by Nic Saint
Dee was gripping that snow shovel like she meant business, Tom looked steeled and poised for action, and even Vikki had a vicious look on her face that indicated she was ready for action. Vernon could see there was no turning back from this: his associates were eager to get this Ernie Saddling or Marco or whatever the creep’s name was dealt with immediately or even sooner.
So he took a deep and steadying breath, plastered his most severe expression on his face, and knocked on the door.
“Who is it?” a gruff voice sounded from the other side.
“I’m the hotel manager, Mr. Saddling. I was wondering if I could have a word?”
“I didn’t order no room service!” the same gruff voice announced. “So go away!”
“This concerns a matter of some urgency, Mr. Saddling.”
“I don’t care. I’m resting.”
“I’m afraid I have a key and I will enter if you don’t open this door, Mr. Saddling.”
“Oh, for Pete’s sakes,” muttered the voice, and there was some stumbling on the other side of the door, then it was suddenly swung wide and the same face that graced that fake driver’s license suddenly stood before them, only it was actually towering over them, supported by a body that was easily twice as wide and a head taller than Vernon’s. Up close and personal the thug’s face was pockmarked and had a markedly unhealthy, pasty hue.
“Mr. Saddling?” Vernon asked, irresolution suddenly rendering him weak-kneed. “Mr. Ernie Saddling?”
“That’s me. What do you want?” said the giant, his gaze raking over the small gathering standing on his doorstep.
“A matter of some importance has come to my attention,” said Vernon, his voice more reedy than he would have liked. “It concerns the death of a guest, you see.”
“So?”
“So as it turns out this guest was an associate of yours. A Mr. Donny Towns?”
The expression of hostility didn’t waver, though the boxer’s nose the man possessed slightly twitched, like Samantha Stephens, the lovable witch from Bewitched. Only this man didn’t look lovable. Like Samantha, though, he could probably wipe them out with a flick of the wrist, and he didn’t even need witchcraft to do it. “I don’t know any Donny Towns.”
“Donny Towns was in the same gang as you, Ernie—or should I call you Marco?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. My name is Ernie Saddling, and I’m a traveling salesman. I sell jewelry.”
“Jewelry?” asked Vikki, piping up for the first time. “You mean like rings and stuff?”
The pockmarked face creased into a smile, displaying an actual gold tooth. “That’s right. Rings and stuff. Are you in the market for a ring, darling?”
“Actually, I am. My boyfriend and I are getting married in the spring and we’ve been looking at some shops in town but so far haven’t found what we’re looking for, so—”
“Not now, Vikki,” said Vernon.
“If the lady wants to buy a ring, the lady gets to buy a ring,” said Ernie gruffly, and stepped aside to allow them in.
The small company filed into the room, with Ernie staring bemusedly at the snow shovel Dee had brought along. The giant ambled over to a small desk near the window, took a suitcase from underneath it and plunked it down on the bed, then snapped the latches and flicked it open. True enough, a nice assortment of rings and bracelets appeared.
“Ooh, can I have a look?” cried Vikki excitedly, completely forgetting about the mission.
“Of course you can, darling,” said Ernie, aka Marco. “I’ve got plenty more.”
And while Vikki inspected the collection of jewelry, the others just kinda stood there, looking around uncomfortably while Ernie gave his best impression of a tree.
“So about Donny Towns,” said Vernon, finally finding speech again.
“Like I said, I don’t know no Donny Towns,” said Ernie.
“Oh, come on, Marco,” said Professor Tom, clearly running out of patience. “His ex-wife recognized you. She said she saw you at Donny’s trial. You and him were busted in the same sting operation and you served time at the same prison. And I’m sure that if we asked Wilfred Dobosh, the pensioner you tried to swindle out of his Mickey Mantle card he’d recognize you, too.”
There were cracks in Ernie’s armor, that much was certain. His stern expression was starting to waver, and he was now looking like a constipated tree, if trees got constipated.
“You cops?” he asked, gesturing at the Professor and Dee, the latter now gripping the snow shovel a little tighter.
