The Missing Cash Mystery

by Doris Hay

  Amber leans back in her chair. I know because her purse slides back with her, and I’m inside it. “Who told you about the break-in?” Amber asks. “Tommy? Have you two been in contact? And he didn’t tell me?”

  “No,” Penelope replies. Her voice isn’t so confident anymore. “You mentioned it when you first sat down.”

  “I very much did not. So who told you, then? If you haven’t been talking to your mom and dad, who told you there was a break-in?”

  Wow, Amber’s tone has gone very hard. She’s mad. You can hear it in her voice.

  “Penelope,” Amber says. “Who told you?”

  “It’s a small town. You hear things.”

  “This is not a small town!”

  “Well, the neighbourhood’s got a small-town feel. People talk.”

  “But your parents didn’t call the police when it happened. They’ve been very tight-lipped. I don’t think the break-on is on the rumour mill’s radar.”

  I look up to see an expression of realization dawn across Amber’s face. In disbelief, she says, “You did it! It was you!”

  Penelope laughs, but it sounds put on. “Me? Steal? I could never!”

  “You would and you did and you do!” Amber insists. “Penelope, do you even know the trouble you’ve caused with your family? Your mother’s convinced Tommy stole that money.”

  “Oh, big deal. She always loved Tommy the best. The bond between mothers and sons, all that.”

  Amber doesn’t dispute this. But she does say, “You set him up, didn’t you? You stole that money just to frame him!”

  “Now you’re being ridiculous. Why would I have some kind of ulterior motive for robbing my parents?”

  They stop talking all at once, and I wonder what’s going on until the waitress approaches with Penelope’s pie. “I brought two forks, in case you’ll be sharing.”

  “Thanks,” Penelope says. Within moments, I hear the tines of one fork jabbing the plate and Penelope moaning with delight. “Oh, you’ve really gotta try this. It’s to die for.”

  “Or at least to move home from Arizona for,” Amber grumbles. Leaning across the table, she says, “Penelope, you have got to come clean. I mean it. If you care about your brother at all, you need to tell your parents it was you who stole that money.”

  Amber leans back and I have light again. I hear Penelope very clearly. She’s got her mouth full of pie when she says, “Fine. I’ll tell my dad, but just my dad. What he chooses to do with the information is up to him. Agreed?”

  “Agreed,” Amber replies. “In fact, that’s perfect because your mom is out for the day. We’ll go tell your dad right now.”

  Dubiously, Penelope asks, “You’re sure my mom’s not home?”

  “I’m sure. She’s got a spa day. She won’t be home for hours.”

  Even from inside Amber’s purse, I hear Penelope grumble. Finally, she says, “Okay, then. I’ll confess to my dad. Just let me grab a slice of pie.”

  “You just had a slice!”

  “I know, I know.” Waving the waitress over, Penelope says, “One more for the road.”

  Chapter 11

  Amber has obviously forgotten there’s a kitten in her purse, but I can’t complain. Just think how impressed Butterball will be! Could Miss Marple pull off a surveillance operation like this one? I don’t think so! She’d never fit in a purse, for starters. Well, Geraldine McEwan might have. She was pretty tiny.

  Tommy and Ed are watching sports when we arrive. I can hear the TV as soon as Amber opens the door. She sets her purse on the floor and slips off her flip-flops.

  It’s easy enough to pop my head through the gap beside the zipper. Nobody’s paying attention, luckily, which means I can scamper into the living room and hide behind the chair in the corner.

  Ed and Tommy are both seated on the bulky leather couch. They don’t even look up from the TV when Amber and Penelope enter the room.

  By the way, after listening to Penelope eat at the diner, I figured she’d be pretty bulky. She’s not. She’s thin as a rake. Her hair is darker than her brother’s, hay-like and straggly. She’s got more freckles than I’ve ever seen on an adult.

  Finally, Amber clears her throat.

  “How was your meeting?” Tommy asks without so much as glancing in her direction.

  “Good,” she replies. “I bumped into someone one the way home.”

  Still without looking, Tommy asks, “Oh yeah?”

