by ACF Bookens
Davis turned to Effie on his right and said, "You're from Boston." He held out a hand. "Nice to meet you."
For a split second, I saw a wave of something – concern, fear – pass over Effie's face, but then she put out her hand and said, "Yep. Mattapan born and raised." Her accent got thick as she said the name, I assumed, of her neighborhood.
"Dorchester," Davis replied, and they began a conversation about the communities of Boston that left me both hungry to visit again and totally lost.
So I made myself content with two chicken tacos and a heaping pile of the chips Lu fried fresh every morning and listened. By the time the two Bostoners had covered their family histories, they seemed like old friends, and one look at Tuck told me that this was exactly what he had been hoping would happen.
And then, as if on cue, he said, "So I have a question for both of you. Is it expensive to have a funeral in Boston?"
Both Davis and Effie looked at the sheriff with befuddlement, but finally, Effie spoke. "I mean, Boston is definitely more expensive than here. Just like any city. But funerals aren't particularly expensive." She paused and studied Tuck's face. "Why do you ask?"
He took a big bite of enchilada and took his time chewing and swallowing before answering. I recognized his quintessential technique for looking casual while he bought time to think. He wiped his mouth with a napkin and said, "Oh, I was just curious because I'd have thought Lizzie’s, I mean, Cassandra's mom would have taken her home to be buried."
Effie nodded and studied Tuck's face a minute more. "Maybe this was just easier. Maybe they don't have a lot of family up there."
Tuck shrugged and took another monstrous bite of food, waiting, I knew, for more conversation that arose.
"I guess that's possible," Max added, "but it still seems odd. I mean, she's being buried here, right?" He pointed over toward the cemetery beside the church.
I actually didn't know the answer to that question. There hadn't been an invitation to the cemetery, so it was possible there was going to be a private burial. But it was also possible the burial wasn't taking place here at all. I looked over at Tuck, and he gave me one of those stares that meant, "Play along, Harvey."
"I expect it's going to be a private burial." I glanced over to the cemetery and was glad to see that the local funeral home had put up one of their canopies in the back corner by the large oaks. "Looks like they're getting set up now." A few men in suits were gathered, and as we watched, I saw them walk into the church and then return with Lizzie's casket, which they placed on a steel frame set over an open grave.
"Looks like it," Davis said, and I could hear some taint of something in his voice, something that sounded a lot like anger. "I wonder if I could attend."
"I doubt it," Mart said. "I guess you could crash, but if the congregation wasn't invited during the service, it probably means Mrs. Leicht prefers to be alone."
Davis gave a curt nod and then glanced back at the funeral home tent. Effie studied him, then the grave, then him again before she caught me watching her and dropped her eyes. "It does seem strange," she said, "to have her buried here, but I expect she has her reasons." Effie shrugged and finished the last bite of her enchilada. Then she wiped her mouth and stood. "Thank you for inviting me for lunch. I think I'm going to take in that maritime museum, if it's worth it."
"Definitely worth it," Mart said as she stood. "Let me walk you over and introduce you to our friend Lucas, the director. Maybe he'll have time to give you a special tour."
Effie's face lit up. "Oh, I'd love that. I'm a bit of a military history buff, naval stuff mostly." She waved, and Mart gave me a sly wink as she walked away. She was up to something.
I began gathering the trash and carrying it to the trash can Lu had set out by the truck, and when I turned back to the table, Davis was gone, wheeling his way toward the cemetery. So much for manners, I thought, and started to head toward him to ask that he please respect Mrs. Leicht's wishes when Tuck caught my eye and shook his head just slightly.
I stared at him a minute, and he gave me "the look" again. So I finished cleaning up and then went to Lu's window. "This was all a big set-up wasn't it?" I said quietly.
She smiled. "Hey, you got your tacos out of it." She slid a plate with her amazing flan on it in my direction. "A little thanks for catching on so quickly."
