The Frame-Up (The Golden Arrow Mysteries Book 1)

by Meghan Scott Molin

  CHAPTER 16

  The manor sits like a refined older gentleman—elegant, slightly sprawling, with the air of being worn in and relaxed—atop a hill overlooking a private greenbelt outside of LA. On one side, Griffith Observatory looms atop the same scrubby hill looking down on us, and on the other three sides, there isn’t a house to be seen. Deep woods obscure the view of the nearest neighbor, and I contemplate the possibility of them being my favorite movie star.

  “Rough place to grow up,” I mutter, climbing out of the sleek dark sedan, a real undercover car this time. No Prius in sight. This is a serious investigation at this point. All it took was a flash of Matteo’s badge in front of the camera on the front gate, and it opened straightaway. Now, a figure in a conservative black suit comes down the stone steps toward us. My parents may be rich, but they aren’t “front gate with a camera, butler at the front door” rich.

  In short order, we are escorted inside the spacious foyer, classic and distinguished with checkered black-and-white floors and a large arrangement of flowers. At first glance, it’s the opposite of who I am. I expect to hate this house, to feel the overpolished, stuffy, overpowering feeling of Casey Junior in every room. Instead, it feels oddly like . . . coming home.

  There’s an aura. I feel the presence of a man I’ve never met, in this the birthplace of my favorite stories. He’s everywhere. The old-fashioned brass light fixtures that come off as charmingly retro instead of tacky and outdated. A huge bust of a superhero cast in bronze and attached over a doorway like he’s flying through the wall. The row of paintings between that door and the stairs that have the eyes cut out. I assume it’s so someone in the room can look through them—it’s classic comic fodder, kooky as all get out, and I love it. I not only feel Casey Senior’s presence; it’s like the house welcomes me. Sighs with relief that I’ve come. I shove away the thought that Casey Senior’s spirit wants me to solve this case. That’s crazy, right?

  It also shows that Casey Junior has not redecorated in the thirty years since his father’s death. I frown, thinking through his impassioned interview. Perhaps this house is the very proof I need to show that Casey Junior really loved his father. Wants his presence to linger.

  “Are you coming?” Matteo’s voice comes from the staircase in the foyer.

  I realize I’ve been staring around the room and have completely missed all of Matteo’s conversation with the butler.

  “Oh, um, yes, of course.”

  Matteo turns to follow the butler up a curving staircase—quiet, with a worn and soft red velvety carpet runner. I make my way up the stairs behind him, taking in the house. This is the perfect superhero lair. Comfortable. Impressive. Homey. Huge enough to hide a batcave in the second living room. Heck, Casey Junior even has an Alfred.

  “I know what you’re doing,” a voice comes from behind me, and I jump about a mile in the air, my mind going directly to ghosts, goblins, and the specter of Casey Senior’s murdered corpse. Instead, it’s the all-too-real, unpleasantly corporeal Detective Rideout.

  “Climbing the stairs? You must have graduated top of your class.”

  “No, I know.” His hand grabs mine on the railing, and the touch sends creepy crawlies straight to my soul. I yank my hand away and turn to face Rideout, careful to stay a full step above him and his impishly smirking face.

  “Know what?”

  “I’m not stupid. First you happen to meet Kildaire in the coffee shop. Then you happen to see those white rabbits that no one else saw. Then you happen to just have these journal pages on you, and your best friend is the key to finding the murderer. Kildaire may be blinded by your”—his eyes wander down to my chest, then back to my face—“finer assets, but I’m not fooled.”

  This man must have come from Mordor, and I wish he’d just go back to Mount Doom and the fires that birthed him. I turn my back to him and start up the stairs again. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You’re the Golden Arrow, and I will prove it. I don’t know what you’re doing messing with the case, but I’m going to figure it out.”

  I whip around so fast, I almost lose my balance. “What? Are you insane? I’m helping with this investigation. I’m the only reason you’ve figured anything out. Without me, you guys would have no idea.”

