“What better place to have a mystery than a museum,” says Gina McBean, who handles community relations and fund-raising. “People are excited about it. It’s something really different for this area.”

Party-goers will take part in a gala reception in an area of the museum not normally open to the public. Then it’s on to Memorial Hall for a dinner prepared by Passage to India. The evening will have amateur sleuths leaving no skull unturned as they search the museum for clues about how Shadeville died, the whereabouts of a missing manuscript, and if an ancient curse still possesses its savage power. “The Curse of the Ruby Skull” will have guests looking over their shoulders and seeing shadowy figures in the dark. They will have to rely on their own wits and deductive skills to win the prize for unraveling the secret. There will be no Sherlock Holmes or Jessica Fletcher to help them out. No Columbo in a worn trench coat.

But what about the usual suspects?

“We’ll have celebrity suspects that represent a real cross-section of the community,” McBean explains. Among those that will be taking part in the whodunit will be Mike Ross from WHTM-TV, Dr. Ruth Leventhal, former provost of Penn State Harrisburg, and Helen Heisey of the Greater Harrisburg Arts Council.

McBean says that besides being a fund-raiser, the festivities are for people to have fun. “We want people to lose themselves in the evening. We want people to come and enjoy themselves.”

Although there will be no talks or lectures on mystery night about the good deeds of the Friends, McBean is enthusiastic about what this non-profit volunteer group has accomplished. “People don’t know we’re around,” she says. “Sixty percent of money for programs come from money that the Friends generate. The Friends are what make the building (the State Museum) come alive.”

For the past 15 years, the hundreds of volunteers of the Friends have supported the museum through the operation of the museum shop, the planetarium, and curiosity corner, which is a hands-on learning center for children and families. The group logged 10,000 hours of volunteer time last year, says McBean proudly. “There are 70,000 school kids that come through the museum during the year. We couldn’t do it without the volunteers.”

This year’s mystery dinner is the group’s biggest event and the opening of Shadeville’s sealed crate will be the evening’s bone-chiller. Who will be the curse’s next victim? What evil lies within? McBean isn’t talking. “I don’t know what’s going to be in it,” she says slyly.