“Professor Tom Kelly is a famous criminologist,” said Vernon, glad of this opportunity to sing the Professor’s praises again. “He’s helped the FBI establish one of its most important departments, catching countless of the worst criminals in this country’s history in the process.” The Professor winced, possibly out of admirable humility, but Vernon forged on. “Professor Tom is assisting me in nabbing Donny’s killer and we have reason to believe we’re this close to closing the case.” He was holding index finger and thumb an inch apart, waving his hand in the giant’s face, suddenly feeling triumphant.
But the giant wasn’t going down without a fight. He grabbed Vernon’s hand and squeezed it. Hard.
“Ouch!” Vernon cried.
“Look, I admit I was in on this baseball card scheme but I didn’t kill Donny, okay? So whatever you think, Professor Whatsyourface, I didn’t do it.”
“Please release Mr. Haggis’s hand,” said Tom firmly.
And to Vernon’s surprise—and relief—the giant promptly did.
“I think you did kill him,” said Professor Tom now, pacing the room, his hands behind his back like the great detectives of old. “I think you decided you didn’t want to split that million dollars and instead decided to keep it for yourself. So you killed your associate and flung him out the window, hoping his body wouldn’t be found until you were far away from the scene of the crime, free to enjoy your ill-gotten spoils.” He suddenly turned on Ernie. “Isn’t that true, Marco?!”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, man, enough with the Hercule Poirot routine,” said the hardened criminal as he threw a kindly eye at Vikki, who was now in the process of fitting rings. “Fine, I couldn’t resist the temptation when Donny called and told me he had a sweet little deal lined up. A million bucks, ours for the taking, with no one getting hurt and no one about to go to the cops. The old guy would walk away happy with his fifty thousand smackers, and we’d be up half a million each, no harm done and only a day’s work. But kill him? Nah. I’m not in that racket anymore. I’m a law-abiding citizen nowadays.”
“Apart from the occasional rip-off,” said Professor Tom.
The giant casually lifted his massive shoulders. “Like I said. It was a sweet deal. Donny was going to meet with the old guy, I’d check the merchandise, hand him this little suitcase full of gems—worth exactly fifty thousand. Deal was supposed to go through this morning, only Donny never showed. I figured he’d gotten cold feet and bailed on me.”
“He did get cold feet,” muttered Professor Tom thoughtfully. “Literally, in fact.”
“So he’s dead, huh? Murdered, you say?”
“Yes, he was stabbed,” said Professor Tom.
“Too bad,” said Ernie, clucking his tongue. He was taking the news rather well, Vernon thought. Then again, if he was Donny’s killer he would, wouldn’t he? “You know? In a way I’m glad. Cause for a moment there I thought Donny double-crossed me. Found himself another partner who could shift that baseball card. That’s the only reason he got me involved. As a jewelry salesman I got contacts. Plenty of them. And Donny didn’t. At least not the kind you need to set up a deal like this.”
“You could have killed Donny when you figured you could pocket the full million,” Professor Tom insisted.
“No, I could not. Like I said, I’m not a killer. And besides, Donny was holding all the cards, so to speak. He was the one who knew where to get the Mickey Mantle Topps Major League card. That was his
side of the bargain. Without him, no card. Without me, no fifty thousand. That was the deal. So why would I kill him when I knew I’d end up with nothing if I did?” He was tapping his noggin. “That wouldn’t be smart now would it, Professor?”
Vernon had to admit there was some logic in that. “Any idea who could have killed him?” he asked.
Ernie shook his head slowly. “Maybe he was trying to double-cross me. Got involved with another middleman who decided to go for the full payday instead of going halfsies? I don’t know, buddy. I didn’t know him all that well. We were business partners, not BFFs.”
“What about his ex-wife Christy?” asked Tom.
The man mountain shifted his shoulders again. “No idea. All I know is what I read on Page Six and the kind of rags my wife picks up at the supermarket checkout. He was married then he got divorced and now he was getting married again to some superrich babe. Which just made me wonder why he needed to do this baseball card deal in the first place. He was going to marry into one of the richest families in the country, dude. So why the hustle?”
