by Leslie Meier
“It’s a fad, Mom. That’s all it is. The kids see these rock videos and experiment a little.”
“They sacrifice things, Franny. The story said there was blood.”
“Animal blood, Mom. It’s not right, but kids have always done stuff like that. Blowing up frogs with firecrackers, taking potshots at squirrels and birds, even strangling cats.”
“I’m not such an old fuddy-duddy that I don’t know the difference between a little boy with a BB gun and a Satanic ritual,” insisted the older woman.
“Ben at the store wears a Satan T-shirt,” said Franny thoughtfully.
“There!” crowed Irma.
“You don’t really think he had anything to do with Caro’s disappearance, do you?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” said Irma, getting up and running water into the kitchen sink. “There are supposed to be ways you can tell. Some of them have three sixes tattooed under their hair, or other symbols. Does Ben have any tattoos?”
“Not that I know of,” said Franny.
“I bet some hunter will find whatever’s left of poor Caro out in the woods somewhere, all carved up and tied to a tree, or laid out on some altar.” She turned, and Franny was shocked at the intensity of her expression.
“Honestly, Mom, I don’t think we have too much to worry about. I’m gonna be late if I don’t hustle.” Franny gave her mother a quick peck on the cheek, grabbed her purse, and dashed out the door. Sometimes Mom was just too much, she thought as she drove to the store. She wanted to get the video camera set up before Mr. Slack arrived.
There was no sign of him, however, when she arrived and unlocked the door as usual. The cheap electric clock that he had put up when he sold the old Regulator to a shrewd antique dealer indicated it was only a quarter to nine. She knew she had fifteen minutes before Mr. Slack arrived, precisely on the hour.
Hauling out a rickety old ladder, Franny climbed up and set the camera behind a dusty advertising cutout that had stood on top of a display cabinet for as long as she could remember. She climbed down, studied the faded image of the earth dripping with red house paint, and satisfied herself that it concealed the camera. She grabbed an X-acto knife from a rack, went back up, and cut out the center of the “o” in the “Cover the Earth” printed along the bottom. She angled the display a bit so the camera had a clear view of the cash register, pushed the on button, and stepped carefully down.
She had barely gotten the ladder put away when she heard the bell on the door jangle. Mr. Slack had arrived.
“Franny, I believe we’re expecting a delivery today.”
“That’s right.”
“Be sure and let me know when the truck arrives,” he told her, marching stiffly into his office and shutting the door. A minute later he reappeared with the cash envelope for the register. “There’s exactly seventy-seven dollars and fifty cents in that envelope,” he informed Franny.
“I know,” she nodded in agreement. Every morning for the past fifteen years she’d started the day with one roll each of pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters, twenty-five singles, five five-dollar bills, and one ten. “What was the old man trying to prove?” she wondered.
Franny set up the cash drawer, changed the date on the printer, and checked to see that the sign in the door read open. There were no customers, so she took the feather duster out of the broom closet and began dusting the merchandise. She had worked her way through the pots and pans, the dishes, and the vacuum cleaner bags all the way to the electric drills when the Hasco truck signaled its arrival with a sharp squeal of its brakes.
“The truck’s here,” she told Mr. Slack. He pulled himself shakily to his feet, and Franny watched anxiously until he had his legs firmly beneath him. Then he marched stiffly to the front of the store, where he surprised Stan, the Hasco driver, by greeting him cordially for the first time in the eight years he’d been driving the route.
“Good day to you, Mr. Slack,” answered Stan, casting a curious glance at Franny.
“Stan, I think it will be just fine if you put the boxes along that wall. I’ll be checking the invoices myself today,” said Slack.
“No problem,” answered Stan, handing the old man a thick sheaf of computer printouts. He went back out to the truck but soon returned, wheeling in a dolly loaded with boxes.
“I’ll count the items in the boxes and you check them off, okay?” Franny asked Mr. Slack.
“That will be fine,” he answered, carefully unscrewing his fountain pen.
