Murder Most Unlucky: A Cozy Mystery (A Carolyn Neville Mystery Book 5)

by John Duckworth

  My hair was a mess, my hands muddy.

  Turning the key in the ignition, I headed for Albert’s place.

  Chapter 22

  Dripping wet, I watched as Stephen and Stuart lowered the trunk onto the living room floor. The mud was an almost perfect match for Albert’s carpet.

  I wanted to change my clothes and grab a hair dryer, but that would have to wait.

  Stephen lifted the lid. “Man, that smell,” cried. “Did something die in here, or what?”

  “Probably,” Albert said. “Could be a mole, maybe a prairie dog.”

  “In that case, you can unwrap the plates yourself.”

  “Be glad to,” the old man said proudly. “Been a long time.”

  The plastic was wet. Gingerly Albert peeled it off, then wiped his hands on his pants.

  He held up the plates, one in each hand. I stepped closer to get a better look.

  “Anybody got a fifty?” I asked. “A real one, I mean.”

  Nobody did, of course.

  The plates looked authentic, but I was no numismatist. All I knew was that the image of Ulysses S. Grant was backward. Which it was supposed to be.

  Stephen washed his hands in the sink, then took out his phone. A minute or so of Web surfing left him paler than usual.

  “Oh, cripes. Did you know having counterfeit money is Criminal Possession of a Forged Instrument in the First Degree, which is also a class C felony?”

  Albert grinned. “Just part of the fun.”

  “Says you. And I quote: ‘You are guilty of this offense if you knowingly present counterfeit currency to another person in a fraudulent attempt to acquire goods or services with it.’”

  “Which is exactly what we’re going to do,” I said.

  “Extenuating circumstances,” Stuart declared. “Self-defense. A matter of life and death.”

  Albert set the plates on the couch. “How you gonna get the money printed? Ain’t no offset presses within 200 miles.”

  “That’s Carolyn’s job,” Stephen said.

  The old man shook his head. “You know any printers smart enough to pull this off but dumb enough to actually do it?”

  I thought for a moment.

  “Yeah, I do. Been almost twenty years since I did a press check at Ottoman Lithographics in Tennessee. Wonder whether they’re still in business.”

  If what I’d read a couple of years ago in Publishers Weekly was true, they’d be perfect.

  Unfortunately.

  Next day at noon a hastily arranged flight brought me to Nashville International Airport. As we descended I could see the Parthenon. Not the Greek one, just a concrete replica in a downtown park.

  Ottoman Lithographics was a red-brick former warehouse high as Hoover Dam and wide as a city block, in a part of town where no sane person would venture at night without a whole crate of pepper spray.

  It was pretty much as I remembered, only grimier, and the memories it brought back made me shudder.

  I’d come here alone to check the colors and registration of Stuart’s second children’s book, The Very Hangry Blue Gorilla. The cigar-smoking, union-protected, bullet-headed foreman had treated me as if I were a neophyte, which I was. When I questioned whether there was too much magenta on the simian’s cheeks, he’d removed the cigar from his mouth and snorted.

  “Cost five thousand big ones to make a change at this stage.”

  I’d held my ground for a good 60 seconds.

  I hoped he was dead by now.

  In the old days, Ottoman was known mainly for two things: producing half the Midwest’s phone books on its massive web presses, which had been lowered through the roof by a helicopter—and printing a soft-core, now-defunct porn magazine called Duke.

  Climbing the front steps now, I noticed the parking lot was half empty. The magazine market had withered, and hardly anybody used phone books anymore. Maybe they’d be desperate enough to take on a job that could earn the ire of the Secret Service and land them all in prison.

  There was no receptionist. I found the front office and asked the drowsy secretary, a woman doing a crossword puzzle, who to talk to about a major print job.

  She put down her pencil. “Major? Really?”

  “Has to be done right.”

  For a moment she looked worried, then seemed to remind herself she’d have to exude confidence if she wanted her next paycheck.

