Do you know who the culprit is? Can you guess from the clues that were provided? Let's see if you were right…
Pulling off the head of the Dinosaur, was a hand. With the removal of the top mask, it reached around for the missing mask a second before it realized that it was being unmasked.
"A Hand?" Came a grunted and confused uttering from Robert. The idea that a Dinosaur was romping around stealing bones and destroying museum property was hard enough to swallow. But here it was in front of him. But now the fact that inside the head seemed to be a… hand? Really got the security guard confused.
"Like, a Hand?" Shaggy looked also puzzled.
Daphne moved over to the Dinosaur and seemed to be searching for something. Upon finding it, she removed a front cover that pulled open the chest cavity revealing the real identity of the Ghost Dinosaur.
"Kent PERL?" Came a gasp of shock from the security crew. Shocked at the sight of the famous man being behind it all.
"Yes. The Ghost Dinosaur is none other then our own Kent Perl." Velma showed around the mask that she had taken off Kent's hand. "Using a modified dinosaur wire frame, he was able to make a costume out of it."
"The dinosaurs that were in the Kid's area!" Said Scrappy in figuring out where it came from.
"Right." Said Fred, picking up the explanation. " Kent had the wire frame, and he had access to the bones. It is my understanding that when bones are made for display, fiberglass bones sometimes are used in place for the real one's. Since you don't normally want precious bones in an area that people could have access to. Kent used these fiberglass copies to add realism to his faking of the dinosaur making us think it's the Bones come to life."
"And he used the Gel he used to package and ship the bones to make an eerie skin on the 'ghost'. Making it look transparent, yet the milky white substance could hide him inside." Daphne responded, showing the chest piece and peeling back the gel packaging from the frame.
"So the roll you found in the store room..." Melvin started.
"Yeah, it was where he cut what he used on the dinosaur. You noticed that the edges had been irregularly cut and were a bit white from the impact from the scissors, since cutting into the gel triggered the chemical reaction." Velma told Melvin. It made sense.
"What's going on here?" Came another shout from behind Robert's dazed crew. Derk and Peter came pushing in with the rest of the museum crew that had been there that night working on things. "Kent?" Derk looked shocked. "...It was you all along?" Though even shocked the young scientist did seem to enjoy the angered look Kent was giving them all. He looked like a beat, bright red and fuming.
"Yes Derk, it was Kent all along."
"But, how was he able to see out of the chest of the Dinosaur?" Scrappy wondered.
"That is simple." Velma replied, fishing in the right eye of the glowing head and pulled out a small tube with wires off of it. "Peter didn't misplace his list, nor did he misplace the lipstick camera's. When Kent was setting up this whole thing, he had stole some of the parts to outfit the costume with a way he could see out of the head of the dinosaur using a spare screen. But since it was the same frequency of the camera's at the time…" Melvin interrupted Velma.
"The shaking camera videos!" He said shocked.
"Yeah Melvin." Replied Fred. "The interference wasn't someone else nearby, it was Kent learning how to see out of it. The shaking was similar to when Daphne put the camera to her head. When Kent was informed of the video, he made everyone change the current camera's, which also gave him some time. When Velma ran her program, the few scenes that worked were not of some other area, but inside the warehouse."
"And the Inventory report was stolen and used to show where Kent had stolen and placed the old camera's in places where he could watch his own people while he worked. He made notes on the stolen inventory list of where and what hallways he had placed the cameras. So that no one could catch him off guard while he was planning." Velma said, holding up the map that showed the route that he had mapped out to keep an eye on them all.
"But why… Why did he do it all?" Asked a tentative Peter, hiding a bit behind everyone.
"For that… We need to go to the warehouse. Grab Kent and bring him. We need him for something."
Robert and his men grabbed Kent roughly and dragged the protesting man after the gang as they walked to the warehouse. Derk used his key card and let them in as Fred marched them all to the box.
"But… I don't have the key!" Derk said in his defense, worried that they might think he was part of it.
"Relax Derk. Kent has them both. Knowing that only he and Robert had the key, he made you get the other key for him." Fred calmed the other man.
"But why?" Dark asked.
"I wondered that myself, until I remembered when we first looked at the crate." Velma reached in to Kent's costume and fished in his pockets for the key. Unlocking it, she pushed the battered top open with the help of Shaggy and Fred. "An awfully large crate for only the top to have contained the bones." She made a gesture at the indentations at where the bones had been, but were gone. "I thought this odd, but if my guess is correct." She said as she had some help in pulling back the first layer of the gel and revealed the next layer. It was jam packed with bones.