“What have we got here?” murmured Franny, opening the first box. “Okay. Six Phillips-head screwdrivers, six-inch, item number one-six-oh-nine-six, and six more eight-inch, number one-six-oh-nine-eight. Got that?”
Mr. Slack began looking through the papers, but soon shook his head in frustration.
“I need my other glasses, Franny. I’ll be right back.” While he made his way back to the office, Franny found the correct sheet and put it on top of the pile of papers. When he returned she showed him where the screwdrivers were listed, and the old man carefully checked them off.
“Now we’ve got hex wrenches, six assorted on a card, item number one-seven-oh-one-six. Got that?”
“You’re going much too fast, Franny. Haste makes waste, you know. Now what was that number?”
“One-seven-oh-one-six,” repeated Franny slowly.
“It’s not here.”
Franny glanced at the invoice, found the notation, and pointed it out to him. Then she went back to the carton.
“A dozen half-inch steel tape measures, twelve-foot, item one-five-oh-one-two, and a dozen half-inch tapes, twenty-four- foot, one-five-oh-two-four, and six three-quarter-inch tapes, twenty-four-foot, one-seven-five-two-four. “
“You’ll have to repeat that, Franny,” said Mr. Slack.
Franny looked at the wall of cartons Stan was building along the side of the store and sighed. She could do this much faster herself, but Mr. Slack would never let her. He didn’t trust her and he had to assure himself the invoices were correct.
“I’ll try to go slower,” she said, looking up as Stan reappeared carrying a clipboard.
“Would you sign this, Mr. Slack?”
Slack took the clipboard and began reading the attached papers.
“You don’t have to read it,” advised Stan. “Just sign it.”
Mr. Slack’s bristly gray eyebrows shot up. “I never sign anything without reading it.”
“It doesn’t mean anything, except that I was here and you took the delivery. If there are any problems, you can sort it out over the phone. Isn’t that right, Franny?” he demanded impatiently.
“Oh. So Franny has been signing the papers without reading them?” The old man sounded like a prosecution lawyer asking the crucial question, the one that would condemn the defendant beyond any reasonable doubt.
“Sure, everybody does,” affirmed Stan.
Another nail in my coffin, thought Franny. “Why don’t you get a cup of coffee, Stan? I’m sure Mr. Slack will have signed the papers by the time you get back.”
“Okay. I usually stop at Jake’s anyway. But I gotta be back on the road by ten-thirty.”
“Mr. Slack, we’ll never be able to check all these boxes in ten minutes. Why don’t you write a qualifier? Something like, ‘Delivery received, contents unverified,’ and sign it?”
“That’s a good idea, Franny,” he said. Truth be told, his rheumatism was acting up and he wanted to sit down. He took the clipboard into his office and sat down at the desk. When Stan returned he raised an eyebrow at the beautifully penned statement, complete with Slack’s stylized Palmer-method signature.
“ ‘Bye, now,” said Franny. She smiled. “See you in two weeks.”
Turning to Air. Slack, she offered a suggestion.
“Mr. Slack, we could save time if you told me the items and I checked them off. I’m a lot more familiar with the invoice codes, and you could sit on this little stool.”
Using Franny’s method,
they worked much faster, mostly because Franny looked over Mr. Slack’s shoulder to see the contents and checked off each box while the old man hunted for the numbers on one or two items. What makes old people so slow, wondered Franny, struggling to keep her impatience in check. Someday she would be old, no doubt, and would appreciate the tolerance of young folks. By noontime the old man was clearly exhausted. He usually spent the morning at his desk going over the figures, slipping in a few catnaps between the columns. He hadn’t been this active in years.
He went home for lunch promptly at noontime. A little later Ben wandered in. Franny grabbed her purse and was out the door in a flash. She had only a half hour before she had to go back, a stingy thirty minutes of freedom.
