Purrfectly Hidden

by Nic Saint

  “Mr. Paddy Crocket!” she shouted, and broke into a jog. “Can I have a word with you please, sir?”

  “Leave me alone!” the man growled, and had almost reached the large garage doors when he was momentarily waylaid by a truck entering the garage. It was all Odelia needed. By the time the truck had rumbled past, she’d already caught up with him.

  “Hello, Mr. Crocket,” she said. “My name is Odelia Poole and—”

  “I know who you are,” said the man. “I overheard you talking to the boss just now.”

  She wondered how he’d managed that, but then remembered hearing a noise when she’d been talking to Amabel. It must have the man’s silent footfall.

  “I just want a quick word with you about Boyd Baker,” she said as she fell into step beside him. “Amabel told me you’ve worked here the longest, and that you may remember Mr. Baker.”

  He had a distinct stoop, a ratty white beard, and a pockmarked face with shifty eyes but he was still pretty sprightly, trying to get away from her as fast as he could.

  “I have nothing to say to you,” he said.

  “I just need some information about Mr. Baker. Did you know his body was found buried in my parents’ basement yesterday?”

  “Of course. I read your articles, Miss Poole. It was all over the garage this morning.”

  “Well, then you will also know that his relatives would very much like to know what exactly happened to Mr. Baker. All this time they thought he’d run out on them, while in fact he was right underneath their feet.”

  The man gave her a quick sideways glance. “Don’t print my name in that newspaper of yours, Miss Poole. I don’t want any trouble, you hear?”

  “I won’t print a word you tell me, or your name. Everything off the record.”

  He halted in his tracks. “Promise?”

  “I promise.”

  He nodded curtly. “I remember Boyd. Nasty temper.”

  “Nasty? What do you mean?”

  “I mean the man was a drunk and a bully. And a thief and a liar, if I’m going to spill my guts and spill it properly. He was involved in some kind of gang.”

  “A gang?” She remembered her grandmother’s words about the kind of rumors swirling around about Boyd Baker. Gran had told Mom things used to disappear each time Boyd was on a job, and his personnel file seemed to confirm this.

  “They stole stuff. Valuable stuff. Every time a member of that crew had a job at some place, stuff would mysteriously disappear, and a couple days later Boyd and the others would suddenly show up with a brand-new car, or some fancy new clothes or an expensive watch. It wasn’t hard to put two and two together, Miss Poole.”

  “I saw in his personnel file that the police came here to talk to him.”

  “I remember. They figured he was the ringleader, but I don’t think so. I think the real ringleader was Earl Paxton.”

  “Earl Paxton,” she said as she jotted down the name.

  “I wouldn’t bother looking for him. He died a long time ago. After he was fired.”

  “And Boyd was part of his crew, you say?”

  “Oh, yes, he was. Thick as thieves with Paxton, Boyd was. They used to hang out at the Rusty Beaver every night, talking big, and spending money like water. Back then the cops weren’t as sophisticated as they are now, and it took them a while to catch on. But once they did, Paxton was arrested, and then Boyd suddenly disappeared.”

  “He was found with a diamond brooch on his person,” said Odelia, and showed the older man a picture of the brooch.

  He tapped it and smiled, showing a nice set of gleaming white dentures. “This is the kind of stuff they used to steal. Made a small fortune, too.”

  “And you were never involved?” she asked, quasi casually.

  “No, I wasn’t. I was too young and too fresh. They only trusted the people who’d worked here a while, and they didn’t trust no outsiders. In fact when I said something about these accusations and rumors once, Boyd actually cut me.” He stripped up his coverall sleeve and showed Odelia a tiny white stripe. “See? That’s where he cut me. Happened fifty-something years ago but I remember it like it was yesterday. No, Miss Poole. Boyd Baker was a bad man, and if he was murdered he got exactly what he deserved.”

  Chase had been going through the archives and gradually getting more and more covered in dust and spider webs. He cursed the genius who’d scrapped the budget to transfer all of these old files to digital format. So far he hadn’t found anything useful, but he had a hunch, and over the years he’d learned better than to ignore those hunches of his.

