The Mastermind Plot

by Angie Frazier

  I jumped with surprise and rattled the ladder — that was my second mistake. My lower boot slipped off the rung and I dropped, my hands sliding painfully down the rusty iron handles. I yelped and the music book fell from my teeth.

  I thought I heard the stranger shout, “No!” but it was lost in the panicked rush of blood through my ears.

  My upper boot slipped off the rung and now I was left dangling ten feet over the platform below. I kicked around to find another rung, but connected with nothing but air. The cold iron was fast numbing my hands. My weight was too much for my arms to support. I screamed as my fingers slipped from the bars. Wind rushed up my skirt and a second later, my feet hit the metal platform of the second story.

  I collapsed onto my side, the breath knocked from my lungs. That had certainly not been part of my revenge plan. As quickly as my aching limbs could take me, I got to my feet. The stranger had jumped the fence and was running across the back courtyard, his long black overcoat flapping out behind him. He paused as soon as he saw me stand, uninjured in any noticeable way.

  I met his eyes, the question of who he was and why he was following me on the tip of my tongue. But I hesitated. When he looked at me with that expression of concern, it was so very familiar. Fear and anger and frustration all wrapped up into one penetrating stare.

  He covered his eyes with a tug of his black hat’s brim and started back for the fence, pulling his overcoat together to button it.

  “No, wait!” I shouted.

  He increased his speed, his build rather athletic for an older gentleman. But how could he be a gentleman if he was following an eleven-year-old girl around Boston? He swung himself over the fence with ease and disappeared just as I heard the back door to the academy fly open.

  “Who is out here?” Miss Doucette’s shrill voice called. She couldn’t see me from where the fire escape was located on the side of the building. But my music book lay open on the grass, and Miss Doucette rushed over to pick it up. She spied me on the platform above her and screamed with alarm.

  “Suzanna!” She clutched at her chest. “What are you doing up there?”

  A stream of green-and-navy-blue-plaid-uniformed girls followed until every last one of them, including Adele, was staring up at me in amused shock.

  “I, um … I just …” My plans to thwart Adele crumbled around me, leaving me feeling bare and miserable and pathetic. What was I to do, accuse Adele of locking me in the attic? Miss Doucette would have scoffed at that, and besides, I wasn’t going to rat.

  “I locked myself in the attic by accident,” I finally answered. Adele’s leering grin reversed into a look of surprise.

  “How did you manage to do that?” Miss Doucette asked, incredulous as she approached the bottom of the fire escape and pulled down the final portion of ladder.

  “I don’t know.” I climbed down the metal steps, my left ankle aching. “I left the key in the lock and I shut the door, and … I don’t know how I did it, Miss Doucette. I’m sorry.”

  The girls giggled as I climbed down to the perfection of solid ground. Miss Doucette reprimanded me for not staying put, for not shouting for help, and for taking such an unladylike risk. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that Grandmother would be receiving a note about my unruly behavior.

  Adele watched me closely, her lips puckered into a tight line. I cut my eyes away from her and did a fast scan of the fence. The stranger was gone. Miss Doucette led us all inside and back into the music room. Adele descended upon me as the other girls picked up their instruments.

  “You idiot,” she hissed lowly, her hands clenched into fists at her sides. “You might have killed yourself climbing down the side of the building. Why didn’t you just scream your lungs out until someone rescued you?”

  What was this? If not for the hard gleam of her gray eyes and the flare of her dainty nostrils, I might have mistaken her for sounding frightened, or even guilty.

  “I don’t need rescuing, thank you,” I replied. “Did you really think being locked in an old, spooky attic would turn me into a useless ninny?”

  I made a show of distraction as I set my recovered music book on the stand. I tried not to let the shake of my hand be noticeable. Adele didn’t reply. Each second of silence felt like a strike of victory.

  Finally, she spoke. “So you climbed out the window to prove how brave you are?”

  I picked up my flute, my palms no longer sweaty with nerves, and met Adele’s squinty glare. “I don’t need to prove anything to anyone.”

  She reached past me and shut my music book with a thud. “Except you do, of course. To your uncle. To Will James.”

  I fumbled with the flute and it fell into my lap.

  Adele saw my confusion and reveled in it. But before she or I had a chance to say anything else, Miss Doucette tapped her baton on the music stand before her.

  “Flutes first,” she said, with a sharp glance my way.

  Terrific.

  The hand on the clock clunked down to half past three. The sound echoed through the empty foyer, where I sat on a cushioned bench waiting for my grandmother’s carriage. She was fifteen minutes late. I tapped my foot, anxious to be gone from Miss Lydia Doucette’s snooty academy — and never return. I was more than ready to go back to the brownstone and demand Grandmother enroll me somewhere else. Or better yet, hire a tutor. But then, I did want to figure out Adele’s puzzling mention of Will and Uncle Bruce.