  She picked up the phone, called somebody and pointed to the inner door.

  “In there’s your man. Jimmy Irving.”

  I thanked her, went inside, and discovered Mr. Bullet Head had moved to management. Still smoking cigars, though, with his sleeves rolled up.

  A spark of recognition seemed to go off in his brain, then faded. He tapped the ashes from his cigar in a glazed pottery topless mermaid dish.

  “Help you?” he asked, grinning a grin that revealed one gold tooth.

  “I need you to do something impossible.”

  “Uh-huh. Well, the difficult we do immediately. The impossible takes a little longer.”

  I’d seen that somewhere before. I think it was in Unbearable Cliché magazine.

  “I made that up,” he added.

  “No you didn’t.”

  He looked out the window. “Take a seat and enlighten me.”

  I sat across from him. “Are we being recorded?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Now you got my interest.”

  I explained the situation, starting with miniature golf but leaving out Stuart’s name, the word Boudreaux, and the Amish parts. Also the stories about using tin snips on people’s knuckle bones and the scary legal stuff Stephen had found online.

  “We only need to print enough counterfeit money to fill a briefcase. And only temporarily. I’d be willing to sign something saying it’s all my fault, that your company had no intent to defraud anyone.”

  He tapped more ashes from his cigar. “How much you willing to pay?”

  Trying to sound casual, I named a figure.

  He chuckled.

  I named another.

  He shook his head.

  “I could throw in a freezer full of venison,” I offered.

  He took the cigar from his mouth and looked at me as if I were crazy, possibly dangerous.

  “And I promise not to do a press check.”

  He lifted his chin. His eyes narrowed.

  “Wait a minute. I remember you.”

  I swallowed.

  “What was it, twenty years ago?”

  “In that neighborhood.”

  He took a puff of the cigar. “Our lawyer’s been . . . incarcerated temporarily due to a little misunderstanding. Think you can draw up the paperwork?”

  I nodded.

  “Good. How long has that deer been in the icebox?”

  “It’s practically fresh.”

  I wasn’t sure the USDA would agree. But I was an editor, not a meat inspector.

  “Then we got a deal,” he said, and winked.

  Chapter 23

  I was back at the motel by suppertime and picked up Stephen and Stuart.

  “How’d it go?” Stephen asked.

  “They went for it. Going to cost us, though.”

  Stuart wrung his hands. “How much?”

  “I’ll explain later.”

  When I got to Albert’s underground paradise, he greeted us at the door.

  “Hope you brought your appetite. I’m about to thaw dinner.”

  I shuddered. “Not more chicken legs.”

  He shook his head. “Velma.”

  I stared. Shades of Hannibal Lecter.

  “Who’s Velma?”

  He motioned us toward the couch. “That’s what I named the buck.”

  “Thank God,” I said. “For a minute I thought—”

  Then I remembered. “Stop!”

  “How come?”

  “Had to give up the venison to sweeten the deal. Cash and dead deer for a print run.”

  Albert frowned.

  �
�Glad to hear I don’t have to eat it,” Stephen said. “But that’s not exactly a freezer full of venison.”

  I told him how much I’d promised to pay.

  “That’s a bargain.”

  Albert sighed. “I got canned chili. Don’t think it’s expired yet.” He headed for the kitchen.

  We sat down. “I have to draw up some paperwork. To keep Ottoman Lithographics smelling like a rose.”

  Albert yelled from the kitchen. “How green should chili be?”

  Stuart put his fist to his mouth as if it might calm his stomach.

  I picked up Albert’s landline. “Stephen, you remember the woman in Legal who helped when I was in jail? Flew all the way to Seattle in the middle of the night.”

  Stuart lowered his hand. “You were in jail?”

  “Don’t ask,” I said.

  Stephen nodded. “Gina Casebeer.”

  “Thought I’d get her advice.”

  A tired voice answered. She always sounded exhausted. Or maybe it was only when she heard from me.