  Amber responds by turning off the TV.

  “Hey!” Ed and Tommy call out, finally turning their gazes on Amber.

  And Penelope.

  Their expressions ashen when they see her.

  Ed puts on a smile, but his eyes look worried. “Penelope! What are you doing here in town?”

  “Penelope has something to tell you,” Amber explains.

  “You’re knocked up,” Tommy cackles.

  Waving her fist in his direction, Penelope says, “Shut your gob or I’ll shut it for you!”

  “Kids, kids,” Ed cuts in. “Violence is not the answer.”

  “We’re not kids,” Tommy says.

  “Well, you’re sure acting like children.”

  Amber lets out a growl, then says, “Penelope, would you just confess, please?”

  “Confess?” Tommy asks.

  Penelope rolls her eyes, then turns so she’s got her back to me. Her body looks stringy and comical from behind, but there’s nothing funny about what she says next. “Daddy, it was me who robbed the safe.”

  Tommy practically chokes on his popcorn. “You?”

  Ed’s expression hardens.

  “Why’d you do it?” Tommy asks. He doesn’t seem upset. I’d say more amused.

  “Oh, you know, the usual reasons,” Penelope replies. “Why does anyone steal? Greed, I guess.”

  “What?” Tommy pipes up. “You mean you weren’t earning enough free money renting out Mom and Dad’s house in Arizona?”

  Amber’s eyes bug and Ed’s head snaps around until he’s staring straight at his son. They both ask, “You knew about that?”

  Tommy looks guilty as sin. He asks, “You knew about that?”

  “No,” all three reply.

  They’ve all been caught keeping secrets. Are all families like this?

  After they’ve exchanged a round of dubious glances, Ed speaks up to say, “Well, sweetheart, what you did was wrong. You’ll have to pay back every cent that you stole.”

  “Okay,” Penelope says, simple as that.

  “I hope you’ve learned your lesson,” her father says.

  “I have, Daddy.”

  “Good girl.”

  So that’s it? Penelope stole all the cash from her parents’ safe, case closed?

  This mystery seems to have wrapped itself up far too easily. I have to admit, I’m a little disappointed. I thought something really exciting would happen when the case was solved, just like in books and on TV.

  I guess real life cases aren’t quite so interesting.

  A toilet flushes upstairs, and the noise makes me jump. To my surprise, I’m not the only who’s scared by the sound.

  “What was that?” Penelope asks, looking up at the ceiling.

  Tommy says, “What do you think it is, genius?”

  “No, I mean… is someone else home?”

  “Yeah,” Tommy says. “Mom.”

  Penelope’s eyes grow wide as she whips around to glare at Amber. “You said my mom was at the spa!”

  “I thought she was,” Amber replies. “Honestly!”

  “This is a set-up!”

  “No, really!”

  Tommy defends his girlfriend. “Mom was supposed to have a spa day, but she’s got the runs.”

  Amber wrinkles her nose. “Ewww.”

  Looking up cautiously at the ceiling, Penelope whispers, “Do you think she heard us through the vent?”

  Tommy shrugs and crams more popcorn in his mouth. “Probably.”

  In a flash, there are footfalls on
the stairs. Before Penelope can react, her mother’s in the living room, wearing a ratty old housecoat and looking wild despite being under the weather. She’s well enough to scream, and boy does she ever! “Penelope! You little witch! It was you stole my money? I should have known. Only an ungrateful little ingrate would rob her own parents!”

  “An ungrateful ingrate?” Penelope shoots back. “Get a thesaurus, Mother.”

  That comment really sets Gemma off. “I’ll thesaurus you!” she shouts, grabbing a fistful of her daughter’s hair.

  Penelope screams as her mother raises a hand to slap her in the face. She might not be the most respectful child, but that doesn’t mean she deserves to get smacked. With her hair balled up in her mother’s hand, she’s in enough pain as it is.

  Before Gemma can land a blow, Ed rushes from the couch and intercepts the slap. “Enough!” he tells his wife. “It’s not her fault. She did it for me.”

