by Nic Saint
“I didn’t know you were doctors,” said Dee.
“You never asked,” quipped Jim. “We’re both retired now, of course, but I guess it’s true what they say. Once a doctor, always a doctor.”
“At least when something happens to us we’ll be in good hands,” said Tom graciously.
Jim laughed. “At least you haven’t dropped your pants to show me the suspicious hairy growth on your butt. How many times has that happened to us, Eden?”
“Oh, too many times to remember,” said Eden with a throwaway gesture.
“Whenever you tell people you’re a doctor they start rattling off a whole list of their ailments—big and small. I always tell them to make an appointment.”
“So what about Hot Gangster?” asked Maya, who was as intrigued by this unexpected murder case as the rest of her family. “Did you get to see him?”
“Good-looking fellow,” said Eden. “Well, he was,” she added when her husband laughed.
Dee, who was feeding Baby Jacob, who was happily perched on his high stool, had to agree with Eden’s professional opinion. Even though she wasn’t a big fan of tattoos, the ones Donny Towns had were nicely done. And he had been a very handsome man. High cheekbones, cleft chin, remarkable blue eyes, thick, sexy lips. In life he’d been a stunner.
“I don’t think that’s what she was asking, dear,” said Jim, wiping his lips with a napkin. “I mean, he was a good-looking fellow, no doubt about it. But was he murdered—that’s the big question, isn’t it? And how?”
“And?” asked Scott, on the edge of his seat now. “Did he jump or was he pushed?”
“He had a knife sticking out of his chest, Scott,” said Maya. “Of course he was pushed. After he was stabbed.”
Jim pursed his lips. “In my professional opinion the knife would have done the trick. Whether he did it to himself or not is hard to know for sure. Though from the angle it was stuck in the body I’d say he would have had a hard time doing that to himself.” He held up his hands. “Of course I’m not a coroner or anything, so take this with a grain of salt.”
“So was he killed?” asked Scott.
“Yes, he was,” said Eden, taking another gulp of wine. “No doubt about it.”
Just then, Vernon came walking up, looking distinctly nervous. “Professor Tom!” he said, bending down and tooting in Tom’s ear. “Something terrible just happened!”
“What is it?” Tom asked, expecting the worst. Another dead body? More than one?
“The knife! It-it’s gone!”
Tom sat up with a jerk. “Gone? What do you mean gone?”
“The chef wanted to take it out of the dead man—he needed it for carving—so Beau went to take it out—he said he was going to put it back when Chef was done with it—and that’s when he saw that someone else had beaten him to it. The knife has vanished!”
“That’s not good,” said Jim, who’d overheard.
“That knife is evidence,” said Tom, quite unnecessarily. “There could have been fingerprints on that knife—DNA traces—we need to find that knife, Vernon.”
“I’ve had Beau search the kitchen top to bottom. It’s nowhere to be found. Definitely missing.”
“Oh, boy,” said Scott, eyes shining with excitement. “The killer must have come back for the knife. To try and get rid of the evidence!”
“We should have locked that body up,” said Tom. “Behind lock and key.”
“We only have the one freezer,” said Vernon, looking distinctly distraught.
They watched the manager hurry away, probably to put out another fire. The man had a lot on his plate right now, what with the storm and a motel full of guests and a dead man in his freezer and now this missing carving knife.
“So is it true you’re some kind of super criminologist?” asked Jim, nudging Tom.
Tom, still thinking about the missing knife and what he could have done to protect it from whoever had stolen it, looked up. “Mh?”
“Vernon tells me you actually founded the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit. Which seems pretty tough seeing as the BSU was founded in 1972 and you don’t strike me as a day over fifty.”
“Forty-eight, actually,” said Dee with a smile. “My husband didn’t found anything, Jim. He’s a Professor of Economics at the UW. Our son embellished the truth when he said that stuff about Tom being an ace crime fighter.”
Jim and Eden both laughed heartily. “That’s the funniest thing I ever heard!” said Jim.