  There was more to this Boyd Baker case than met the eye, and he was determined to get to the bottom of it.

  Dolores had asked him if he’d have put in so much effort if the body hadn’t been found in what practically amounted to his own basement, and he’d told her that didn’t matter one bit. A crime had been committed, however long ago, and justice needed to be served.

  And then when she’d asked him if he’d have dug so deep if the body had dated back to the eighteen-hundreds, he’d told her there was no statute of limitations on murder, though he had to admit he might balk at investigating a crime that happened over a century ago.

  But somehow, for some reason, this case intrigued him. A nice family guy like Boyd Baker, with a loving wife and two kids, cut down in his prime and suffering the indignation of being buried in his own basement. It just wasn’t right, and he needed to find out how he’d died, and by whose hand.

  And he’d been wiping a tickling dust bunny from his nose when suddenly he struck gold. Or at least a report on Boyd Baker.

  “Bingo,” he said as he read through the report. It wasn’t what he’d expected, though. All he’d wanted to find was the report on the man’s disappearance and maybe the cop who’d handled the case at the time. If he or she were still alive he could have talked to them, asked if they’d had any leads back then. But instead he found a report filed against Boyd Baker. By the family of a Mrs. Clifford. For the theft of a brooch…

  Odelia arrived at the offices of Mr. Clifford and announced herself to the receptionist. The young woman, though irked that Odelia hadn’t had the foresight to make an appointment, still showed the kindness to talk to her boss and ask him if he could award a brief moment of his valuable time to a Miss Poole, journalist.

  “About…” she said as she placed her hand on the receiver.

  “Boyd Baker and Aurelia Clifford’s brooch. He’ll probably know what this is about,” she added when the woman knitted her brows questioningly.

  Five minutes later she was led into the office of Nate Clifford and offered the choice between coffee, tea or water. She picked coffee, and took a seat at the man’s desk.

  “I’m a little puzzled, I have to confess, Miss Poole,” said Nate Clifford, who was a well-dressed man in his mid-thirties, wearing a power suit and a stylish haircut that must have set him back a considerable amount of money.

  From what she’d been able to glean on the internet, Nate now ran the Clifford family trust, though what exactly this entailed was a little opaque. He seemed rich enough, so he probably either did a very good job, or received a very handsome fee for his services.

  “I don’t know if you know this, but Mrs. Aurelia Clifford filed a complaint against a Mr. Boyd Baker fifty-five years ago. For the theft of a brooch. Yesterday Mr. Baker was found immured in my parents’ basement, and this brooch was found on his remains.” She slid her phone across the desk and Nate leaned in to take a gander.

  He frowned. “That’s it,” he said. “That’s my great-grandmama’s brooch. See the inscription? AC/34? The AC stands for Aurelia Clifford and the 34 is the code given to this particular brooch. The Clifford family have always codified their items of value, so they could keep track—for insurance purposes. I’ll be damned. And where did you find this, you say?”

  Odelia told Nate the story of the missing Mr. Baker, and the police report that had been filed against him for stealing Mrs. Clif
ford’s brooch. All this over half a century ago.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” Nate repeated, mussing up his nicely coiffed and gelled hair. “Do you know how much this brooch is worth, Miss Poole? Do you have any idea?”

  “Um, I’m guessing a lot?”

  “Try a hundred thousand,” he said. “But actually it’s priceless. This is a family heirloom. My great-grandmother received it as a gift from the Russian czar—they still had czars in Russia back then—and the idea was to bequeath it to her daughter, my grandmother, who loved the brooch and its history. But then one day it went poof.”

  “Do you know the story of its disappearance?” asked Odelia.

  “Well, my great-grandmother died when I was a baby, but my grandmother talked about the brooch, for sure, and my parents. Apparently they’d hired a local landscaping company to spruce up the grounds, and when the job was done, the brooch was gone, too. Great-grandmama Aurelia always suspected the gardeners, and filed a complaint with the police. But of course nothing was ever found.”