Chapter 26
Why the hustle indeed? Tom asked himself as he and Dee returned to their room. Ernie—also known as Marco—had shaken his confidence that they’d found the killer and now he didn’t know anymore.
“Do you think he did it?” he asked his wife.
“He struck me as an earnest man,” said Dee. “At least for a crook.”
“So you don’t think he’s our guy?”
“Honestly? At this point I have no idea. Though he made a great point. Only a week from now Donny was going to be rich beyond his wildest dreams. So why did he try to hustle poor Mr. Dobosh out of all that money? That just doesn’t make sense.”
“No, it doesn’t. Unless he was such a player he couldn’t pass a great hustle when the opportunity presented itself.”
“And risk everything? Risk going back to jail and lose Tracy Hall?”
Dee was right. Why would Donny risk everything just so he could make half a million dollars? Or was it something about the psychology of the man? Perhaps it didn’t feel right that he came into this marriage empty-handed? Maybe he wanted to offer Tracy an expensive gift? To show her he wasn’t just some bum she was marrying?
Or could it be that the money was to set up his ex-wife Christy and their baby?
They’d arrived back at their room and Dee shoved their keycard in the door and it clicked open. Scott was on the bed playing a computer game on his phone and Maya was flicking through a copy of Cosmo she must have found downstairs. Neither teenager looked up. The only one who did was Ralph, who greeted them with a happy woof and came bounding over to press his nose in Tom’s hands. He grinned down at the dog. At least one member of this family was happy to see them.
“Did I tell you about Maya meeting Tracy?” asked Dee. “Or me meeting the great Mr. Hall himself?”
“No, you did not,” said Tom, taking a seat on the foot of the bed.
“And tell him about me and Ralph finding that knife, Mom,” said Scott without looking up from his phone. “Oh, that’s right. You already know about that.” He then did look up. “You have to give me that knife back, Dad. Me and Ralph want to have another crack at it. I’m pretty sure that with one sniff Ralphie will rout out that nasty killer for us.”
In a few words, Dee apprised her husband of all that had happened that afternoon.
“My, my, you guys have been busy,” he said at story’s end, then added his own story to the others, and it was a testament to the power of Mr. Dobosh’s tale that even Scott forgot all about his computer game for a moment and awarded his dad his full attention.
“So this Marco character didn’t do it?” asked Maya.
“Honestly? I don’t think he did,” said Tom. “Though these are inveterate liars, so who knows?”
“What about Christy?” asked Maya. “Tracy seemed pretty convinced she did it.”
“I don’t know, honey,” said Dee. “My crime-dar is pretty wonky these days.”
Maya laughed. “Your crime-dar has always been pretty wonky, Mom. Remember how you couldn’t believe that your assistant had stolen that painting from your gallery last year? Only when the cops showed you CCTV footage of her cutting it out of its frame and tucking it into her bag did you finally figure out she was the one who’d tried to rip you off.”
Dee grimaced at the memory. It had not been her finest hour. Tom patted her hand. “If it’s any consolation I thought she was the best assistant you ever had, too, honey.”
“Me, too,” said Dee. “I even considered her a friend.”
That ‘friend’ was now languishing in prison, and Dee had become a lot more discerning about who she let into her life. So did Tom, after a few similar past mishaps had turned ugly. Unwilling to dwell on that now, he returned his attention to the case at hand. Then Scott’s words came back to him. It was a long shot, true, but wasn’t it worth trying? And when Ralph gave a soft bark, he smiled. So it was decided then, to give this crazy scheme a spin.
Chapter 27
“Come on, boy,” said Scott excitedly. “Show us what you got. Let’s go!”
Ralph, his tail wagging, looked from the knife he’d been sniffing to Scott, the dog’s intelligent eyes gleaming. The rest of the family all stood in Vernon’s office, witnessing this unique experiment. Mom, cradling Jacob, skeptical but willing to give it a try. Maya, even more skeptical, and Dad, who, surprisingly enough, had agreed to go along with the gag.
