The Curious Case of the Cursed Dice (Curiosity Shop Cozy Mysteries Book 2)

by Constance Barker

  "You don't need the specifics, but I'll say this much… the times we got ourselves into the worst situations, the times we came the closest to losing completely, was when we let ourselves get split up or just decided to go after different things."

  "What are we supposed to do? If we both go after one artifact, whichever it is, we can lose the other. One we need and one is dangerous."

  "Then you have to choose. Those situations are going to come up, and bear in mind that even combining your forces you won't always get the thing you are after, Clarence. Inevitably there are setbacks; don't expect to bat one hundred percent. Don't even try. Sometimes an artifact eludes you despite your best efforts and then there are times when trying for it is too risky. You need to know when to give up the hunt and be willing to try again another day. There are always other artifacts and there will be other chances for ones you miss."

  Clarence felt ill at ease. He knew this was all good advice… but it was good and sensible advice that he didn't want to hear. "Thanks, Enid."

  "You go see Cecilia and talk to her face to face," she said. "Be willing to do what it takes to work together. One of you has to take the first step."

  "Okay."

  Feeling somewhat deflated, Clarence considered the situation. This close to achieving his goal, he could imagine having that lock in his hand. That led him to imagine the shocked look that would cross Cecilia's face when he showed it to her, and she had to admit that she was still empty handed.

  It was a hard job, shaking off that satisfaction. Even more compelling was the thought that he would be able to point to his success as a demonstration of his ability, as a reason for them to work together doing more things his way. That would make Enid happy. Sure he'd promised to do it now, but if he just abandoned the lock now, after all the hard work he'd put into finding it, getting to see it…

  No, he needed a success to build on. Then they could build the team on a stronger, more equal basis. Cecilia would have to accept him as a partner, not as her assistant.

  He got up and walked out of the building, wanting to walk and think, to come up with a plan. The scorching, dry heat made it hard though, and he considered catching a taxi back to the motel where there was air conditioning. That's when he saw it—the answer or at least an inspiration. He was staring at a metal panel welded to a metal frame set into the side of the building. It was an access panel of some kind. He could see an armored cable running down the side of the building and into the wall above the panel.

  Summoning a picture of the lobby, he realized that this box was located behind the security desk. The other side of it had to be located in the security room behind the desk. That meant that the room behind the desk was the central distribution point for all of the building's CCTV cameras, computers, and alarms. Everything would be routed through it for easy reconfiguration and maintenance. Everything that stood in his way would be under the control of whoever was in that room.

  While Clarence didn't know much about stealing, much less robbing a secure facility, he did know tech. He understood computers and the basics of electrical systems...and that was the foundation for security systems. And now he saw that this room was his key to getting into any place in the building undetected. If he could get into that box, then he should be able to shut down all that high-tech protection, take control of the private elevator, override key locks, and get into the room with no one aware of his presence. Not that would be easy, but it was doable, and that came as a huge relief. He could do it. Somehow.

  What he didn't know, yet, was how to get into that security room. The guards seemed professional and tragically alert. If he walked up to the desk, they’d demand some identification and a valid reason to let him go into that room.

  Still, for Clarence, that kind of problem was far more manageable than looking for a route into the collection room. He'd put his mind to it and figure it out. How hard could it be?

  Chapter 13

  I felt a little down after talking to Clarence. Depressed and stressed, the anxiety twins were sitting on my shoulders, harassing me. The truth, the hard reality of my situation was that I had no idea how to find a woman, whose name I didn't know, in a city the size of Las Vegas. Sure, its population of 600,000 souls paled in comparison to the nearly four million in Los Angeles, but when you don’t know where to look it can be hard to find someone in Destiny’s Point.

  A vague description wasn’t much to go on. That she’d been in casinos was a lead, but I'd been through them and all I had to show for it was sore feet.

  I hadn't found her and the more time that went by, the harder it would be to find her. She might even leave the city. I needed help.

  For a time I resisted calling Enid. I wanted to do it on my own. Needing help so often, especially after telling Clarence I had things well in hand, insisting to him that I didn't need any help, was embarrassing. Admitting that I'd reached a dead end messed with my image of myself as independent, confident, and fearless. An image like that is, ironically, fragile and difficult to maintain. The least doubt undermines it.

  So color me undermined, because I'd run squarely into a dead end. I needed a fresh idea or a new approach. So I called her, hoping against hope that she would have an insight, a clever thought about what I could do next. Actually, I hoped she’d be a wizard and give me the woman’s address.

  She didn’t do that. “I really don’t know what to tell you,” is what she said.

  "I have to find her but all I know is what she looks like, generally, and that she gambles. The evidence is that she's smart, or at least clever in the way she's used the dice."

  "Good for her," Enid said.

  "I need to find her."

  "I suppose so."

  Something in her voice bothered me. "What's the matter, Enid? You don't sound excited about the hunt."

  "I'm not. I'm concerned about you and Clarence. Neither of you is paying me any attention whatsoever.”

  “We are working together.”

  “By going off in different directions and not talking? That’s a fast way to get into trouble."