  “This is Carolyn Neville.”

  There was a long pause. “Oh,” she said flatly.

  “I know it’s two hours later in New York.”

  “But you seem to have called anyway.”

  “I’ve got a legal problem.”

  “Are you incarcerated?”

  “Not yet.”

  She sighed. “I’ve been running myself ragged leading a two-day copyright seminar—trying to explain concepts that your boss, Mr. Thicke, can’t seem to understand.”

  “I’ll get right to the point. I need to get some counterfeit money printed to save the life of one of our authors who’s in debt to a loan shark.” Clearly demented, even for me.

  Silence.

  “The company that’s going to do it needs a letter exonerating them.”

  Remarkably, more silence.

  “Ms. Neville, if I assist in any way, I’ll lose my license to practice law. I suggest you all turn yourselves in to the police or FBI and give the plates to the Secret Service.”

  “So you’re . . . reluctant.”

  “And you’re perceptive. The best I can do is pretend we never had this conversation.”

  No point in arguing. “Thanks,” I said, and hung up.

  Couldn’t afford to burn that bridge. Unless I died or she quit, we’d probably run into each other again.

  “Success?” Stephen asked.

  “Not exactly. She’s got too much sense for my own good.”

  I got on the Internet and found one of those sites that helps you write your canned last will and testament. Not surprisingly, there were no forms for disclaimers absolving others of felonies.

  I scratched my chin. The last novel I’d edited for Harrison Yoder had a written confession in it. It was the closest thing I could think of.

  On Amazon I downloaded the e-book and found the right page, then put my phone away.

  “Dinner is served,” Albert yelled from the kitchen.

  Stuart blanched.

  Stephen leaned forward. “I vote for take-out,” he whispered.

  Albert appeared in the doorway, wiping his hands on a none-too-clean dish towel.

  “Something’s come up,” I said.

  Stuart put his hand to his lips again.

  “Back in the morning,” I said.

  Albert shrugged. “All the more for me.”

  We picked up Burger King on the way back to the motel, then split up to our rooms.

  With a Whopper in one hand and my phone in the other, I used Harrison’s passage as a model. The more I reread it, the more preposterous it sounded.

  Finally I printed it out on the motel’s inkjet.

  It ran out of ink on the last word, document, which I added in pencil.

  Next morning, back at Albert’s, I was surprised he hadn’t succumbed to food poisoning.

  I read my Magna Carta to the group.

  Albert wagged a finger. “Can’t promise not to do a press check. Took me almost a year to engrave those plates. This is like xeroxing the Mona Lisa.”

  “You don’t have to sign it.” I nodded toward Stephen and Stuart. “Neither do you.”

  I made no corrections since the printer didn’t work, and signed on the bottom line.

  Before we left, I picked up Albert’s phone. Seemed like a good time to check in with Gallagher.

  He was there. I could tell from the coughing.

  I told him about all the progress we’d made.

  “Insane,” he said.

  “True, but—”

  “The circumstances probably would keep you out of prison, but the boys in the Secret Service don’t have much of a sense of humor.”

  “It only has to work long enough for your informant to get the second set of books.”

  “Can’t guarantee that’ll ever happen. Can’t guarantee your safety, either, if you show up at the Boudreaux mansion with that briefcase.”

  Next day I ferried the plates to Ottoman Lithographics. I kept them in one of Albert’s empty cartons of two dozen frozen dinners on the empty seat next to me, wishing I could handcuff it to my wrist. I’d checked the suitcase full of dead deer packed with dry ice.

  When I got to the front office, Jimmy the Bullet Head looked up from the latest issue of Maxim and smiled. There was no cigar in his mouth, but the place smelled like a tire fire.

  “Whatcha got for me?”

  I handed him the letter. “Your protection.”

  He read it silently, his fat lips moving, then set it on his desk. “I’m going out on a limb, you know.”

  “Not as far as I am.”

  “When do I get the venison?”