  Gemma loses her grip on her daughter’s hair. She looks up at her husband and takes a step back, seeming shocked beyond words. “What are you saying, Ed?”

  He sighs and looks to his daughter, who has scrambled toward the chair I’m hiding behind.

  Ed admits, “She stole the money at my request. She did it for me. It was the easiest way to get my hands on the cash I needed.”

  “Cash you needed?” You could knock this woman over with a feather.

  “Like you always say,” her husband continues. “Daddies are always devoted to their daughters, mothers to their sons.”

  Gemma’s expression hardens. “What do you need cash for, Ed? Don’t tell me... don’t tell me… you’ve got another woman, haven’t you?”

  The fur really start flying now.

  Gemma pounds her husband’s chest, crying, “You’re cheating on me with some young floozy, aren’t you? A girl who’s only interested in your money! Oh, you think you’re so attractive, but I guarantee she’s using you! I guarantee it!”

  Ed catches his wife’s wrists and easily holds her fists away from his body. He’s almost laughing when he says, “There’s no other woman. There’s never been another woman. Only you.”

  “You think I believe your bunkum?” She spit in his face, but her spittle falls short and lands between his feet.

  “Believe what you want,” Ed says. “But I needed the money… to cover my gambling losses.”

  Gemma’s body goes limp.

  Ed lets go of her wrists.

  That was his second mistake.

  His first mistake was admitting to the gambling.

  Growling like a bear, Gemma asks, “You’re… you’re… you’ve started… gambling?”

  “I’m sorry,” he says, but it’s too little, too late. Gemma goes at him with her fists, aiming for his face, but falling short because of her height.

  This time, it’s Penelope who comes to her father’s rescue. “I’m the one who placed the bets,” she says, wrapping her arms around her mother’s shoulders from behind, in what looks like some kind of wrestling move. “Daddy didn’t want you to know. That’s why he called me to be his go-between. He knew you’d be disappointed.”

  “I’m not disappointed,” Gemma growls. “I’m irate!”

  She breaks out of the wrestling hold her daughter’s got her in and takes a running jump at her husband, knocking him onto the leather couch. Once he’s down, she pummels him with her little fists.

  “Mom!” Tommy says. “Cool your jets. You’re acting like a maniac.”

  “I’m the maniac?” Gemma asks.

  He blocks her fists so they fall short of Ed’s face. “This is why nobody tells you anything. You go psycho.”

  “Of course I’m going psycho. I find out my husband hired my daughter to steal from us? Who wouldn’t go psycho?”

  “Daddy didn’t hire me,” Penelope offers. “I robbed you for free.”

  “It’s true,” Ed cuts in. “She didn’t even take a commission.”

  “A commission! A commission, he says!” At least she’s stopped punching her family members for the time being. “That’s another thing—somebody better update me what’s going on with our Arizona property. Where on earth have you been living, child?”

  “Who, me?” Penelope asks.

  “Well, who else would I be talking to? Everyone else in this room lives in my house!”

  All at once, a familiar sound invades the space: it’s Oopsie yapping from somewhere outside. I look toward the kitchen and, through the glass doors, spot Amber’s dog in the backyard. He’s barking at Butterball and Zorro, both of whom have climbed up on the fence. I knew Zorro was capable of making that leap, but who knew Butterball had it in him?

  The boys must be worried sick about me. Do they know I’m here?

  I guess I’m not paying attention to what I’m doing, because suddenly Penelope screams and jumps and I realize I’ve just brushed up against her ankle.

  “Whose cat is this?” she squeals.

  “Oh! That’s the kitten from next door,” Amber says, scooping me into her hands. “I forgot I was supposed to return her. Better go now!”

  As she rushes me out the front door, she whispers, “Kitty, I could kiss you for getting me out of that house! I love my boyfriend, but his family is nuts!”

  Before she gets me to Doris’s door, my new friend Amber does kiss me. She nuzzles me and rubs my head with her nose and, after the scene we just witnessed, I think we both needed the affection.

  Chapter 12

  Amber’s in the kitchen, telling Doris all about what happened next door. Gemma won’t be too happy about that, but sometimes it takes an outsider to spill all the family secrets.