She drove her car down to the fish pier and parked there to eat the egg salad sandwich her mother had packed for her. The sky was white with clouds, and without any breeze the cove was a flat, oily gray that matched her mood. The oppressive weather didn’t seem to bother the gulls, greedy as ever as they squabbled over bits of old bait, then flew off to follow a rusty old lobster boat as it chugged out into the bay to check traps. Glancing at her watch, she realized with a start that her half hour was almost gone.
Back at the store, the afternoon dragged by slowly. Mr. Slack turned over the job of checking the merchandise to Ben, and he and Franny made short work of the remaining cartons. Then Franny began stocking the shelves with the new merchandise, making sure she stayed out of Ben’s way as much as possible. She wanted to give him every chance to incriminate himself while the camera was rolling.
As the afternoon grew closer to three o’clock, Franny began to worry. The tape was good for only six hours, she knew, and she wanted to turn the camera off before it began recording over the previously taped images. It was just a little after three, however, when Ben announced he “had to see some guys” and left the store. Franny wasted no time in dragging out the ladder and climbing up to retrieve the camera.
She started guiltily, nearly falling off the ladder, when she heard Slack’s voice demand, “What are you doing, Franny?”
“You almost gave me a heart attack,” she stammered, turning to face him and nervously patting her chest with a fluttering hand. “This display is so old and dusty, I was just looking to see if I could spruce it up a little bit.”
The old man studied the sagging cardboard poster. “Take it down,” he ordered.
“What?” Franny was horrified. If she moved the poster, the camera would be revealed before she had a chance to view the tape. And while she knew she hadn’t done anything wrong in setting up the camera, she was sure Slack wouldn’t see it that way. “Why don’t we wait until the paint rep can give us a new one,” she suggested, casting about desperately for an escape. “Don’t you think the store will look bare without it?”
“No, I don’t,” said Slack impatiently. “Do as I say, Franny. Give me the poster.”
For a moment, Franny froze, feeling exactly like a truant caught out of school. Then she lifted the poster. The camera was in plain view.
“What’s that?” demanded Slack, squinting through his glasses.
“A video camera. I wanted to show you the real thief. I set it up behind the poster,” she explained, showing him the hole she had cut. “A lot of stores use them.”
“Never mind all that,” he said, brushing aside her explanation. “Where did you get it?”
“I borrowed it from Lucy Stone,” she explained, trying to remain calm. Her stomach was churning; she dreaded the old man’s anger.
“You’re incorrigible, Franny,” he said in his quivery voice. “Now you’re involving your friend. How foolish do you think I am? I know what those cameras cost, my son, Fred, has one. And you want me to believe that Lucy Stone lent you one.” He shook his head in disbelief.
“But she did, Mr. Slack. Just call and ask her.”
“I’ll do no such thing. I know perfectly well that Lucy Stone could not afford an expensive camera like that, any more than you could, unless you’d been stealing from me.”
The light in the store suddenly dimmed, but Franny could see two spots of color appearing in the old man’s cheeks. She could even smell his stale breath as he leaned toward her.
“Mr. Slack, won’t you at least look at the tape?” she pleaded, holding out the camera.
“For shame!” he thundered, snatching the camera out of her hands. “You’re a thief and a liar, Franny!”
“Mr. Slack, Lucy needs the camera for her daughters’ ballet,” said Franny, struggling to keep her voice even.
“Take your lies and get out. Now!” he roared. Lowering his voice, he added, “Your services are no longer required.” He pointed to the door with his long, flat finger. He was quivering, absolutely shaking with rage. His color wasn’t good, Franny observed, and he was gasping for breath.
She didn’t want to leave the camera with him, but she decided she’d better go. Lucy could come back for it later. She walked softly over to the counter and bent down to take her purse out from the shelf beneath the register where she kept it. Trembling, fighting off nausea and dizziness, she mustered every shred of dignity she possessed and walked straight to the door, looking back only once as she braced herself to push it open. Once she was outside, she couldn’t help giggling nervously. What a day. What a horrible old man. As he stood there with his mouth gaping open, struggling to catch his breath, Franny thought he looked just like a glassy-eyed codfish flapping on the pier. Oh, well, there was a definite bright side to all this, she thought as she walked to her car. Now she’d never have to look at him, or smell him, or have anything at all to do with him ever again.
