“Why are you doing that?” Marvin cried.
Sean shrugged. “Curiosity. Just junk mail,” he said after he’d gone through it all. But now he knew the names of the people who lived there.
“You do know that what you just did is a federal crime, don’t you?” Marvin informed him.
Sean grinned. “Then I guess you’d better not tell anyone, seeing as you’re my accomplice. Come on,” he told Marvin. “Let’s walk around this dump and see if we can see anything.”
“Like what?” Marvin demanded.
“I already told you, Marvin. Anything of interest,” Sean responded. “Who knows? Maybe Amber has her vehicle parked in the back. Maybe we’ll find the deer target there. Or a length of rope.”
“Do you really expect to find something like that?” Marvin asked.
“Well, we won’t know till we look, will we?” Sean responded in an exasperated tone.
Then he and Marvin walked around the house and peered in the windows on the first floor. All the lights were off, and they couldn’t detect any motion in any of the rooms.
“I just hope none of the neighbors report us to the cops,” Marvin muttered as they rounded the corner to the backyard. “Because if anyone looks suspicious, we do.”
Sean snorted. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. You worry too much. But if it’ll make you feel any better, no one is going to report us, because no one is going to see us. And you want to know why? I’ll tell you why,” Sean said without waiting for Marvin’s answer. “It’s because no one looks out their windows these days. No one pays attention to what’s happening around them. Everyone is too busy tweeting and texting and watching bad TV reality shows. Ed Sullivan. I Love Lucy. Now those were shows. Not the stuff that’s on the air now! Look what’s happened since Baking for Life came to town.”
“It hasn’t been good,” Marvin conceded.
“Not good?” Sean said indignantly. “It’s been horrible. And for what? Why did Millie die? Because someone wanted to win some stupid TV show, that’s why.” Sean poked Marvin in the shoulder with his forefinger for emphasis.
“So you don’t think it’s about money?” Marvin asked, rubbing his shoulder. For an old guy Sean was surprisingly strong.
“No,” Sean replied as he scanned the backyard. “I think it’s all about ego.” There was nothing of interest that he could see back here, just a coiled garden hose, a couple of chairs, and an old, rusted Weber grill that looked as if it had seen its last summer. “Okay,” he said to Marvin. “I think we’ve done everything we can do here. It’s off to the hospital.”
Marvin sighed in relief. At least it was warm in the hearse. On the way to the hospital Sean got a phone call from Libby. He was still mulling over the conversation when he and Marvin arrived at their destination.
“How are we going to find out where Amber’s roommates are?” Marvin asked as he parked in the almost-empty lot.
“Watch and learn, kiddo,” Sean told him. “Watch and learn. You are about to see a master at work.”
Marvin started to snicker, caught Sean’s look, and managed to stifle it. When they got inside, Sean looked around. The waiting room was empty.
“Slow night,” he said to Marvin before he walked over to the woman sitting behind the admitting desk. “Which for us is a good thing.”
Marvin noticed that the woman’s face lit up when she saw Sean.
“You’re not sick, I hope,” she asked him as he drew nearer.
“I’m not since I saw you,” Sean said, and she blushed. “You haven’t aged a bit, Adele.”
“Neither have you, Sean,” Adele said. She straightened the collar of her nurse’s uniform and cocked her head.
“You’re too kind, Adele.” Sean favored her with a brilliant smile, put his arms on the ledge, and leaned on them. “I was wondering if you could do me a favor.”
“If I can,” Adele answered.
“Wonderful.” Sean leaned in more and told her what he wanted. Marvin could see Adele’s head bobbing as she listened to what Sean was saying.
“I know this is a little irregular,” Marvin heard Sean say.
“No. No. No.” Adele giggled. “Not a problem. Not a problem at all. Especially since nothing’s going on here. Why don’t you wait over there”—Adele said, indicating some chairs up along the far wall—“while I page them.”
“You are my angel,” Sean said, and he blew her a kiss and sat down in one of the seats she had indicated.