  As soon as Doris loosened her grip on me, I sneakily made my way out the cat door and into the backyard. I think Butterball and Zorro were more relieved to see me than Doris was. I’m not sure Doris even realized I was gone.

  I have to admit, it’s neat to see Butterball so concerned. He acts like he doesn’t care about me, but when he thought I was lost, he certainly seemed worried.

  Of course I tell the boys everything I heard, everything I saw. They even give up pretending they aren’t fascinated by the case of the missing money.

  “So when we heard Ed on the phone with his mistress,” Zorro says, “he was actually talking to Penelope?”

  “Yes,” I tell him. “Penelope was placing bets for her dad.”

  “Then he wasn’t having an affair after all?”

  “Not that I know of, although I wouldn’t blame him one bit.”

  “Accursed child!” Butterball scolds me.

  “What? You should have seen Gemma go at Ed with her fists. It’s not right, the way she treats her family.”

  Butterball couldn’t disagree with me there. Even if a wife is a lot littler than her husband—and her kids—it still isn’t okay for her to beat them!

  “And Tommy had nothing to do with it after all,” Zorro goes on.

  “No, he had no clue what was going on. Gemma was wrong to suspect him. But he did know that his sister was back in town, I guess.”

  “And he didn’t tell his own girlfriend?” Zorro asks.

  “Apparently she’s not great with secrets.” I shrug. “The last thing Penelope wanted was for her mother to find out she was living here in town and renting out the place in Arizona.”

  Butterball says, “It sounds as if the lass has built a jammy little empire around her parents’ assets.”

  “She has,” I agree. “And she didn’t want her mother finding out about it. Gemma is tiny, but boy can she throw a punch!”

  Zorro surprises me by musing, “I wonder if Ed and Gemma will get divorced over this.”

  “Over him asking Penelope to steal all the money from the safe to pay off his gambling debts?”

  Butterball clicks his tongue at me. “Well, what else would Zorro be referring to, daft girl?”

  I puff up my chest to say, “He could have meant because Gemma was punching Ed with her fists. I’m not human myself, but it’s
my understanding that most of them don’t like getting beaten by family members.”

  Butterball sniffs the way he always does when he’s wrong but he’s run out of things to say.

  “Anyway,” I say to Zorro. “It’s hard to know if they’ll stay together or get a divorce. Gemma and Ed aren’t just a married couple. They also own a business together. That’s a big consideration.”

  “Right you are,” Zorro says encouragingly. He nudges my head with his. “Well, Ginger, you called it: you didn’t think Tommy was guilty of the theft, and he wasn’t.”

  I feel so proud I could burst! But instead of acting all self-satisfied like Butterball would, I say, “I’m curious to see if Tommy will find himself a job.”

  “Good point.” Zorro tells Butterball what we overheard at the meeting. “Tommy asked Amber to marry him on vacation. She said no, not until he’s self-sufficient. It’ll be interesting to find out if she means enough to him that he’ll bite the bullet and work for a living.”

  Without looking directly at me, Butterball says, “All in all, successful first case.”

  I kind of can’t believe Butterball actually said something positive about me, but I only have a moment to bask in the glory because Zorro indicates some commotion in the kitchen. Amber and Doris have gotten up from their tea, and now there’s a third lady with them.

  If I’m not much mistaken, that’s a cat carried on the table!

  “Oh my gosh,” I say, my heart sinking like a stone. “The new cat is here.”

  So much for my plan of moving in with Ed. If he and Gemma got divorced I wouldn’t mind going with him, even if it meant living in a one-room apartment. I don’t think I could stand to live with Gemma.

  Butterball and Zorro start heading off across the backyard until I say, “What are you, a couple of ‘fraidy cats? Let’s go in there and meet the new cat.”

  I sound more confident than I feel. In fact, my legs are wobbling as I make my way through the cat door and into the kitchen.

  “There they are!” Doris says as we three enter the house. “Ready to meet the new girl, are you? Come, let’s do this downstairs. That’s the cats’ domain.”