Unaccounted For

by Nan Willard Cappo

  “Look,” Zaffer said encouragingly. “I like Gordon Pearce for the robbery. The van log, missing the funeral, and now these matches? Very sketchy. The police would find that sketchy.”

  “If we’d reported it,” Milo said.

  “Oh. I forgot about that.” Still Zaffer plowed ahead. “So Pearce had the means. But the motive, Shoe! What’s the motive? This is a Wolverine vice president we’re talking about—it was a big risk. It’s gotta be that missing million.” He eyed Milo measuringly from behind the safety of the umbrella. “I’m just brainstorming here–but is it possible your dad and Pearce were in cahoots? So after your dad dies—by accident, sheer bad luck—Pearce knows there could be incriminating evidence, because he and your dad were, you know…partners?”

  Milo shook his head so hard he got a fiery twinge in his neck and had to massage it. “My dad called Pearce Jekyll and Hyde. He’d never have worked with him. Besides, you’re right. That damn restitution schedule is a confession.”

  “Maybe he drew that up to show Farnon how to pay back money the two of them stole—except Pearce double-crossed him!” Zaffer couldn’t hide his enthusiasm for this new theory. Why not? It wasn’t Zaffer’s father they were dissecting. “I mean, wouldn’t that make more sense? How could just one guy steal all that money?”

  Through the window a little girl’s shrill cry floated in. “I’m telling on you, Darnell!”

  “Now who’s calling Pearce a murderer?” Milo said irritably. “If they were partners and my dad wanted to come clean, it’s a little much to think he died by ‘sheer bad luck.’”

  Zaffer took a breath. “Maybe he didn’t.”

  There it was again. Murder. Yet even the pleasing thought of nailing Pearce for a bigger crime than robbery couldn’t make Milo embrace this notion. No way would his father have connived with anyone, let alone the oily Pearce, to defraud his hero Alf Farnon. If Tim Shoemaker had embezzled money to feed his gambling addiction, he’d have done it quietly, alone, intending always to pay it back. That meticulous schedule was exactly like him; taking Pearce as a partner was not.

  But you never thought he’d gamble, either. Grudgingly Milo said, “I guess we can’t rule it out.”

  If true, Zaffer’s idea only meant Tim the crook had been outmaneuvered by a bigger crook. No honor was restored. In fact, given Milo’s and his mother’s earlier assumption—that Tim had staged his suicide to look like an accident so his family could collect life insurance—it put his father in the worst light to date.

  Milo grabbed the umbrella from Zaffer . “And stop screwing with that, it’s just a stupid—aahh!” A lethal length of bright steel shot out, missing his stomach by an inch, as shocking as a rattler under a baby carriage.

  “A sword!” Zaffer turned over the tag tied to the umbrella’s sheath. “No wonder it’s eighty-five bucks. ‘Umbrella rapier.’ What’s a rapier? Sounds like a pervert.”

  “A sword.” Milo’s shock turned to laughter. When Mr. Zaffer pushed the door open a few seconds later he found his son fencing with Milo, who was defending himself with a garden gnome.

  “Aren’t you boys done yet? We’re closing up—well, well, well.” Zaffer was bowing and pointing the sword at the “Ready to Photo” shelves, now cleared, while the “Ready to Bid” shelves were full. “Very good, Benny. I see you work faster with your friend here. All right, Milo, choose something. A deal is a deal.”

  Milo set down his gnome. Still protesting that he didn’t need a reward (though he wouldn’t have minded that umbrella), he moved between the shelves. In the jewelry section he asked, “How about this?”

  Mr. Zaffer held up the fine gold chain with a single heart-shaped charm. Twenty dollars. “Very nice,” he said, and began to wrap it in tissue paper.

  Behind him Zaffer wolf-whistled. “Don’t we know someone who has one of those?”

  “Yes, and Jenny loved it,” Milo said calmly. “Mr. Zaffer, can you shorten that chain?”

  “Ooh, Ellie’s right—you are so thoughtful.” Zaffer chucked him under the chin. “She thinks you’re the best brother ever, you should hear her, she sounds just like a regular girl—”

  Milo shoved him away. Zaffer was so immature. It would be foolish to take any of his theories seriously.