Marvin followed him, his mouth open in astonishment. Sean looked at Marvin’s expression and laughed. “Didn’t think the old guy still had it, did you?”
“It’s not that,” Marvin stuttered. “I just . . .”
“Let me tell you something,” Sean said, cutting him off. “Never underestimate the power of charm. It works. It works on the young and the old. It works when other things don’t. They didn’t call me Sean the Smooth for nothing back in the day.”
“Did they really?” Marvin asked.
“No.” Sean laughed. “They didn’t, thank God. But I was pretty good.”
Ten minutes later, two of the three people Adele had paged walked into the waiting room. Sean got up and walked toward them.
“Who’s Mike and who’s Rudy?” Sean asked them.
“I’m Mike and he’s Rudy,” Mike said, pointing first to himself and then to Rudy.
“Where’s your other roommate?” Sean asked.
Mike shrugged. “She’s cleaning now. What do you want with us, anyway?”
“I’m Mr. Simmons, Bernie’s and Libby’s dad,” Sean said, introducing himself.
Mike clapped his hand over his mouth, “Oh my God,” he said. “It’s about Amber, isn’t it?”
“It certainly is,” Sean said.
“I told you we shouldn’t have done it,” Rudy said to Mike. “I told you it was a bad idea.”
“Shut up, Rudy,” Mike hissed.
“What’s a bad idea, Rudy?” Sean asked.
“Don’t tell him, Rudy,” Mike said.
“Why not?”
“Because we’re going to be in trouble.”
“You’re going to be in more trouble if you don’t,” Sean said, his voice sounding like the cop he had been.
Rudy looked at Mike, then he looked at Sean and licked his lips.
“Don’t,” Mike urged.
“Hey, I’m the one who’s going to be in trouble here, not you.” He turned to Sean. “Okay, Mr. Simmons, I lent her my car,” he said.
“Was this before or after my daughters visited you?”
Rudy looked abashed. “After. She showed up and she was really,” he hesitated trying to find the word, “really . . . out of it.”
“So you lent her your car?” Sean asked. “I think that would be the last thing I would do.”
Rudy absentmindedly rubbed the tattoo on his forearm. The movement made the green and yellow snake move. “She wasn’t out of it as in being drugged out or anything. She was just very intense. She said she needed to borrow my car so she could find those recipes. She said she had to find them, because if she found the recipes she’d find out who killed her aunt. I felt bad for her. What else could I do? Besides, she’d lent me a couple of hundred bucks last month. I figured I owed her.”
“He did,” Mike said.
Sean looked from Mike to Rudy and back again. “Can either of you tell me where Amber is now?”
“Don’t know,” Mike said a little too promptly for Sean’s taste.
“I have no idea,” Rudy added.
“Seriously,” Mike said.
Sean did his cop stare. They both studied the clock on the wall instead of replying.
“So she hasn’t called you?” Sean asked after a few moments.
“Nope,” Rudy said. He was trying for jaunty, but Sean discerned a catch in his voice.
“She’s off with your car, and the fact that she hasn’t checked in is okay with you?” Sean asked Rudy, trying to hide his delight. Obviou
sly, he still had it in this sphere as well.
“It definitely is, Mr. . . .”
“Simmons,” Sean told him, resupplying his name. “Because it wouldn’t be okay with me.”
“She’s fine,” Mike said.
“You know this how?” Sean asked.
“She’s just . . . good at taking care of herself and stuff like that,” Mike said.
“I see,” Sean said. “May I assume that you’ve spoken to her, Michael?” Sean asked him. “Is that how you know this?”
Mike didn’t say anything.
“Because actually the truth is that Amber’s not fine. She’s in way over her head, and if you care for her you’ll tell me where I can find her,” Sean continued, switching to the guilt approach.
“We just told you we don’t know, Mr. Simmons,” Rudy said. He raised his hand. “Honest injun.”
“You may think you’re helping her, but you’re not,” Sean pointed out.
Neither one of the boys said anything.
Sean took a deep breath and shifted his weight from his right leg to his left. He wished he hadn’t left his cane in Marvin’s vehicle. “Okay, where’s the other one?”