  Rideout shrugs and mounts the stairs with a relaxed manner that just sets all my creep monitors off. “Our profiler gave me the report today. He thinks it could be a woman we’re chasing, not a man; the original thugs were drugged, not beaten . . . a woman’s tactic. Intelligent, educated, well steeped in geek culture, and with a way to keep tabs on the police investigation to avoid being caught. Sound like anyone you know?”

  I decide on bluffing outwardly. “You’re barking up the wrong tree, Watson.” But, inwardly, I’m panicking a little. It does sound like me. Could the Golden Arrow be trying to frame me for all of this?

  Rideout’s mouth presses into a line. “I’m watching you.”

  I let him get far enough ahead of me that I have the landing all to myself. It’s back to quiet and comfortable, though I’m still shaken. If Rideout isn’t just being an ass, if he really thinks I am the Golden Arrow . . . well, I could be in real trouble.

  At the head of the stairs, I pause. I could have sworn Matteo and Rideout went to the right, but I hear a noise to my left. The house seems to pull at me, so I wander down the worn path in the deeply padded wine-colored carpet to the set of large double wood doors that takes up the entire left end of the hall. Casey Senior’s study entrance is no less impressive than the house itself.

  Matteo and Rideout are on their mission; I can already hear them knocking around in the study. I didn’t think I’d gotten that far behind them, but then again . . . this house kind of sucks me in with its quiet and creative energy. I can feel the stories here, picture Casey Senior plotting and sketching, drawing on the ethereal ideas floating in the air. Something about the atmosphere in this house speaks to my writer’s soul. I feel a bit like I’ve crossed into a fairy ring—one hundred years could have passed in a day, for all I know.

  I pad up to the door and push down the brass lever. It’s hard to open against the thick carpet, and I push my body weight against it. The hinges squeak slightly, and I pause, realizing I didn’t hear that squeak when Detective Rideout and Matteo went in. Maybe the second door is more oiled or something. From inside the room, the noises stop.

  I press again, and the door moves forward under my weight, swinging into the room . . . where I come face-to-cape with a figure who is not Detective Rideout or Matteo.

  The yell that erupts from me is half scream, half war cry. For a brief instant, I think maybe I’ve interrupted a servant dressed in an odd uniform. But this figure is dressed all in black, wearing a mask, and a large golden arrow shines across the chest of the person’s spandex suit.

  I stumble backward at the same time the figure whirls around. I fall back, hitting my head on the wooden door, and land in the hallway. I scramble to my feet, but by the time I make it back into the study, Matteo hot on my heels, I glimpse only the edge of a cape as the person jumps straight out a second-story window. No hesitation.

  “Matteo, it’s him!”

  “What? MG, are you okay?” Matteo’s hands are on my shoulders, probably trying to see if I’m hurt.

  There’s no time to examine the splitting headache already developing from my fall. “Matteo, he’s here!”

  “He who?”

  I’m frantic at this point, pushing Matteo’s hand from my neck so I can get to the window. “The Golden Arrow. The Golden Arrow was right here in this room when I came in. And he just jumped through the window. He’s out there, Matteo!”

  Matteo gives me one quick searching glance and rushes to the window. Rideout puffs into the room seconds later, his eyes darting between Matteo and me.

  “Jesus, what happened in here?” Rideout asks. “You yelled loud enough to alert the entire county to the fact we’re here, and what the hell did
you do to this office?”

  I cut a look around the room, noting for the first time that it’s been carefully ransacked. There’s no other way to describe it. Everything has been pulled off the walls and arranged in orderly piles against the baseboards. The desk drawers are sitting out.

  I blink up at Rideout, then look at Matteo. “I—he—Matteo, tell me you saw that. Saw him jump out that window.”

  Matteo returns from the window and crouches in front of me. “There’s no one out there, MG.”

  “Interesting.” Rideout regards me as if I’m Poison Ivy herself. His words echo in my head. I’m watching you.

  In response to his silent accusation, I spit out a retort: “This room didn’t do this to itself. And definitely not in thirty seconds.” I want to yank out my hair. How did Matteo not see the Golden Arrow?

  “No. Probably not.” Matteo and Detective Rideout share a loaded glance, and my blood pressure increases. It’s obvious they’re having a conversation without talking.