  Milo parked in his driveway, but didn’t go in right away. It was only 10:30. The night was milk-warm and soft. He walked around their little cul-de-sac, idly glancing at the bluish light of TVs flickering behind living room curtains. Whoever had finally bought the house at the bottom of the court must like The Police. He recognized the song coming from an upstairs window as a favorite of his mother’s. “Every Step You Take.”

  Milo walked on, imagining the reaction of their own police in Valeene. Listen, he’d say, my dad was killed by a corrupt senior executive at Wolverine Motors. That’s right, the company that gave you that new fire truck. And the same guy robbed our house—no, we never called it in, but look at these matches!

  They might manage to hold their laughter until he left.

  Yet in the back room of the pawn shop an hour ago it had sounded…possible. Even plausible. Or do you just want to believe it?

  Zaffer was childish, but he was smart. If there was any possibility Gordon Pearce had framed Tim Shoemaker—whether Tim had been victim or accomplice or both—Milo had to know.

  He pulled out his phone and speed-dialed. “My mom’s taking the twins up north next week,” he said.

  “All right! Party at Shoe’s house!”

  Behind him the song played on. I’ll be watching you.

  “It means she won’t care where I am. What does your brother—and I don’t mean Sammy—know about following people?”

  ***

  Chapter 12

  The following Sunday Zaffer stopped by just in time to help Milo load his mother’s car for their week at Uncle Paulie’s cottage up in the Thumb. Fortunately, Gloria didn’t make them wait for the last batch of cupcakes to come out of the oven, so it wasn’t long before Milo was able to make his good-byes.

  “I left you plenty of food in the freezer. Don’t use the air conditioner unless you’re dying, use the fan. Water my tomatoes. Feed the fish. And have fun!” his mother ordered.

  “I’ll be fine. Don’t let the little beasts get you down.” One more round of hugs and he was free.

  In the truck, Zaffer tossed a book into his lap. “Check that out.”

  “Do-It-Yourself Detecting,” Milo read. “Any good?”

  “I got it from Richie.” Richie was the law-enforcing, not the law-bending, Zaffer brother. Zaffer slowed the truck so that Joey, racing them to the stop sign on the corner, could reach it just as they did. Zaffer tooted the horn and Joey waved back, sweating and triumphant. “You want the goods on Pearce, right? This’ll help us get them.”

  “You mean like where he was the day of the funeral? What he had against my dad, why he gives me the evil eye every time he sees me? That’s in here?”

  “No, Shoe, we’ll have to figure that out ourselves,” Zaffer said with exaggerated patience. “The book’ll help us find out how much money Pearce makes, and maybe what he buys; if he’s got a criminal record; if Pearce is his only name, where he lives, who he’s been married to—and that’s for starters. One piece of information leads to another, and bingo—your target’s an open book.”

  Milo hid his skepticism. The Book of Pearce held just one page he cared about—the one on Tim Shoemaker.

  The Joy Train Diner outside Blissfield had once been an actual train car. Now the jukeboxes on each table shared space with laptops—Joy offered free wireless, in case her cherry pie was not enough of a draw. Even on a Sunday night the place was crowded. At one of the café tables outside the front door, a group of swarthy men with mustaches bushier than Uncle Paulie’s smoked unfiltered cigarettes and argued world problems in a furious-sounding language—Albanian? Hungarian?—Milo couldn’t tell. He and Zaffer waited till they got inside to speculate on how those guys ended up in the cornfields o
f Lenawee County. Milo said their car had broken down on the way to Toronto. Zaffer said no, they were location scouts for an international film crew, now that so many movies were made in Michigan.

  They were still debating whether Valeene could pass for Romania when a paunchy man with an earring showed them to a corner booth. This was not the usual waitress. Milo looked at Zaffer.

  “Joy’s husband,” Zaffer said. He handed a cord to Milo to plug in under the table. “He got laid off from Chrysler, so he’s helping out for a while.”

  Mr. Joy Train—his plastic name badge said “Tony”—came back, carrying menus under his armpit and holding two water glasses by the finger and thumb of one hand. Milo hoped his dream job wasn’t in table service.

  Zaffer slipped his laptop out of his backpack. This was a beige and gray camouflage pattern that would disappear in desert twilight.

  “Is that new?” Milo asked.

  “Yep. Cabela’s.”

  “Well, give me back mine, then.” His tone was a little testy. The bag he’d lent Zaffer had been his father’s.