  "I'm not getting into trouble. I’m sitting in one of many bars in a casino, nursing a vodka martini and trying to organize my thoughts.”

  “Given that you called me, I assume that isn’t working out.”

  “I just need a little help in thinking of a way to track down this woman, that's all."

  “And you could’ve asked Clarence for his help, but you don’t want to do that.”

  “He’s busy.”

  “Bah. This is a dangerous way to act. You are looking for a woman you know nothing about. The moment you find her you could be in danger, with no time to call for help."

  "We've divided up before and it's worked well."

  She sighed, sounding exasperated. I knew that our little feud or competition annoyed her. "There is a difference between assigning yourselves tasks in pursuit of some joint goal and going off on entirely different crusades. Think about Clarence for just a moment, Cecilia. If he got into trouble would you want to help him?”

  “Of course I would.”

  “So, as long as we are talking about searching, tell me this... if he sent you an SOS where would you start looking for him? I’m willing to bet you don’t have a clue where he is. Do you? I’d like to hear that I’m wrong."

  "No, but…"

  "You and Clarence are quite the pair. You are both pretending you can do this on your own—acquire dangerous artifacts. You won’t even talk about what you’re doing with each other, but you take turns calling me for help. Me! I don't even hunt artifacts anymore. It's been decades since I did it and my memory of how we did what we did is rather sketchy. On top of that, I’ve been trying to watch all the Star Wars movies in sequence while you’re gone and you two keep interrupting."

  Her words about us both calling made me smile. Clarence wasn't close to his goal either. He'd been bluffing. He did have that photo though. "The thing is, Enid, Clarence and I need to…"


  She interrupted again. "What you need is to work as a team, Cecilia Parish. Right now you are competing with each other. This game of one-upping each other is pure madness. In your stubbornness you will make mistakes—we make them under the best of circumstances. Without your partner there you have no one to backstop you if and when things go badly. This work is treacherous enough without doubling down on the risks."

  "So what do you expect me to do?"

  "It isn’t rocket science, dear. Clarence already located the lock and he needs to figure out how to get it. He could use your help so you should give it to him. Go help him acquire it. Forget the dice for now."

  "I think the dice are more important."

  "More important than your lives? You stupid girl. Since this conversation is digressing into that sort of protestation, I'm going to hang up and make myself some chamomile tea and try to calm myself down. Since you won’t take my advice I’m going to ask that you both leave me out of this entirely. Until you get back here, I don't want to hear from either of you again unless it is truly a life or death matter. Unfortunately, if you both remain as stubborn, as totally obstinate as you've been, there will quite likely be at least one of those times before you are done."

  The line went dead. I was a little shocked. I’d never really heard Enid get angry before and it was a little scary. I didn’t like having her upset with me – with Clarence and I both, to be fair. Clearly, we’d put her in the middle of our spat and she wasn’t having it. Still, the disapproval, the tone of her voice, and the criticism of what we were doing put me in a sour mood. Adding insult to injury, she’d had nothing useful to give me in terms of ways I might proceed in finding this woman—the one person who might have some answers.

  After a moment though, my sourness passed. I was reacting to being called out and exposed for not being a superwoman. There was nothing more to it than that.

  Enid was right about one thing… I was feeling stubborn—I was being stubborn. Clarence and his worship of logic and careful planning annoyed me. The way he refused to understand that my instincts had a basis in reality, that they came from something tangible, pushed my buttons. Of course, I wanted to make a point. I want to show him that I knew what I was doing, I wanted to make him see that I was right.

  Unfortunately, he wanted the same thing. He was as convinced as I was of the rightness of what he was doing. How do you compromise with your polar opposite? Should you even try?

  The truth was that I was letting people get to me. Ghosts too, for that matter. Instead of having Clarence and Edgar there, offering their ideas and observations, Clarence was across town somewhere. And, for the same crime, Edgar was locked in his box. They’d both irritated me, gotten to me by insisting on having their own opinions.

  And now, Enid's point that I would have no idea of where to begin looking for Clarence if he got into trouble, struck home. She was right. I hadn’t even entertained that possibility and it bothered me that I was being so uncaring.

  We’d formed a de facto team that worked and now we had let it unravel. If Clarence and Edgar had been here with me, one or both of them would have some idea about how to find this woman, what steps I might take now to learn her name or find out her whereabouts. They’d naturally think of lots of things that wouldn’t work, but even that would make me consider more possibilities than I would on my own. The truth was that I was taking the advice of bartenders and waitresses I met and was ignoring my friends, my allies.

  Because I was upset with them.

  Because I wanted to be in charge.

  I put my hand in her pocket and touched the pen box. Edgar was in there and opening it would let him out. He’d love to help me, in his own way, but lately, he had gotten so critical of me personally that I resisted. It was mostly that his criticisms were so damn… Victorian. Of course, Edgar had an excuse – he was Victorian (we thought), but his relapsing into that mindset was new. I didn't like it. I didn’t want to deal with it. So, for the time being, he could stay in the box.

  That left me alone and… lonely. My next thought was to grab my phone and call Clarence. It wasn’t beneath me to apologize. I had to be big enough to admit I’d been… call it rude. Uncaring even. I could admit that.