“Amateur sleuths, huh?” asked Eden, gratefully accepting a slice of chocolate cake from Beau, who was bringing around dessert now. “I love it. So are you going to solve this case, Professor Tom?”
Tom shook his head. “I have no idea, Eden. Frankly I don’t even know where to begin.”
“We’ll solve this case, Dad,” said Scott, who seemed extremely confident. “And then the cops will have to give us a medal when we do.”
“Well, I hope you manage, Scott,” said Jim with a smile as he dug into his chocolate cake. “Murder is a very nasty business, even if the person who was murdered was a crook.”
“Reformed crook,” said Maya. “Well, it’s true,” she added when Jim laughed heartily. “He’d left that gang he was hanging out with and decided to turn his life around.”
“What gang was that? The Crips or the Bloods?” asked Eden, who seemed to know a lot about criminal life.
“The Bloods, I think,” said her husband. He was waving his coffee spoon. “You never really leave a gang, Maya,” he told Tom’s daughter. “We lived in New York all of our lives. Those kids keep getting pulled back in over and over again—until they end up dead in some alley or in some crack house. Mark my words, Hot Gangster was probably killed by some other gangster, hot or not. And whoever that gangster is, he’s probably already legged it.”
Chapter 17
“It’s true, you know, Tom,” said Dee as the Kellys had returned to their room for an impromptu meeting. “I mean, Jim is probably right. Whoever killed Donny Towns probably left right after he killed him.”
“No, he did not,” said Tom, a tiny smile playing about his lips. “And I’ll tell you why.”
Dee had placed Baby Jacob on the bed and watched as the little tyke folded his tiny fingers around her big finger and squeezed.
“I know, Dad!” cried Scott excitedly. “I know why the killer is still here!”
“Ugh. Isn’t it obvious?” asked Maya. “He stole the knife, didn’t he?”
“Exactly,” said Tom, pointing at Maya like the college professor he was. He would probably have awarded her extra credit for that answer if he hadn’t stopped himself. “The killer can’t have left because he just stole the knife that must have contained incriminating evidence that could lead us—or the police—straight to him. Or her. Or them.”
“So what if some careless cook took the knife, figuring he needed it?” asked Dee.
“In that case Vernon would have found it, wouldn’t he?”
“What if said cook realized belatedly that he shouldn’t have taken that knife and that now he was in big trouble so he simply hid it somewhere or even chucked it in the trash?”
That stumped the great detective, for his finger was hovering in the air and his mouth was open as if about to speak but the words or thoughts wouldn’t come.
“Mom could be right, you know,” said Maya, always the voice of reason.
“I like the other version better,” said Scott. “Can’t we decide—as a family—that the killer took it? That would be so much cooler. Cause if he didn’t, and he skedaddled, this whole investigation is pretty much over before it started, right? And we don’t want that.”
“You mean you don’t want that,” said Maya.
“Hey, you like this as much as I do!”
“No, I don’t. What, poking around in other people’s lives? We’re not cops, Scott.”
“I talked to Christy Towns. Well, actually her name is Cadanet—even though to register at the motel she use
d the name Plauder. She said the only reason Donny was here was that he wanted to see the baby so they arranged to meet on neutral ground, since her parents wouldn’t have approved.”
“Donny’s new wife probably wouldn’t have approved either,” said Maya.
“No, I’ll bet she wouldn’t. Anyway, Christy said she went for a walk with the baby just before breakfast and when she came back the window was open and Donny was nowhere to be found. So she figured he either had second thoughts or something happened to him. At any rate she told the front desk but then there was a shift change and then the storm hit and Christy’s message never reached Vernon, or even Vikki, I guess, so when I knocked at Christy’s door that was the first she heard of her ex-husband’s body having been found.”
“But that’s terrible!” said Maya, her hands flying to her face. “You mean she didn’t know? Nobody told her what happened?”
“Apparently not.”
