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The Mystery of the Missing Parakeet

SUSPECTS

- Joe Sodorstrom
- Kelly Brightwater
- Pedro Gonzales
- Dirk "Gunslinger" Johnson

THE STORY BEGINS...

Many, many years ago a tribe of tall, dark-skinned warriors inhabited the mountains known today as the Peruvian Andes. Their great leader, King Pocapicapeta the Third was a huge man, standing tall and muscular above his followers as they carried him around on a big platform from one of his treasure houses to the next, where he would count his millions of gold coins that he had taken from any tribe foolish enough to cross him.

But his gold made him very angry, and he constantly suspected his followers of trying to take it from him. The only people he trusted were his various pets - a tame jaguar, a loud mouthed parrot, three spider monkeys and a parakeet - and so one day he ordered his followers to melt down his gold coins and fashion models of his favorite pets from them. They were inlaid with jewels and delicately patterned so that they looked almost exactly like the real things. Then he took them in a bag and ran into the mountains, alone, where he buried them in an unmarked cave that only he knew the whereabouts of.

Unfortunately, on the way back he got lost and was eaten by a passing mountain lion. For twelve thousand years his gold remained undiscovered despite the efforts of all the tribes in the region, and later every explorer in the world dreamed of discovering these riches.

However, in 1883 a fellow by the name of Tim Stonewall was taking a rest while walking in the mountains, and leant against a boulder while he lit a cigarette. Suddenly it rolled away down the hill, revealing the cave of Pocapicapeta's lost treasure. Eventually, after being stolen and reclaimed three times, the treasures ended up in the Great Museum of Wonders in Lima, the capital of Peru.

Which is exactly where four unlikely types ended up in the year 1964, all examining large display cases that contained various golden animals. Joe Sodorstrom was a student from England who had wandered off round the globe because of sheer boredom, and then ended up with no money in Lima where he was at that time working as a bean picker on a large farm. The girl he was with was called Kelly Brightwater , a charity worker from Illinois, who was helping bean farmers to employ more advanced farming techniques to grow more food. On the other side of the cabinet Pedro Gonzales was a tanned Chilean with a long droopy mustache, Panama hat and a battered suit who sold

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