  A scenario flashed through my head. I’d call him and he’d tell me he needed help. I’d go to wherever he was and we’d find a way to get the lock. Immediately I dismissed the idea. My pride covered it like an ugly black cloud. I had no intention of calling him. Yes, I would be glad to help him, to team up to help him get the lock. All he had to do was call me and ask for my help. But I could be gracious as well. If he called to see if I needed help, then I'd ask him for ideas about finding the woman. I’d even let him help me find the dice.

  At the moment, either of those was fine with me. And I would compromise. I promised myself I'd stop being so insistent on being in charge, setting the goals. All I demanded, all I needed was for him to call me. I needed him to ask that we work as a team. Was that too much to ask? I hoped not, because, with my current state of mind, I needed him to do that. There was no way I’d call first. None at all.

  Chapter 14

  Clarence needed a disguise. Security might not let Clarence Copperfield, the manager of a curiosity shop into that room, but others could get in. He just needed to become someone else. The disguise didn't have to be intricate or complex. In fact, what he really needed was the simplest possible ruse that would convince the security people to let him into that room.

  For a time he drew a blank. Well, he had several ideas, all stupid. The best of the lot was to start a fire and go in pretending to be a firefighter. Forgetting for the moment all the laws he’d be breaking, the lives he might put at risk, he was sure it wouldn’t work.

  Finally, it dawned on him. He could think of one kind of person who came with a built-in excuse to get into that room and have access to the equipment. Given that the building’s security was was the highest of high tech, he could count on one tried and true truth: When you used new technology, sooner or later it would fail. It was too complex for all combinations and permutations of the systems to be thoroughly tested. And, when sophisticated systems fail, the people who need to use it for their work, the security people, in this case, are inevitably delighted to see a technician arrive. They want things fixed—the system put right again.

  That meant he needed to look like a technician who would service those systems and then create an emergency. Neither of those should be incredibly hard, he thought. In terms of playing the role, he knew the talk but he needed a costume. And creating an emergency would be more of a sales job than sabotage. He could do that.

  Walking down the street, considering his options, he blundered into a solution that appeared before his eyes in the form of a second-hand store. A mannequin sitting in the store window was dressed in a pair of blue coveralls. Clarence was ordinarily no fan of coveralls, but these were extraordinary times. Besides, what really caught his eye was the logo and company name emblazoned on patches on each shoulder. “Accelerated Video,” it said.

  The name rang a bell. This was the company that provided the closed-circuit monitoring equipment for the security video feeds in Steele’s building. He’d seen their logo on the cameras in the lobby and noticed a ‘This building is Protected by Accelerated Video 24/7” sticker on the front door.

  The coveralls also had a patch on the breast that said: “Jeff.”

  “I can be Jeff,” he told himself. It was, he thought, a good name. A solid technician’s name. “I’d be a good Jeff, I think.” Picturing himself dressed in those coveralls, walking into the lobby, he allowed himself to smile for the first time since he’d left Steele’s apartment. “This little security breach is finally coming together.”

  Clarence smiled. He’d said the words out loud so that he could hear them. He wanted to hear how they resonated in the air and savor them. All his life, ever since reading of hordes breaching the ramparts of a castle, he had wanted a chance to be
involved in breaching something. Even if ramparts were few and far between these days, something about the word, the idea of breaching, had a ring that appealed to him. It certainly sounded more daring and elegant than 'breaking into the building’ or even ‘shutting off the security system.’ And Clarence had a thing about elegance. Where some men wanted to be seen as powerful, his goal was to be elegant. For him, it smacked of the highest form of showing grace under stress and so, the prospect of pulling off an elegant security breach was more than enough motivation to get him to put on a pair of used coveralls. Coveralls, after all, in and of themselves, were not in the least bit elegant. But the way they fit into his scheme (his plan to breach security) let him suddenly see the pieces of the puzzle coming together... that was definitely elegant.

  He was forming a plan...no, that wasn’t right. The plan was forming around him and his idea. That seemed wonderfully organic and the things he needed to execute it were right there at hand. The plan he'd struggled to think up was forming in his head, practically unbidden... but welcome. It was a gift. Perhaps a stroke of genius. At the very least it was undoubtedly better than any strategy he could reason out.

  He felt a rush of excitement as he went inside the store and asked the clerk to get the coveralls out of the window for him. He almost trembled as he took them into a fitting room to try them on. Although Jeff had been stouter than Clarence was, he was about the same height and they came close to fitting... close enough. Wearing them made it simply look like he’d lost some weight recently.

  When he took them off, he walked to the front counter. “Sold,” he told the clerk.

  A look around the shop uncovered the rest of what he now knew he needed ― a tool belt and some electrician's tools that he could use to complete the ensemble. And so, a few minutes later and a few dollars lighter, he and his package left the store. He stopped at a fast food place and slipped into the bathroom, emerging moments later as a worker bee technician named Jeff. He didn’t look at all like the man he knew he was ― a man with a mission. With his blazer, slacks, and lucky plaid bowtie safely stored in the bag from the store and tucked under his arm, he headed out.