"He had it hiding in plan sight." Scrappy said in a bit of awe. "So he and Robert only had the keys, so once he had Roberts…"
"He didn't have to worry about anyone checking where he had hidden it. And if he was able to scare everyone away, he would have enough time to remove the bones." Daphne replied.
"But wouldn't he have been seen by the camera's?" Melvin wondered.
"Maybe, had he not found a way around that. Since the camera's get overloaded easy, he found that using something in the warehouse would disrupt the connection." Fred noted. Velma wandered over and searched something before she found what she was looking for. It was a small control that was connected to a long wire stemming from the ceiling. With a press of a button, a roar echoed in the warehouse. Shaggy jumped into Scooby's arms and shivered.
"Relax guys." Velma said as she put out her hand. She caught what seemed to be a long and thick chain. "This was used to hand the costume from. So that he was able to use this to make him and the Dinosaur be in two places at once. So him saving me was helping to put him in less suspicion. It's a crane hooked up to the ceiling to help lift things to the higher positions on the upper shelves. The roaring sound it the large gears groaning against one another as it moved at a faster pace then it normally is run. Also when this is moving, the cameras get overloaded with the amount of power the crane needs to work, thus when ever Kent used it, he was able to scramble the cameras."
"But… Why did he do it?" Derk wondered curiously.
"Simple." Fred replied. "The bones are not real."
"What!" Said a shocked Derk, for he had unburied them himself and knew them to be real.
"Well… Not real in the sense of them being fake. But the Dinosaur isn't a new dinosaur. It's actually two set's of bones that got mixed up when they died." Came Velma's explanation, and a groan from Kent from inside the suit. "I thought so. It isn't uncommon for even an archeologist to find a set of two bones, and think it's a new dinosaur. But usually the analysis of the bones once in a proper lab would reveal that they are from two separate dinosaurs. But I'm guessing that Kent got excited. And started to plan all… This." Velma gestured to the museum. "…All the money, and publicity he put into the production of showing off the bones, only to have to reveal it was all fake. He couldn't afford losing all the money and effort… or his reputation. So if he could not pull it off, he would have them stolen. He figured that if the bones went missing long enough, they would refund him and his reputation would stay intact. He made the costume to help just in case things got tricky. But he did not intend for Derk to invite us. That was his downfall."
Robert had heard enough, he seized the man and pulled him roughly to his feet. Kent growled at the kids, pure hate in his eyes.
"And I would have pulled it all off, if you stupid kids didn't get in my way!"
Pulling him out the door, the security guards dragged the struggling, once famous Kent Perl off to his fate in jail. Derk watched him got a bit with a tiny big of smug satisfaction before walking over to where the bones were. "So… they aren't a real Dinosaur then?"
"I'm afraid not. A good find, but two incomplete dinosaurs, not one new one I'm afraid. Sorry." Consoled Fred, placing a reassuring hand on the man's shoulder.
"Oh well. At least this means I'll be able to do some real discoveries on my own. And who knows. Maybe I'll find the Deinoscerasaurus eventually in my finds. Oh well. Thanks." Derk said as he turned and left, Peter had seemed to disappear as well. That left just the gang in the warehouse.
Fred turned around with a big beaming smile. "And that wraps up another mystery. Great job gang!" He said proudly, especially at Melvin and Scrappy. They had been a lot of help, even when things had gotten messier then he had planned. Though it seemed Scrappy was sulking a bit. And this did not go unnoticed by Melvin.
"What's wrong Scrappy? I thought you would be happy. We just solved a case. This is what you wanted!" Melvin said caught up in the excitement, forgetting about the scary scene that had played before. Though Scrappy didn't seem to have forgotten it as easily.
"…But… Mel. You could have gotten hurt." Scrappy said, his head downcast. "I… I was selfish in dragging you all the way here. I put you in a dangerous situation and I'm… I'm sorry." Melvin kneeled down and placed a hand on the back of Scrappy's head before he pulled the Dane into a hug. Which gained an 'Aw' from everyone that was there witnessing the touching scene.
"I… wanted to ask if we could stay. But… " Scrappy admitted truthfully. He had spent most of the whole time planning on how to convince the gang to let them stay with them. But in light of what had happened… He felt that there was someone far more important to spend time with then the gang, his best friend in the whole world. "But I think I want to go home after this."
Shaggy leaned against Scooby, petting the Dane affectionately on the head. Fred beamed a smile a the two of them and made a motion to leave the warehouse.
"Come on gang… Let's go home!"