Mike frowned. “The other one?”
“The third roommate. Marissa.”
“Why?” Mike asked.
“I’d like to speak to her too,” Sean told him.
Rudy hemmed and hawed. “She doesn’t know any more than we do.”
Sean scowled. “I’d like to be the judge of that, if you don’t mind,” he said.
Mike fingered his earlobes. “She’s busy.”
“Busy doing what?” Sean asked.
“Ah . . . working,” Rudy said.
“So I assumed. What does her work consist of that you guys can come down and she can’t?” Sean asked.
Neither Mike or Rudy answered.
“That’s what I thought,” Sean told them. “You know,” he said, “if anything happens to Amber or she causes something to happen to anyone else, you guys are going to bear the responsibility.”
Mike looked at Sean and shrugged. “I guess we’ll just have to live with that.”
Sean turned to Rudy. “Is that how you feel too?”
“Guess so, Mr. Simmons.” He looked at the clock. “We have to get back to work now.”
“Go ahead,” Sean told them.
“That was a waste of time,” Marvin said when they were gone.
“Maybe,” Sean said. “Maybe not.”
“How so?”
“Well, for one thing, we know that they know where Amber is. Listen,” Sean said, catching Marvin’s look. “There’s no way that Rudy is going to let her go off with his car without being in contact. Would you have done something like that at his age?”
“No,” Marvin said after thinking his answer over for a couple of seconds. “Not if it were my only means of transportation.”
“Exactly. Two, I’m willing to bet Amber’s pretty close by.”
“Why do you say that, Mr. Simmons?” Marvin asked.
“Because the crime she’s investigating is here, so there’s no way she’s leaving the area. And three,” Sean said as he headed toward the door, “I’m just guessing here, but it wouldn’t surprise me if Marissa went off to alert Amber that we were tracking her down. Either that or she’s off somewhere getting high.”
“But that’s bad,” Marvin protested.
“Marissa getting stoned?” Sean asked.
“No. Marissa alerting Amber.”
“Not if we’re quick and she is where I think she might be,” Sean said. “Come on,” he told Marvin. “Let’s get moving.”
Chapter 25
Millie’s house was dark, and the driveway was empty when Sean and Marvin arrived ten minutes later.
“What do you think?” Marvin asked Sean.
“I think someone was here,” he said, pointing to the tire tracks in the snow.
“Amber?”
“Maybe.” Sean clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, a habit he’d picked up from Bernie. Then he grabbed his cane and hoisted himself out of Marvin’s hearse. By the time Marvin caught up with him, Sean was peering through the window into Millie’s garage. “No car here,” he said.
“I guess Amber’s come and gone,” Marvin observed.
“So it would seem,” Sean said as he continued on to Millie’s house.
His legs were bothering him now, and he had to concentrate on getting up the six stairs to the landing. Marvin stayed behind him to catch him in case he stumbled. When Sean got to Millie’s front door he rang the bell. No one answered. Not that he had expected anyone to. He was just observing the amenities.
“Now what?” Marvin said as he shook some snow out of the cuff of his pants leg.
“Now we go inside and have a look-see,” Sean said.
“But how are we going to do that?” Marvin asked.
“We’re going to try the door, and then”—Sean’s hand darted into his pocket and pulled out a ring with several thin metal pieces attached to it—“we’re going to try these.” He turned and jangled them in front of Marvin’s face.
“Are those what I think they are?” Marvin asked.
“They most certainly are,” Sean told him.
“But you told me you don’t have anything like that,” Marvin wailed.
Sean grinned. “I lied.”
“Where did you get them?” Marvin demanded. I mean, it wasn’t as if you could order them on the Internet. Or, for all he knew, maybe you could.
“An old burglar called Fat Hand Freddie gave them to me.”
“Gave them?” Marvin asked incredulously. He could see the headlines now: FUNERAL DIRECTOR CAUGHT IN BREAK-IN.