I grinned and took the plate back to the table with the three forks she'd given me, and Tuck, Max, and I devoured the delicious pudding in seconds flat. Then, after a quick look around to be sure we were alone, I said, "What in the world is going on, Tuck?"
He smirked at me and then winked at Max, who surprisingly was also grinning like the Cheshire Cat. "Wait, am I the only one not in on this?"
A furrow appeared on Max's brow as he saw my expression. "Oh no, we've hurt your feelings. He reached across and patted my hand. "I'm so sorry."
I braced myself for some snide comment, some dismissive remark. But none came. He just squeezed my finger one more time and then looked to Tuck.
"I know, Harvey. It was an unkind thing to do to a friend, but we needed you to not know what was happening because—" he faltered for a minute.
"Because I don't have a poker face and have a really hard time keeping a secret." My shoulders dropped, and I knew he was right. It still stung that my friends hadn't trusted me with whatever they were planning, but I knew that my hurt feelings were incidental if this was about finding a murderer. "Okay, we can address that later, but can you tell me what's up now?"
Tuck licked the back of his spoon and then looked at me. "Lizzie is not being buried here. That was all a ruse. I asked Mrs. Leicht if we could stage a funeral here just to see who might turn up, and it worked. All of our suspects were here."
"All of them? You mean more than just Davis and Effie?" I stared at my friend and tried to think like an investigator, and like that, a light went off. "And Mrs. Leicht! You got her to play along so you could keep her close."
A single finger to the side of Tuck's nose signaled I was right. "It gave me a bit more time to look into things if everyone stayed in town, and I got to see two of our suspects interact up close and personal."
Max smiled and looked at me. "Lunch was part of the plan, too," he said.
"And this?" I gestured over to where Mrs. Leicht and Davis were disagreeing, in even louder and louder tones, near the fresh grave.
"Part of it, too," Tuck said as he stood, "although it is getting heated. I told her to ask him to leave if he came over, but I wasn't expecting a fight." Tuck jogged toward the altercation, and at the same moment he reached the two people, Mrs. Leicht pulled back her arm and got ready to throw a punch.
Fortunately, Tuck held her back, and Davis – face red and sweaty – moved back, too. We'd almost had fist-fight in a church cemetery. I leaned over to Max, who had joined me at standing by the edge of the graveyard. "I take it that wasn't part of the plan."
He shook his head but then smiled just a little, and I found myself smiling too.
Davis got into a van and peeled out of the parking a few moments later, and after Tuck had given us a subtle nod, Max and I departed, too, with a wave of thanks to Lu. We walked back to Main Street in silence, and while I felt like I should say something, I couldn't figure out what that something should be. So I didn't say anything, and when we parted at the door to his restaurant, I was glad we hadn't. It wasn't time for whatever we wanted or needed to say between us. Might not be for a while yet, and that was okay, too.
Back at the shop, the store was humming, not with the frenzy of yesterday but steadily. Between people coming in to see if we had any remaining tickets – which we didn't – and a steady stream of locals breaking forth into the world after our intense cold snap, we were busy, and I was glad.
While I tidied shelves and filled holes in our window displays, I pondered Lizzie's death, and I kept coming back to her prosthetic arm. Where was it exactly? I'm sure Tuck would have told me if it had been in her apartment somewhere �
� they'd searched it the day after she died – so where was it? The most obvious answer was that it had been stolen, but as Mrs. Leicht said, it was custom-made for Lizzie. But maybe it was easier to alter/adjust/modify – I didn't know what verb was right – an existing arm than to create a new one.
I knew that was probably the simple truth – a theft to go along with the murder – but something about that didn't feel right, especially since there wasn't any trace of a break-in back at her apartment in Boston and so few people knew she was here. No, something is off with that idea.
I grabbed a huge stack of magazines from the tote in the back of the store and began to organize and refill our rack. Tuck had said the arm had a serial number that was easily traceable, but nothing had come up on a search. So either the person who stole the arm wasn't trying to sell it or have it modified and was laying low for a while, which was plausible, I guess. Or it wasn't stolen, and Lizzie had kept it somewhere.