  “Sorry, Shoe. It’s in the shop, I’ll bring it over next week.”

  They ordered hamburgers and got down to business.

  “I’ll read, you type.” Milo read out one of the web sites Slam Matous recommended in the chapter, ‘A Bum by Any Other Name.’

  “Publicrecordfinder.com. Got it,” Zaffer said. He typed in “Valeene, Michigan, Gordon Pearce.”

  No hits. He tried Adrian. Then Detroit, Monroe, Ann Arbor. Nothing. Jackson, Saline, Ypsilanti. No luck.

  When their food arrived, they took a break. “There must be one that’ll search the whole state. Or country—what if he lives over the Ohio line?” Milo used the hand not holding his burger to flip through the PI book. Then he commandeered the computer and tried variations of Pearce’s name. Finally, using Gordon L. Pearce—the name Milo had seen on the diploma in Pearce’s office—they hit pay dirt.

  Gordon L. Pearce. Seven years earlier, this Pearce, then thirty-three, had served eighteen months in an Indiana prison for breaking and entering. Acquitted of arson. AKA “George Leonard,” “G. Leonard Pearce,” and “Lenny Pearce.”

  Zaffer was speechless, but only for a second. He beamed across the table. “I’d have picked him for a white collar criminal, all those fancy suits. And him a college graduate!”

  “So he claims. Maybe he printed the diploma in prison.” Milo was impressed. Not all Zaffer’s schemes panned out—his ploy for two to eat for the price of one at the No Limit Lenten Fish Fry had gotten them both thrown out of St. Matt’s. But tonight, Zaffer’s man had delivered the goods. Cautiously he added, “At least, it’s a Bad Guy. He might not be our Bad Guy.”

  “Leonard Brothers, Shoe! How many Bad Guys named Leonard do you think there are?”

  Above their heads a voice asked, “Is this a guessing game? Can I play?”

  Ellie Farnon stood by their booth in shorts so brief Tony delivered two Joy Burgers to the wrong table. The Albanians, who’d moved inside to order, were temporarily struck dumb.

  “Hey!” Milo slid over before Zaffer could. “How’d you find us?” The Joy Train was a good fifteen miles from Valeene.

  “Your mom. I had some old toys I thought the twins might like, so I took them by and caught them as they were leaving. She said I just missed you.” Ellie’s smile faltered. “Is it okay that I’m here? I hate Sundays. But if this is Guys Night Out or—”

  “It’s great,” Zaffer interrupted. “Order. Eat.”

  How had she known where he lived? The phone book, Milo supposed. It wouldn’t take Slam Matous to find the one Shoemaker listing in Valeene. College girls were...not bolder than Valeene High girls, but more...resourceful? Confident? Milo couldn’t think of the word for what made Ellie Farnon different from girls he’d known at school. Bossy, maybe. With a hint of wistfulness so fleeting you might have imagined it. Well. Apparently there was more than one word.

  Tony took her order for chili fries. After he cleared the boys’ plates—hastened on his way by a narrow-eyed look from Joy herself, leaning her beefy arms on the window to the kitchen—Ellie nodded toward the laptop. “Who’s a Bad Guy?” She leaned across Milo to see the screen. Her hair smelled of cinnamon. “‘Gordon L. Pearce.’ Our Gordon? Is he bad?” She read more. “Arson! Breaking and entering!” She sat back, wide-eyed.

  Zaffer glanced across the table. This was Milo’s caper.

  “We have reason to believe,” Milo said, in his best CSI manner, “Mr. Pearce may know more than he should about a robbery at the Shoemaker residence the morning of January fourth of this year.”

  “Somebody robbed your house?”

  “Yeah. During the funeral.”

  “Oh, Milo! That so stinks.” Her eyes flicked back to the screen. “But what makes you think it was Pearce?”

  Zaffer couldn’t stay quiet. “Because one of Shoe’s neighbors saw a van in his driveway just like a Wolverine van Pearce had signed out. The robbers left a matchbook, and Pearce’s secretary keeps the same kind on her desk.”

  Milo kicked him under the table, hard. This was Alf Farnon’s daughter. “Ellie—this can’t go any further than us. You can’t tell your father a thing until we get real proof. Or Pearce could sue us for God knows what.”