“Yes,” Sean said. “He gave them to me in return for a favor I did him. I found a home for his dog when he was going on an extended vacation upstate. The question you should be asking,” Sean said to Marvin, “is can I still use them, or have I lost the knack? It’s been awhile.”
Marvin was smart enough not to say anything. He just stood and watched as Sean struggled with the lock picks. After ten minutes, Sean turned to him and said, “Here. You try.”
“Me?” Marvin squeaked. “I wouldn’t have the vaguest idea what to do.”
“I’ll show you,” Sean said, and he did. Then he handed the picks to Marvin. “My hands just aren’t steady enough anymore.
“Go on,” Sean urged, when Marvin just stood there with the lock picks dangling from his hand.
“I don’t know if I can,” Marvin objected. “This feels wrong.”
“Would Amber doing something bad be better?” Sean asked.
“No,” Marvin said, looking abashed.
“Then try. We need to get in there sooner rather than later.”
Marvin took a look at the expression on Sean’s face and knew he wasn’t kidding. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll try. But don’t be mad at me if I can’t do it.”
“I won’t,” Sean promised, “but you’ll do it. It’s easy.”
Marvin bent over and did what Sean had showed him. He didn’t expect to succeed, but to his surprise he did.
“Wow,” he said when he felt the tumblers clicking into place. He straightened up and gave the door a push. It opened.
“Good job,” Sean said as he stepped inside Millie’s house. He turned around. Marvin was still standing on the porch. “Well, just don’t stand there like a goofball,” Sean told him. “Come inside. It’s cold out there, and we don’t want the neighbors getting suspicious.”
“I can’t believe I just did that,” Marvin said. He looked stunned.
“It felt good, didn’t it?” Sean asked him.
“It kind of did,” Marvin admitted.
Sean chuckled as he walked through the entrance hall and into the living room. The place was as neat as Libby had described it as being, except that the sofa pillows were rumpled, a couple of the smaller ones looked as if they’d been used as headrests, and there was a comforter at the f
oot of the bed. Sean went over and took a look.
“I bet Amber was sleeping here,” he said. Then he spied something on the floor and bent down and got it. “Definitely Amber,” he said as he held up a Hello Kitty sock. It was the kind of thing that Amber would wear.
“So where do you think she is now?” Marvin asked.
Sean shook his head. “I don’t know.” He looked at his watch. “But it’s late. She probably needs to find someplace to sleep.”
“So you think she’ll come back here?” Marvin asked.
“She could.” Sean thought for a moment. “Or she could go back to her old place. That wouldn’t surprise me either.”
He was reaching for his phone to call Bernie and Libby when he spied a piece of paper on the coffee table. The paper was a flyer advertising plowing and landscaping services. Around the margin someone had written the initials TR over and over again, and Sean was pretty sure he knew to whom the handwriting belonged to. He should. He’d seen it often enough for the past four years on the order forms in A Little Taste of Heaven when he’d been closing out the register.
“What is it?” Marvin asked, coming up behind him. Sean picked up the paper and pointed to the letters on the paper. “That’s Amber’s handwriting.”
“And the TR? What’s that?”
“I don’t know,” Sean admitted.
Marvin frowned. “Could it be an initial of some kind?”
Sean laughed. “Very good, Marvin. Very good. Of course. Why didn’t I think of that?”
Marvin looked at Sean to make sure Libby’s dad wasn’t being sarcastic. When he was sure he wasn’t, he said, “I’m guessing they don’t stand for Theodore Roosevelt.”
“I’m guessing you’re right,” Sean replied. He thought for a minute. His face lit up. He had it. “I bet TR stands for Teresa Ruffino. She’s one of the Christmas Cookie Exchange Club ladies brigade.”
“I know who she is, Mr. Simmons. We buried her husband and her sister. May I?” Marvin asked, reaching for the paper Sean was holding.
Sean nodded and handed it to him. Marvin studied it for a moment before handing it back to Sean.
“Well,” Marvin observed, “I’ll say one thing. Amber definitely has this lady on her mind.”
A Catered Christmas Cookie Exchange (A Mystery With Recipes) Page 21