  “Well, aren’t you going to go look for who jumped out that window?” I’m practically yelling again, and I don’t care. Rideout has obviously gotten to Matteo with his stupid theory. Only it doesn’t hold water because I just saw the Golden Arrow, and it wasn’t in a mirror.

  Matteo considers me for a moment. “I’ll go look around outside, okay?” He shoots a look at Rideout. “We could be dealing with a possible B and E.” Matteo makes a move to leave but pauses just short of the door, turning back to look at me. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine, just startled having come face-to-face with the person we’ve been chasing.”

  After a brief pause, he nods before disappearing down the hall.

  I stand in silence.

  Rideout leans his shoulder against the wall and crosses his arms, watching me. “I have to hand it to you: this was complicated to organize. You had no way of knowing you’d have time alone in the study. What were you looking for?”

  “What on earth are you talking about?”

  “Getting us to bring you here but sneaking in to search by yourself first. Or give your accomplice time to get away. Pretty brilliant. What were you looking for? Evidence that would name you as the Golden Arrow? And then pretend like you saw someone? Bravo.” He mocks me with a slow clap.

  What. A. Dick. I throw my hands in the air. “I didn’t do this. Do you really think I could have taken everything off the walls in thirty seconds? That’s crazy, and you know it.”

  We wait in silence for Matteo to reappear, though I have a sneaking suspicion I know what he’s going to say.

  Matteo’s face says it all before he opens his mouth. “Nothing. No cars left the gated driveway.” He pauses, then continues, “The security cameras were experiencing some technical difficulties, and nothing from the last twenty minutes recorded.”

  Rideout grunts. “Heck of a coincidence.”

  “Yeah.”

  We’re all silent for a moment. At least Rideout can’t think I still did this, right? I bite my lip. I’ve had time to glance around the room while Matteo’s been gone. There’s order to the chaos; the room isn’t just torn apart. The knickknacks that sit in neat lines are intact, no books pulled off the shelves. Mostly it’s just the paintings yanked off the hooks, exposing the walls. The Golden Arrow was systematic.

  “I think I know what he was looking for,” I say to the room.

  Matteo pulls on a pair of latex gloves and sets about taking pictures with his phone.

  “Interesting that you know. But fine, elucidate,” Rideout answers, raising my ire. Even Matteo makes an annoyed grunt.

  I decide to just ignore him. “You know the issue we looked at? How they discovered clues to the identity of the double agent in the wall safe? I think the Golden Arrow is looking for the journals. Or something else that Casey Senior would have kept to identify the double agent or the White Rabbit. I think he was looking for a wall safe.”

  A chill chases down my spine, and I feel the house whisper an assurance to me. It’s a great story line. One any comic book would be proud to own. One I’d be proud to write, and if there’s anything I think I understand about Casey Senior at this point, it’s that he loved a good story. Even if it’s his own story. “What if this is what it’s all about? Identifying the double agent? Or the White Rabbit? What if the Golden Arrow has figured out Casey Senior was murdered and that his killer is still at large?”

  Rideout gives a full belly laugh. “This is ludicrous. Kildaire, you can’t possibly buy it. This guy died of a heart attack thirty years ago. Old news. We work narcotics. You and I know that big eighties bust put all the big dealers in jail. White Rabbit guy included, if he ever existed. These rings are all brand-new, and no drug dealer runs a ring for thirty years unless you live in Argentina or Mexico. We are chasing a thirty-year-old wild goose, and we’re losing the trail of the real drug guys by following this girl’s false trail.”

  “What if we find a wall safe?” I ask. “What if the journals are in there?”

  Rideout sneers. This guy is not the good-cop half of their team. “Okay, then, show us. Show us the proof.”

  I press my lips together, willing Matteo to feel what I feel in this room. Something in my head clicks into place. Call it intuition. Call it Casey Senior’s spirit from the past. Whatever it is, I feel surer about this than I have anything about this case so far. I’m letting the story lead me, not the facts. Exactly how I write my comics. I get a nugget, a vision, then chase that story down its own path. I don’t try to box it in. I’m open to wherever it wants to lead. Facts are Matteo’s part of the investigation. Comic stories are mine.