7
Put makeup on at home.
Lucy spent Wednesday morning working in the garden, pulling out weeds and picking lettuce and sugar snap peas while Sara played nearby, arranging her doll babies in a toy carriage and feeding them dandelion soup. It soon grew too muggy and hot to work, so Lucy retreated to the house. She drew a tall glass of water from the cooler of bottled spring water that stood in a comer of the kitchen, sat down at the table and dialed the police station.
“Lucy, how’s every little thing?” asked Culpepper. “Nothing’s wrong, is it?”
“Oh, no. Everything’s fine. I haven’t seen you for a while and wondered if you might be coming out this way one of these days.”
Lucy didn’t agree with the prevailing opinion that a married woman should have only female friends. She had taken an immediate liking to Barney Culpepper when he stopped to fix a flat tire for her soon after she’d moved to Tinker’s Cove. She had gotten to know him better when they were both members of the Cub Scout Pack Committee. He often dropped by for a cup of coffee and a chat; he liked to gossip just as much as she did.
When Lucy found Sam Miller’s body in the Country Cousins parking lot the previous Christmas they had teamed up to find the killer, but not before Culpepper had almost become a victim himself. [Editor: See Mail-Order Murder.]
“Well, I do have a dog complaint out near you,” Culpepper said. “What are you having for lunch?”
Lucy considered the contents of her pantry, usually depleted by this time of the week. “Tuna?”
“Sold. I’ll see you around twelve.”
After looking out the window to check on Sara, Lucy decided to get a head start on supper and began slicing a cabbage for coleslaw. She’d just finished adding the dressing when she heard the crunch of tires on the gravel driveway.
Lucy waited on the porch while Sara ran across the lawn to greet the huge police officer. He caught the little girl under her arms and tossed her high into the air above his head and she screamed with delight.
“Put her down,” begged Lucy. “If you get her too excited she’ll never take her nap.”
“Oops, sorry,” apologized Barney. Lucy couldn’t help thinking he looked like an oversized puppy who’d received a scolding.
“That’s okay. Come on in. I’ve got a couple of sandwiches all ready for you. You,
too, Sara.”
“So, Barney,” began Lucy once they were all settled at the round oak table. “What’s the real story about Caro’s disappearance?”
“What you see is what you get,” said Barney, finishing his first sandwich in a few bites. “Don’t you read the papers? Crowley’s suspended the investigation.”
“I can’t believe it. Nobody’s looking for her?”
“Lucy, she could be anywhere. We can’t search the whole state, the whole country, the world. Can you imagine the fuss the Taxpayers’ Association would make at town meeting?” “Well, you can’t pretend nothing’s happened. A woman’s disappeared!”
“The case is still open,” said Barney. “She’s been officially declared a missing person. The state police put out an APB with her description. They’ll send out flyers to post offices and police stations. There’s even an eight hundred number people can call if they see her. But to tell you the truth, nobody thinks she’s in any sort of trouble. There was no sign of violence, and there hasn’t been a ransom note. She also withdrew five thousand dollars from her savings a few days before she disappeared.”
“What does that mean?” asked Lucy, jumping on this new piece of information. “Was she being blackmailed?”
“No, Lucy. I think she probably went on vacation and forgot to tell anyone.”
“Barney, I can’t believe that. She would never leave George.”
“That’s the part that bothers me,” admitted Barney. “He’s an awfully nice dog. He’s really gotten to be part of the family.” “It was nice of you to take him in.” Lucy smiled at him across the table. “Come on, Sara, aren’t you going to eat your sandwich?”
“I want more tomato chips,” said the little girl. “Please.” “That’s po-ta-to chips,” corrected Lucy. “You can’t have any more until you eat your sandwich.”
“That’s not fair,” whined Sara.
“That’s the law,” said Barney, using his official tone of voice. Lucy was amazed to see Sara obediently begin eating the sandwich.