  I pointed at my suitcase. “Brought it with me.”

  He stood. “Hey,” he yelled to his secretary. “Stuff as much as you can of this meat in the lunchroom freezer. I’ll take it home later.”

  He picked up his phone. “I’ll get Carl Pinkerton. Press foreman.”

  Five minutes later a sixtyish guy in a tan jumpsuit and ink-spattered painter’s cap limped in, hands in his pockets.

  “This here’s our client,” Jimmy said, jerking a thumb in my direction. Carl nodded, his gaze lingering.

  “Don’t I know you?”

  “Hope not.”

  He shrugged.

  Jimmy sat on the edge of his desk. “Carl, gotta swear you to secrecy.”

  “Okay.”

  He turned to me. “Where’s the plates?”

  I held up the carton.

  He took the box and unwrapped them, held them up to the light, then whistled.

  “I don’t know much about art, but I know what I like.”

  “You made that up, too, I bet.”

  He passed the plates to Carl. Careful to touch them only on the edges, he pulled a pair of reading glasses from his pocket and brought Albert’s masterpieces closer.

  “Don’t know much about counterfeiting, but I know good workmanship. This is pretty amazing.”

  “You can’t tell anybody,” his boss warned.

  “I said okay, didn’t I?” He put the glasses away. “Just one problem.”

  Jimmy frowned. “What?”

  He set the plates back on the desk. “Gonna be hard enough to match the inks. But finding paper with the right rag content and colored fibers will be like finding a unicorn.”

  “Do the best you can.”

  Carl took off his cap and tapped the brim on the desk. “Seems to me there’s a small stash of the stock we used twenty years ago when we did wedding announcements for George Ottoman’s granddaughter. Not an exact match, but maybe close enough.”

  “Then let’s get going.” Jimmy picked up a cigar and bit off the tip. “I mean you two get going. I’d just get in the way.” Glancing at his magazine, he sat down.

  The press room was cavernous. The ink smelled like blueberries and solvent. A hint of machine oil hung in the air.

  The press was the size of a dinosaur, black and yellow. There was a clack
ing sound from somewhere.

  “You done this before?” Carl called.

  “Yes, but only with books.”

  “Thought so. You don’t look like the criminal type.” He waved to a younger man in blue overalls. “Bennie, get over here.” He put an arm around his employee’s shoulder.

  “Remember that batch of paper I showed you once from the Ottoman wedding? In the corner of the supply closet.”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Can you get it for me? And we’re not having this conversation.”

  “We’re not?”

  “This is a . . . special job. Kind of a surprise.”

  “Oh.” The younger man walked toward the press, rounded a corner, and disappeared.

  Carl held up the plates. “We’ll do a test run. Not with the high-rag paper, but something close.”

  He went off toward a row of 50-gallon drums and examined their labels.

  Soon the pressman was back with a roll of off-white stock that looked like wallpaper. The two of them put their heads together. Finally, Bennie put on a pair of gloves and rolled one of the barrels toward the press.

  Carl took out a calculator, pushed a few buttons, and put it back in his pocket. Stepping into a small, glassed-in room at the base of the press that looked like the control room of a crane, he pressed a few more.

  A rumble echoed in the rafters. He took a pair of industrial noise-cancelling headphones from a hook, then found another and brought it to me.

  “Put these on.”

  They were too big, so I held them against the sides of my head. I recalled all too well how loud these machines could be.

  He returned to the control room, took the plates, and walked them to the pressman. I spent the next five minutes chewing my nails.

  At last there was a hiss that sounded like steam but probably wasn’t. The gears began to turn, the clacking turned to pounding, and the paper streaked through a track high overhead.

  It was a short run. The motors powered down; another hiss, and Carl gave a wave to the pressman.

  The foreman tore off a sheet of paper at the end of the line and presented it to me.

  It was awful. Too much ink, not uncommon at the start of a run. But President Grant looked as if he’d been drinking more than usual, slurred and blurry.