Again, I found myself backed up against a case of too little information, and without butting in where I wasn't welcome, I didn't have any way of learning more. But not learning more wasn't really feeling like an option at the moment, so I took out my phone, ready to call the B&B where Mrs. Leicht had mentioned she was staying. I needed to get into Lizzie's apartment here in town and look around.
But before I could dial, Mart texted. "You’re going to LOVE this," her message said.
I started to text her back, but just then, Tuck came in with Effie close behind him.
"Harvey, can we chat a minute?" The sheriff's voice was light, but his expression was serious. I gave a curt nod, caught Marcus's eye, and saw his thumbs up in return as I led Tuck and Effie to the back room.
"What's up, Tuck? Everything okay." I looked from him to Effie and back again. Effie nodded to the chair and then looked at me, waiting for approval to sit.
"Of course," I said before sitting, too. "This seems serious. Is everything okay?"
Tuck took the third seat at the table and looked at me. "I've just learned that Effie here is with the FBI."
10
"In Boston?" My brain was trying hard to put all the pieces together, and since the only real thing I knew was that Effie was from Boston and knew Galen, my synapses were trying to connect what details I had.
"Yes, actually." She smiled at me. "I haven't actually lied to you."
I felt like that was supposed to be comforting, but when someone says they haven't lied, it implies either that they are lying now or that lying might not be the big concern here. "Okaay," I said slowly.
"I'm investigating a series of suspicious disappearances of people within the disability rights community there. Lizzie wasn't the first." She put her phone on the table and opened what looked like a file of documents. Then, she stopped at an image and handed the phone to me.
"This man went missing three months ago. He is blind." She paused and looked at Tuck, who nodded, before continuing. "He's recently undergone an experimental surgery using prosthetic corneas."
"They can do that," I blurted and then quickly blushed as I realized I'd missed the larger bit about him being missing. "Sorry. So he's still missing?"
"He is. And so are about five other people who have recently received prosthetic devices, state of the art ones. We're pretty sure there's a connection." She looked at me then as if she was waiting for me to say something.
And boy did I have things to say. All the words wanted to tumble out of my mouth at once, but instead of sharing actually useful information I said, "I feel like I'm in a thriller. Is James Patterson recording this as research?" I pretended to look around for hidden cameras until my eyes landed on Tuck's disapproving expression.
"Agent Li, Harvey has a tendency to turn everything into a plotline when she's nervous." Tuck gave the agent a knowing look and then smirked at me.
"Well, it doesn't help when you call her Agent Li," I said as I rolled my eyes.
"Please, call me Effie. It's easier for everyone and a lot less intense." She smiled, and I felt my nervousness dissipate a little.
"Actually, I'm so glad you told me, because I've been trying to figure out what the prosthetic arm that Mrs. Leicht mentioned has been bugging me so much. I mean, something like that—"
Effie interrupted. "Mrs. Leicht told you about Lizzie's arm?"
The tone of her voice slowed me way down, and I studied her face for a moment. "Yeah, she mentioned that it was missing and that it seemed odd that Lizzie, I mean Cassandra, hadn't brought it here with her." I sat back in my chair and let my mind slide over the questions I'd had. "But she said it wasn't in Lizzie's apartment, and I couldn't imagine Lizzie leaving behind something so expensive. So it just got me thinking, I guess." I didn't have anything concrete to share about my wild imaginations that Lizzie might have stashed the arm somewhere, so I stopped talking.
"Well, I'd really like to talk this through with both of you," Effie said. "It seems like you've got a nose for the kind of lateral thinking that investigations require, Harvey."
Tuck tried to cover up his groan with a cough. "Um, go ahead, Agent Li." His voice was casual, but he was giving me the "You aren't getting in the middle of this" death stare.
"Well, it's probably important for you to know that Cassandra did not use her prosthetic arm often. In fact, from what we've gathered, she only used it once, the first day she got it. After that, she never put it on."
"Did it hurt or something? Or didn't it work well?" I asked.