  “So there’s no question.”

  “None. This is the stolen brooch. Where is it now?”

  “At the county medical examiner’s office in Hauppauge,” said Odelia.

  “I’ll get on the phone right away. This is a miracle, Miss Poole.”

  “It still doesn’t explain how Mr. Baker got bricked up in my parents’ basement, though,” she said, “or how he got his head bashed in right before his immurement.”

  Nate smiled. “Well, I guess it’s your job to find out, isn’t it?”

  As Odelia walked out of the offices of the Clifford Family Trust, she almost bumped into Chase. They both laughed as he steadied her with a firm hand.

  “We have to stop meeting like this,” he said.

  “Looks like you’re on the same track I am,” she said.

  “I guess so.” He took out his phone. “Look what I found.” He showed her the official complaint Mrs. Clifford had made against Boyd Baker. “See the date?” he asked.

  “Three days before he disappeared. Can’t be a coincidence.”

  “No, it can’t. What did Nate Clifford say?”

  “He recognized the brooch. Positively identified it as belonging to his late great-grandmother and as the one that was stolen from her mansion fifty-five years ago.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said.

  “That’s what Nate said.”

  Chase raked his fingers through his long mane. “Do you think the old lady had something to do with the murder?”

  “I doubt it. People like Aurelia Clifford don’t go around bashing people’s heads in. Besides, Boyd Baker was a large man, and she was old and frail. I think we can rule her out.”

  “A family member, maybe? Servant?”

  “People like the Cliffords don’t go around killing people.”

  “People like the Cliffords hire people who go around killing people.”

  “I don’t know. I think what may have happened is that Boyd decided he didn’t want to share the loot. I talked to Paddy Crocket, who worked for Courtyard Living, the landscaping company, when Boyd was there. He vividly remembers Boyd, and says he was a bully and a violent man, and part of a gang of workers who targeted the rich owners who hired Courtyard Living to maintain their gardens and grounds. The leader of the gang was a man called Earl Paxton. Now it’s not that hard to imagine that Paxton and Boyd got into a fight over the brooch and Paxton got violent and bashed his associate’s head in. And then, when he realized what he’d done, and knowing Mrs. Baker and the kids could arrive any moment, he buried Boyd in the most convenient place: the basement, and effectively wiped out the traces of his crime.”

  “It’s a theory,” Chase admitted. “Though I have to admit a very plausible one.”

  “Did my uncle have any luck with his part of the investigation?” she asked.

  “What part of the investigation? He dumped the whole thing on my neck. Too busy writing enough traffic tickets to please the new mayor. Did you know we have quotas now? We need to write enough tickets or else we’ll be demoted? Crazy politicians.”

  And as Odelia walked back to her car, and Chase entered the building, she saw she’d received a text from her mom.

  ‘Cats are back from their visit to the parrot. Boyd Baker was not a nice person.’

  Great. She’d already surmised as much herself, but it was always nice to get confirmation from an unsuspected source: the neighborhood parrot.

  Chapter 28

  Marge was at the library, extolling the virtues of the new John Grisham to one of her most loyal customers, when suddenly she remembered the diary she’d found the night before. It was probably nothing, but it could also be something. And hadn’t close association with her daughter taught her to leave no stone unturned when investigating a crime?

  So she dug through her purse and took out the mysterious diary. It was locked and she didn’t have the key, but that wasn’t going to stop her. Like a regular sleuth she took a penknife from the library kitchen and dug it into the lock, twisting until the clasp clicked open.

  She felt ridiculously happy with herself and grinned like a kid. She was her brother’s sister, after all, and her daughter’s mother, though she didn’t know if sleuthing talent traveled up and sideways and not down. She didn’t care. She was going to make her own, however modest, contribution to the investigation. She flipped open the diary and frowned as she read the childish hand on the first page. The diary belonged to Rita Baker, twelve, and was filled with hearts and flowers and even pictures the girl must have cut out of the newspaper or magazines of that time. There was even a picture of James Dean, under which she’d written the words ‘World’s Biggest Dreamboat.’