  She made a zippering motion across her lips, her eyes shining with interest. “But why—”

  Zaffer’s phone played the opening bars of “The Marine Hymn.” “Sorry,” he said, and answered it. “Yo….out with Milo…Blissfield, why?... What’s wrong with their cars?” He scowled. “Oh, all right. Where is it then?” When he hung up his normally good-natured face was annoyed.

  “My sister needs picked up from a skating rink over in Dundee, and I’m the only brother dumb enough to answer his phone.” He glanced speculatively at Ellie, whose food hadn’t arrived yet.

  “Don’t mind me,” she said at once. “You guys go. I understand.”

  “No, no, I was just wondering…I won’t have room for Milo, with Carla and her pal in the cab.” His foot nudged Milo’s, while his face kept its innocent, hesitant look.

  “Oh! I can take you home,” Ellie said to Milo. “If that’s okay?”

  He could bear it.

  Zaffer packed his computer away. “I’m sorry about this. It’s my one night off, too, I can’t believe I have to…anyway, call you later,” he said, presumably meaning Milo, and after dropping a ten on the table, left.

  Ellie’s food arrived, and she moved to the other side of the booth. “Where were we? Oh, Pearce robbing your house. It’s so…strange!” She didn’t say it was incredible, but there was enough of that in her tone to make Milo choose his words with care.

  “We don’t know for sure it was him,” he said. “But Zaffer’s right. He did have a van signed out that day, and according to my neighbor, the robbers’ van said ‘Leonard Brothers Catering’ on it. And our Pearce’s middle initial is ‘L.’”

  “What kind of matches?”

  “Motor City Casino. In Detroit.”

  Something flickered in her face. “Linda Pecora had the same kind? That might not be fishy at all. She organized our employee outing in May over to Detroit—I almost went but I get sick on buses. They could just be from then.”

  “They could be. And Pearce’s middle name could be Lawrence, or Lionel, and this could all mean nothing. So we don’t say anything till we’re sure.”

  She chewed a chili fry with concentration. “It’s Leo-nard.”

  Milo’s pulse jumped.

  Ellie offered him a fry. “So Pearce is a Second Chancer,” she mused. “Well, well. I had no idea. I hope you’re right about him being a robber. I hate that guy.”

  Milo had been certain her next words would be “But why would he rob your house?” He was happy to push the conversation down another path. “Why?”

  “Because he looks at me like he’s wearing those glasses that let you see through people’s clothes. I told my dad once how creepy Pearce is and
he said get over it, the guy is a financial wizard. I said I thought he was the wizard behind Wolverine—that’s what all the news articles say—and he said he was good at finding new markets and products, but Gordon was better at financing them. And if I couldn’t be polite to him, I should just stay out of his way.” She shuddered.

  Milo remembered Pearce’s grip on her arms on that first day of work. The leer as the guy checked her out. Had Alf Farnon really said “Get over it?”

  “How long has Pearce been at Wolverine?” he asked.

  “I met him at my mother’s funeral. So at least three years.” She pushed her plate away. “My dad’s always worked a lot, but since she died that’s all he’s done. I mean, I realize what he does is important. Valeene’s a different town these days, I see that. And probably it takes a fanatic to make that happen. I’m not complaining.”

  “But you spend summers at the plant.” Milo ate another fry.

  “Well, sure. This is my home.” She took sugar packets out of the wire holder and began to build little houses with them. “This past Christmas Daddy was even more distracted than usual—I’d be talking about school and he’d come over and hug me like I was leaving for war. That was new. I said is something wrong? And he said no, just too much work. But it felt…different.”

  Milo thought of Clyde the usher. The railcar deal had been brewing right around that time.

  Ellie brushed a strand of hair away from her face and looked at Milo with defiance. “My friend from school didn’t really break her leg—I just told him that. She went to Spain with her cousin when I decided to work at the plant again. I just thought…I should be here.”

  She wedged a Sweet ‘n Low packet into her construction project with scientific absorption. Her voice dropped. “We haven’t handled things as well as your family.”

  Her hair swung over her face, hiding it. The clatter of cutlery, the buzz of conversation, set them apart in a little island of intimacy. She thought his family was “handling” his father’s suicide well? Was that why she liked him? She wanted lessons in coping? Well. Milo supposed he did have the edge over Zaffer in the matter of dead parents. Maybe that bond was the only bond he and Ellie Farnon shared.