  I look around the room, my attention lingering on the painting behind the desk. “I interrupted the Golden Arrow before he could take all the art down. We need to look behind it.”

  Rideout snorts. “If this was an attempted burglary, this room is evidence. We can’t move anything.”

  That figures. He asks for proof, then tells me I can’t look.

  Matteo turns to Rideout. “We’ll wear gloves. We’re here to look at the office and look for the journals.”

  Rideout mutters a string of words I can’t hear before finishing with “It’s your funeral.”

  Yahtzee. I accept the pair of latex gloves from Matteo before crossing to the desk and grasping the side of the ornate frame. It’s almost as tall as I am. I recognize the panel drawn in the frame as the one I saw Casey Junior lounging in front of for the charity promotion article Matteo and I saw when we were looking through the comics in my room.

  Matteo lines up on the other side of the frame. “All right. We’ll lift it enough for you to look through the crack in the side. On three: one, two, three . . .”

  Something inside the frame shifts as Matteo and I awkwardly lift the painting up and slightly away from the wall. My heart races. I’m convinced we’ve broken the antique frame, but it holds together enough for me to lay my head against the wall. It’s an awkward angle. Even with my nose literally touching the frame, I can’t see the wall clearly.

  “I need a flashlight,” I say.

  “Rideout, if you wouldn’t mind.”

  “Of course I mind. I’m a narcotics detective, Kildaire.” But I hear rustling, and a cell phone with a flashlight appears near my head.

  “A little farther down, more toward the wall—yeah . . . right . . . right there. Matt—Detective Kildaire, there’s something on the wall behind the painting.” My head pops up, nearly sending Rideout’s phone flying.

  Matteo studies me like I’m a puzzle, but after a moment he nods. “Okay, let’s take down the frame. Let’s look at what’s behind there.” We lift, but the five-foot frame is awkward and hard to manage. I don’t think the Golden Arrow could have removed this one by himself, at least not in one piece. It explains why it’s the only one remaining on the wall. Something clunks inside the frame again as we shift it wildly, trying to unhook the wire from the mounting device.

  “A little help here, Rid
eout,” Matteo calls. Rideout mutters about how this is “all a part of my plan” just quietly enough that I don’t think Matteo hears. I’m so excited to be right at the prospect of finding the journals, at being one step ahead of the Golden Arrow, that I ignore Rideout’s ridiculous allegations.

  Finally the frame leans against the wood-paneled wall, and I behold in triumph a small safe in the wall behind the desk.

  “Just like in the comic books.” Call me Professor X. I’m a brain-ninja to find this.

  “It could be coincidence,” Matteo says, taking a picture of the safe with his phone.

  “Or the perfect place to keep journals that contain the name of a drug lord and a dirty cop in league together.” I study Rideout from the corner of my eye. Maybe that’s why he’s so unsettled. Prickles dance on my skin as I consider the very real possibility that Detective Dursley could be the dirty cop. And that he’s annoyed with my clue-finding abilities, looking for a way to pin this all on me.

  Rideout doesn’t seem to notice me staring. He’s talking over my head to Matteo. “You do realize that the journals can’t be in there. Casey Junior said he’s been looking for thirty years.”

  I cross my arms. “Maybe he didn’t know the safe was here.”

  Rideout rolls his eyes at me like the teenage boy he is. “After thirty years? You don’t think he knew his dad had a safe in here?”

  Matteo watches us like a tennis match. “Chances are he knew it was here, and there’s no way for us to unlock it without a warrant and a special team . . . Oh.”

  “Oh what?” I hold my breath. I know this is the answer. This is what the Golden Arrow wants. This is the key to the story.

  “It’s open.” Matteo studies the wall safe, then extracts his pen from his pocket. He slides it up the side of the door, and sure enough, it swings forward. “It’s been disarmed.”

  We all crowd around to be the first to glimpse whatever is inside the safe. Except it’s empty. Completely. Well, that just takes the freaking cake.