting you again in the future.

     Sincerely,

     Nero the Spotted Grundo, head of the VSS lab team”

      “It may have been delayed thanks to a glitch, but nonetheless, the majority of our suspects have been eliminated. Now we can focus on the ten Myncies. Of course, our job may have become a little bit more difficult because all of them have not given us an alibi as of yet,” Opren said as he was writing something down in his notepad.

      Aura came up with a solution that would eliminate the innocent. She looked at me and asked me if she could head down to the Marketplace. I knew why she needed to head down to the Marketplace without even asking her, so I allowed her to go. Normally, I was the one who would head down and ask the questions, but I had just returned from a grocery trip, so I was a little bit tired.

     *****

      After I arrived at the Marketplace, I went directly to the Magic Shop. The bells rang out after I opened the door to the magic hat shaped shop. The storekeeper, who was a blue Kau with orange stars scattered throughout the body and a black hat, came out of the storeroom.

      “Ah, good morning, Aura. How may I help you today?” she said.

      “And a good morning to you too, Kauvara. I’m working on a case and I need to know something. Did you sell any Shadow Kougra morphing potions recently, say five to six days ago?” I took out the empty bottle from my side pouch and placed it on the counter while I was talking to her about it. She thought about it for a few seconds or so after she looked at it.

      “As a matter of fact, I did. I still have the records, in case you were wondering.”

      “May I see them, please?” She nodded and went back to her storeroom. Then she came back and handed me four pieces of paper.

      I quickly scanned the pieces of paper until I saw I couple of names that stood out from the rest of the list because those names were also on the suspect list, so I asked her what species were Al and Bert. She told me that they were both Skunk Myncies. I wrote down what she said on my notepad and thanked her for her time after I was finished.

      I did not want to go back to my Neohome just yet, so I decided to head to the Auction House just for fun and see what sort of items there were that were about to be auctioned off. To my surprise, I saw the Ixi statue, so I went up to Simon the Scorchio Auctioneer and politely told him that he was in possession of a stolen object. He was surprised when I told him, but there was nothing that he could do to stop the auction because he told me that the auction for it was about to end. However, he did provide me with the names and species of the Neopets that gave him the statue.

      There was no way that I could get the statue because the price was way too expensive for me or my siblings to afford, so I left the Auction House slightly dejected. As I went out of the door, something small and furry ran into me, so I looked down and saw a Christmas JubJub, wincing at the pain after he ran into me. Then he looked up. I immediately recognized him as the JubJub that my siblings and I rescued in our first case.

      “Oh, I’m terribly sorry for running into you, Aura,” he said. I smiled.

      “That’s all right, Noel. Anyways, what were you doing, running into the auction house?”

      “I’m going after that gold Ixi statue. I'd recognize it anywhere because it’s the only one that had been produced and one of my friends showed it to me.”

      “Ah, so you know Carissa and her brother. If that’s the case, then go for it and bring it back to me.” He nodded and rushed into the auction house. I saw him go up to Simon and gave the auctioneer a large bag of neopoints. A few seconds later, he came out, grinning from ear to ear, that is, if he had any. Simon went up to me and gave me the statue. I guess that Noel managed to buy the statue just as the bids for it were about to expire. If he had been a few seconds late, then we might have lost the statue forever to someone.

      “Noel, what do you say about going to my siblings’ home? I’m pretty certain that they would love to see you again,” I asked him after I got the statue.

      “You know what, Aura, I would love to. Besides, I’ve always wondered what your Neohome looks like.”

      “Then it’s settled.” I picked him up and placed him on my shoulder. “But before we head there, I need to pick up some items first.”

     *****

      “I’m home,” my sister called out. “Oh yeah, I have more information on our suspects as well as a couple of surprises.” We went to the foyer and saw her with a Christmas JubJub and the statue. These must have been the surprises that she was talking about. My sister handed a small piece of paper to my brother before she proceeded with the day’s events. He looked at what she had written down on the piece of paper before he told me about the suspects

      “You guys remember Noel, right?” We nodded our heads.

      “Well, he just helped us retrieve the statue at the auction house. I guess you can say that’s his repayment for saving his life.”

      As she as heading to her room, I asked her about what she had in the bag. She gave us a huge grin and pulled out a two large blocks of clay and a gold spray-paint can. I shook my head in shame because she came up with an ingenious idea to catch the thieves.

      When she came down from her room after approximately an hour, she had three statues with her. All of them looked exactly the same, so I could not even tell the difference. Even Solar_Flare, who had a knack for spotting fake items with his eyes, could not determine which statue was the real one until he weighed them in his paws. I definitely envied my younger sister’s artistic talents.

      We decided to give Carissa the fake statue and tell her about it, but later because we had to entertain Noel. I was certain that Carissa and her brother would understand why we had to create copies of the statue.

      It was a good thing that we knew who were dealing with. All we need now was Al and Bert’s motive for the crime, but I had a feeling that they did it because they were jealous of Carissa’s wealth and they wanted to earn more money. After all, that was what I interpreted from what Aura told us before she gave the piece of paper to Opren.

To be continued...