“Vernon must have forgotten,” said Tom. He took Dee’s hand and squeezed it. “That was a very considerate thing to do, honey. How did she take the news?”
“Not well. It’s obvious she still loved Donny, and she claimed he still loved her, and thought leaving her and the baby and getting involved with Tracy Hall was a big mistake.”
“She said that?” asked Maya, stunned.
“And did you believe her?” asked Tom.
Dee nodded. “Yes, actually I did.”
“We really need to talk to the Halls,” said Tom. “To get a clear picture of what they were doing here. And then maybe we need to talk to Christy again. And find that knife, of course.”
“How are we going to find that knife, Tom? That thing could be anywhere.”
“We still need to find it. It was taken on our watch, and when the police finally get here they won’t be happy about it.”
“They can’t blame us.”
“Trust me, they will.”
Tom was probably right. When the police arrived and they found one body minus the murder weapon, they wouldn’t be happy about the Kelly family sticking their nose where it didn’t belong. Nor would they be too happy with Vernon and his unorthodox sleuthing methods. At least Jim and Eden had confirmed the obvious: that Donny Towns was murdered. And they’d also provided another viewpoint: the possibility that Donny had been killed by a fellow gang member.
So now all they had to do was find a knife and a gang member and they were all set.
Wilfred Dobosh shuffled up to the front desk and smiled nervously at the girl standing at attention. The poor thing looked dead on her feet. He remembered her from the day before, when she’d been in the same spot, looking a lot better than she did today.<>
“Have you been here all this time?” he asked. “That’s just too much.”
Vikki laughed, sounding a little raspy. “Oh, no. I went home yesterday and came back this morning, Mr. Dobosh. Otherwise I wouldn’t be standing.”
“Well, make sure you take care of yourself… Vikki,” he said, reading her name tag. He pushed his thick glasses back up his bulbous nose. He was a short, stubby man in his late seventies, a Yankees cap on his head, and his eyesight wasn’t as good as it once was. Then again, nothing about him was as good as it once had been. Ever since his wife Cecily died things had gone downhill. Not just his health but his mood, too, had worsened to a degree.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Dobosh?” asked Vikki pleasantly. She was a nice girl, Wilfred thought. Vivacious and kind. And she had a nice smile, too. “I just wanted to know if there’s been a message for me.”
“No message, I’m afraid. Are you expecting one?”
“Yeah. As a matter of fact I am.” He hesitated, then decided to come right out with it. She did have one of those faces that one could trust. And after having been in the insurance business for over forty years he liked to think he could read faces like a book. “I was supposed to meet a fellow, you see. For a business transaction of sorts. He was going to leave a message at the desk. This is the only desk at this establishment, right?”
“It is. He could have been delayed by the storm,” said Vikki.
“Yeah, he could have been,” Wilfred said doubtfully, casting a quick glance through the door at the wintry landscape outside, where snow was swirling and the wind was howling. “Only he told me he’d arrive the night before.”
“Do you have his name? I could see if he checked in yesterday.”
“He gave me a name, but I doubt it’s genuine.” He lowered his voice. “You see, this business transaction of ours, it’s strictly hush-hush. No real names involved whatsoever.”
Vikki smiled an indulgent smile, probably thinking Wilfred was some old coot whose mind was starting to resemble Swiss cheese. “Just give me the name you have.”
“Adam Plauder,” said Wilfred, enunciating clearly. “I’ll write it down for you if you want,” he added when Vikki suddenly stiffened, her hands hovering over her keyboard.
“Did you say Adam Plauder?”
“That’s right. So is he in?”
She gulped, which probably wasn’t good.
“I’m afraid something happened to Mr. Plauder, Mr. Dobosh.”
“Oh? What happened? Delayed, was he? Damn storm.”
“No, actually he met with an accident this morning.”
“An accident? You mean like a car accident?”
She stared at him, then seemed to shake herself. “I think you better talk to the manager, Mr. Dobosh.”