And then there was Vernon, of course, the manager who’d needed quite a lot of convincing to open his safe and hand them the knife. Then again, judging from the dog portraits in the guy’s office it was obvious he was a big dog person, and a dog person simply couldn’t look at Ralph and not fall in love with the lovable mutt!
Vikki, meanwhile, was the final person present, and she seemed happy enough. She was real pretty, too, Scott thought, with her blond hair and her big smile. Pity she had a boyfriend, or else he would have loved to ask her out. Not that his folks would have let him. They figured that at twelve he was way too young to ask girls out on dates. Lame-ohs.
And so it was that Scott was grinning at Vikki, who was returning his smile and making him feel all giddy inside. But then suddenly Ralph gave a loud woof and he was off!
“The game is afoot!” Dad cried, whatever that meant.
Scott held Ralph on a loose leash, even though he would have preferred to let go of the leash altogether. But there were a lot of people around now, with dinner coming up soon, and Mom and Dad didn’t want to risk Ralph scaring the crap out of some doddering old folks who might get a scare when they saw this big dog bounding up at them at full tilt.
Not that Scott could imagine anyone being scared of Ralph, who was the sweetest, kindest, loveliest dog alive!
He had a hard time keeping up as Ralph galloped through the lobby and straight into the dining room, slaloming between people already gearing up for dinner and engaging in some preprandial conversation, if preprandial was the word Scott was looking for, and then he shot through those swinging doors and into the kitchen!
Ralph, followed by a fired-up Scott, followed by Mom and Dad and Maya and Vernon with Vikki bringing up the rear, all filed into that kitchen and then the weirdest thing happened: Ralph, without hesitation, launched himself at a round-faced young woman dressed in a cook’s uniform, put his paws on her belly and barked up a storm, happy to have reached destination’s end.
“Eeeeek!” the woman yelled.
“Woof woof woof!” Ralph barked.
“Good boy!” Scott cried.
“Down, boy, down!” Dad screamed.
“What’s this horrible dog doing in my kitchen?!” a tall blond man shrieked.
“She did it!” Scott said, pointing at the woman. “She’s the killer, Dad!”
Ralph, who was like a dog with a bone, wasn’t about to let all this shouting deter him from finishing his mission. So he barked some more, jumped up against the woman some
more, and finally gave her face a good old big lick with his long tongue. She screamed, and then did something Scott had never seen anyone do in real life before: she actually fainted!
Or at least she sank to the floor, her eyes fluttering, and started breathing heavily.
“What have you done!” the tall blond man with the cook’s costume shouted. “You killed my cook! You people have just killed my cook!”
“Calm down, Sam,” said Vernon. “Alfa isn’t dead. She’s just overwrought. Isn’t that right, Alfa?”
The woman muttered something incomprehensible and Mom yelled, “Bring her some water. A glass of water! Quick!”
“Who are you to give me orders in my own kitchen?!” the man called Sam screamed.
“Water, Sam, quick,” said Vernon, and grudgingly the blond man did what he was told, filling a glass of water from the tap and carrying it over to this Alfa person.
Meanwhile, Scott had dragged Ralph away from his hapless victim, and was taking him outside where it was cold and wet and dark and still windy and terrible. At least there Ralph could get all this barking out of his system, Scott thought. And he was right. Within a few minutes the dog was howling plaintively, scratching at the kitchen door to be allowed back inside.
When he opened the door, the heat of the kitchen blasted Scott’s face. Alfa was seated on a chair, a glass of water in her hand, and she was looking dazed but alive.
“Take Ralph back upstairs,” Dad ordered the moment he caught sight of them.
“But, Dad! He caught the killer! He should get a reward!”
“Now, Scott!”
Grumbling, Scott did as he was told, and took Ralph out of the kitchen, through the dining room and up the stairs. Nice. Being punished for being the hero of the hour.
“It’s all right, Ralphie,” he said, patting the dog’s head. “You saved the day.”
Chapter 28
In the kitchen, Dee was holding the cook’s hand. She was still a little pale around the nostrils but was gradually becoming herself again.