"Actually, it worked just fine, at least that's what her colleagues said, and no one heard her complain about discomfort." Effie leaned back and rested one forearm on the chair back behind her. "She'd had extensive training on how to use the arm and it had been fit at the company where it was made. No, this seems to be more about Cassandra's preferences."
Tuck leaned into the table further. "She didn't want to wear the prosthetic? Then why have it made?"
That question was a much more delicate and appropriate one than what I had wanted to ask. I had been about to say, "Why wouldn't she want her arm back?" which with a second of pause, I realized was quite the ableist thing to say. To presume that Lizzie, or anyone with a disability, wanted to get rid of that disability implies that there is something defective about that person. That's what I'd learned in all my reading about disability rights.
"That's what we don't know. I've been working this case for about nine months now, and it seems like a lot of people pressure their loved ones who might use assistive devices to get them, even if the person doesn't want to." She ran her fingers through her black hair. "It takes a lot of will power to stand up to that kind of pressure."
"Especially if it might go on for the rest of your life," I said with a shake of my head. "I probably would have caved, too. I can't even take the peer pressure over eating at a restaurant I don't really like much less a fundamental element about how I live my life."
I thought of the way Stephen had recently coerced me into going out for sushi by saying I'd probably like nori and could just get the rolls with rice. I had been skeptical and suggested a fusion place where I could get other things. But he really wanted this particular sushi restaurant, so I went along and learned quickly that my aversion to seafood needs to broaden to include anything that lives in water, especially nori.
"And even more especially if that someone is your mother," Effie added with a pointed look at me from the corner of her eye.
I sighed. "Well, that explains why Mrs. Leicht was so curious about it, I guess." I remembered Lizzie's mom's face when she'd been telling me. I'd taken that gleam in her eye as sadness, but maybe there had been a little anger there, too.
Tuck cleared his throat. "That’s the thing. We don’t understand Mrs. Leicht’s motivations. Why is she here? Is she trying to play up the grieving mother bit, or is this something else?"
I thought about my conversations with Mrs. Leicht and had to admit she had been a little cold. Well, a lot cold. But my own mother wasn’t the warm and
fuzzy type, so it hadn’t really put me off. Maybe I’d missed something. Could Mrs. Leicht really have killed her own daughter? "So you think she made up that whole thing about hearing the hotel clerks talking just to throw us off?"
Effie shrugged as she paced around the room. "Maybe." She stopped at the large whiteboard I had tucked into the corner, a leftover part of one of my most misguided attempts to "assist" in an investigation, and said, "Mind if I use this?
I shrugged, and she pulled it out and grabbed the blue marker still on the tray below it. "We know that all the missing people, including Cassandra, had assistive devices that were designed to accommodate their disability in some way. But we also know that none of these people chose to use their devices on a regular basis." She wrote "Had them/hated them" on the board.
"How many people are we talking about here?" I asked.
"Twelve," Tuck said as he turned his chair to see the white board more fully. "Didn't you say twelve over the last fifteen months?"
"That's right. All of them are in the Boston area. All of them received the most technologically advanced devices out there." She made more notes on the board.
I stretched and got my brain in gear again. "Did all of them have family or friends who pressured them to use the devices?"
"Oh, that's a good question. Let me think." Effie put the pen in her mouth and stared off into the middle distance. "Cassandra's mom told her she needed it to look "whole and complete" again."
"Oof," I said as Effie continued.
"This man's sister said he couldn't really be a good farmer unless he could run all the equipment without devices. 'Real men didn't need their hands to do what their feet should.'" She raised her eyebrows and looked at Tuck and I. "That's an exact quote."
One by one, Effie ticked off the people who were missing, and a couple of moments later she said, "Yep, everyone had gotten considerable pressure to use their devices. Now that's an angle I'd missed until now. Thanks, Harvey."
I blushed and felt my ego grow two sizes bigger, like the Grinch's heart, and wondered how Tuck would keep me in check now. The glare he shot my way was my answer.