Chapter 18
Wilfred was staring from the manager, a short guy with weird, bulging eyes, to the guy who introduced himself as Professor Tom Kelly, a handsome fellow with one of those professorial faces that exude erudition and old-world charm at the same time. If he’d lit up a pipe Wilfred wouldn’t have been surprised.
“I don’t get it. You’re saying Adam Plauder was murdered? As in killed?”
“I’m afraid he was, Mr. Dobosh,” said the manager. “Someone stabbed him and threw him out of the window.”
“Or someone threw him out of his window and then stabbed him,” said the professor. “Though that scenario is highly unlikely, of course.” He cleared his throat. “You said something about a business transaction?”
He was still staring at the two men, not sure if he could trust them. They were ensconced inside the manager’s tiny office, located right behind the front desk. Pictures of dogs papered the walls—probably this Vernon Haggis was something of a dog person—and a huge brass umbrella stand was located right next to the door. Behind the manager, a large portrait of a bulldog had been placed, its tongue lolling and its eyes protruding. And now that he looked at it, Wilfred thought there was a distinct resemblance between the manager and that bulldog.
“Look, I don’t know how much I can tell you,” he began.
“You’re in good hands with Professor Tom,” said the manager. “He’s the person who founded the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit. They’re the people who do all of that profiling, you see, and then they catch the bad guys—serial killers and such. He’s a regular genius.”
Professor Tom sat wincing slightly at this eulogy and Wilfred figured he did look the part of a genius criminologist. He relaxed a bit. “My wife died last year,” he began.
“Uh-huh,” said Professor Tom, now looking like a minor Sigmund Freud, prepared to dig in for a long and long-winded life story.
“Cecily hated my hobby. I collect baseball cards, you see.”
“Baseball cards,” said the manager.
“Got thousands of them. Rare ones and not so rare ones. Cecily always said I was wasting my time. That I could have spent all that money on a nice Caribbean cruise instead of that darned baseball card collection of mine. So I promised her that one day I’d take her on that cruise. But then she died, you see. And now I’m going to keep my promise. I’m going to take her on that cruise—or at least I’m going to take her urn and scatter her ashes to the four winds. And I’m selling my collection—something I should have done a long t
ime ago.”
He rubbed his face with his hands. He didn’t have much longer. He could feel it in his aching bones. Soon he and Cecily would be together again. But first he had a promise to keep.
“You see, she was right, you know? All that time I spent on my collection? All that money? I should have spent on her. While we still had the time. While we could still travel. And while we still had each other. Now she’s gone, and I have my baseball cards to talk to. Only they’re not so great company. Not as good as my Cecily was.” His voice broke, and he inwardly cursed his sentimentality. “Look, I was here because Adam Plauder told me he could pay top dollar for the most precious card in my collection, all right? So when you tell me he’s dead that comes as something of a surprise to me. And it kinda ruins my big plan.”
“What’s this card, Mr. Dobosh?” asked Professor Tom gently.
“Mickey Mantle,” he said gruffly. “His 1952 Topps Major League card.”
The professor seemed to swallow. “And how much was Plauder offering?”
“Fifty thousand smackeroos if you please. Enough to get me all the way to the Caribbean and back again.” Not that he was planning on coming back if he could help it. But these wise guys didn’t need to know that.
The professor had taken out his phone. Nice. Very polite. But then that was those damned millennials for you. Always glued to their phone and ignoring everything else.
“Where is this card now, Mr. Dobosh?” asked the manager.
“In your safe. At least I hope it’s still in there.”
“Let me check,” said the manager. He stood and to Wilfred’s surprise turned the bulldog portrait like a door. The damn thing operated on hinges. Behind it, a safe was built into the wall. The manager shifted a few dials, then swung the door open and retrieved an envelope from inside that had Wilfred’s name on it. He shook its contents out on the desk and the Mickey Mantle card appeared, wrapped in plastic the way he bought it all those years ago. “It’s still there,” said the manager unnecessarily.