  Yeah, well, James had been a dreamboat, of course, thought Marge with a smile. She leafed through the diary, which was filled with the typical reflections of a twelve-year-old, about boys and her friends, and the teachers at school, the ones she hated and the ones she liked because they were generous with their grades. And then, suddenly, she discovered two pages that had been glued together. She stuck her trusty knife between the pages and carefully pried them loose. Time spent inside the musty basement had done its work and the pages soon became unstuck.

  She frowned as she read the entry on the page—only a single paragraph but written in a very small but neat hand. She walked back to her desk and picked up her reading glasses. And as she read the entry twelve-year-old Rita Baker had written, an inadvertent gasp of shock escaped her, and then the diary was falling to the floor.

  It didn’t take us long to return from our errand, and when I saw that pet flap, I gritted my teeth.

  “You can do it, Max,” said Dooley. “You’ve been walking for miles. You lost ten pounds at least.”

  “At least,” I agreed. All that walking to Morley Street and back must have sliced a couple of millimeters off my midsection. But was it enough to fit through that darn flap?

  We would soon find out, for I was determined to win the fight with that recalcitrant flap.

  “Maybe you should take a running leap,” a voice spoke behind me. It belonged to Brutus, and he was dead serious. “If you hit that thing with speed, you won’t get stuck,” he reasoned.

  “Good tip, Brutus,” I said. “And one I’m going to put into action right now.”

  “Maybe you should put some saliva on your fur,” spoke another voice. It was Harriet, and she, too, had come to watch my near-Olympian attempt.

  “Saliva?” I asked.

  “Yeah, grease yourself up a little. Besides, if your fur is flattened against your skin it won’t take up so much space.”

  “Duly noted,” I said appreciatively. “All great ideas.”

  “See, Max?” said Dooley. “We need to work together as a team. As a family. As a band of brothers and sisters.”

  “Yes, Dooley,” I said. “I get the message. And I’m very happy that you’ve all decided to bear witness to my attempt to beat the flap. But if you could
please turn your backs to me now? I’m getting nervous from all the attention.”

  “You don’t have to be nervous, Max,” said Harriet. “We all want you to succeed. Isn’t that right, you guys?”

  Brutus and Dooley nodded seriously. “We’re with you, buddy,” said Brutus. “Wherever you go, we go, and if you want us to apply some of our own saliva to grease up that pudgy midsection, I will gladly make the donation.”

  This seemed a little too much, and I said so. I didn’t need the saliva of all my friends on my precious bod. “I’ve got this,” I said, as I gave a few tentative licks to my tummy.

  “More, Max,” said Harriet. “You can’t sell yourself short now.”

  “Yeah, a lot more,” Brutus agreed. “You need to really get in there and slather it on. Like the gladiators used to do.”

  “Did the gladiators use saliva before their fights?” asked Dooley, intrigued.

  “Well, not saliva, maybe. They rubbed oil on themselves, so other gladiators couldn’t catch them. Oil makes you slippery, see, and then it’s a lot harder to get caught.”

  “Maybe you should use oil, Max,” Dooley said now.

  “Or some other form of lubricant,” Harriet added. “I hear duck fat is good.”

  “I’m not going to put duck fat on myself,” I said, starting to get a little indignant.

  “Just saying, Max,” said Harriet. “If you want this, you have to do whatever it takes.”

  I stared at her. She was right. If I was going to do this, I needed to go all the way. “Okay,” I said. “So where is this duck fat?”

  My three friends all started chattering amongst themselves about where they could procure duck fat on such short notice, and finally Harriet had the solution. “I don’t think Odelia stocks duck fat, but there’s a tub of motor oil in the garden shed. I saw it there myself. Chase uses it to grease up the lawnmower, but I’ll bet it’ll do the trick just fine.”

  “Guck,” I said, closing my eyes. But I’d told my friends I was fully on board with this endeavor, and I wasn’t going to back out now, or show them I was a pussy, which of course I was, and not just in the literal sense either.