  Why would she assume I wanted to prove myself to them? Adele knew all about the Maddie Cook case and had most definitely heard of my uncle. Had she read about Will in the papers, too? The way she’d said Will’s name made me wonder if she knew him. If she did, I wanted to know how.

  Miss Doucette had left the foyer before she could notice I was still hanging about. I’d busied myself by chronicling the day’s events in my notebook, which I’d left in my cloak pocket. By now I’d scribbled furiously about the stranger who had leaped over the fence in a panic when I’d fallen. And that expression of concern on his narrow, distinguished-looking face … I wanted to know who he was.

  The door to the dining room swung open, and the kitchen girl who’d served us lunch exited with a tea tray. She eyed me suspiciously as she hurried by and up the stairs, no doubt to deliver tea to Miss Doucette. She might very well deliver the news that a girl hadn’t been claimed just yet.

  “Come on,” I whispered with another glance at the clock. The tempo of my foot increased against the shiny parquet floor.

  The minute hand jumped another notch. That’s it. I shot off the bench and threw on my cloak. The brownstone was only a few blocks away. I’d climbed down a fire escape already today. Walking home couldn’t be that difficult.

  Outside, a bracing wind tousled my braids, loosening the plaits Grandmother’s industrious servant, Bertie, had created that morning. The wind blew back my cloak. I gathered it around me and headed toward the next street ahead.

  “Zanna!” a voice called out from behind me.

  I spun around and saw Will James waving from the academy steps. He jogged toward me.

  “Will!” I wasn’t able to contain my smile. He was wearing a school uniform of his own, but he’d been spared the ridiculous plaid pattern Miss Doucette had settled on.

  Will nicked off his hat to greet me. “I was hoping to catch you before you went home. Your grandmother sent over a note saying you’d arrived. How are you, Zanna? Liking Boston?”

  Will’s blond hair blew about, and his creamy cheeks were flushed. He’d apprenticed with Uncle Bruce last summer. At first it had made me burn with jealousy. Being a detective and apprenticing with Uncle Bruce had been my dream for years. But now I liked Will too much to be envious.

  “I could do without Miss Lydia Doucette’s Academy,” I answered, winning a laugh from Will, “but otherwise, it’s great. My grandmother seems wonderful. Uncle Bruce seems … himself.”

  Will smiled and put his hat back on. “Yeah, he was happy to be rid of me when Bellmont’s s
tarted back up. It’s a boys’ academy.”

  The wind pushed up the brim of Will’s hat. He clapped a hand on top to keep it from blowing away.

  “Are you walking home?” he asked, frowning.

  “I was going to attempt not getting lost,” I answered with a shrug. “Grandmother never sent the carriage.”

  I tried to laugh, but it was still embarrassing. Will gestured to the sidewalk before us.

  “Knight Street is just a little bit from here. Come on,” he said, and we started walking. “Listen, I know I’m at school and Uncle Bruce has washed his hands of me, but I’m still following the case he and Detective Grogan are working on.” I immediately took out my notebook. He saw it and shook his head, laughing. “I’ve got to get one of those.”

  We started walking up the next block.

  “The Horne fires?” I asked.

  “You know of them already?” He whistled and looked sideways at me. “I knew your coming would be a good thing.”

  At the cross street, Will led me to the left. I slowed my pace, suddenly not in any hurry to get to Knight Street.

  “There’ve been a few arsons along the harbor front over the last month. Uncle Bruce is focusing the investigation on some Irish crime ringleaders.” Will stopped and looked at me sideways. “So you really don’t like Miss Doucette’s?”

  I paused my pencil, confused. “What does that have to do with the fires?”

  “Well, don’t be angry, but I kind of suggested your grandmother enroll you there. I wanted you to meet Adele Horne.”

  Adele Horne?

  “Oh. I met her, all right.” So that was how she knew Will — the investigation.

  Will started walking again and I tried to write and walk without tripping.

  “Xavier Horne is Adele’s dad. He’s a big grocery supplier and owns the two warehouses that have been burned. The first fire happened before Bellmont’s started back up, so I got to work on it with Uncle Bruce. But you know how he is,” Will said with a sour tone that I fully understood. “He didn’t want me in the way, so I hung around with Adele. After the second fire, she sent me a note, saying she had a theory. And it was pretty interesting.”

  I didn’t particularly like that Adele had a theory Will thought was interesting. I’d rather he tell me how much he couldn’t stand her.

  “What kind of theory?” I asked anyway.

  We came to Bishop Street and Will led me down it, neither of us hurrying now.

  “Uncle Bruce and Detective Grogan are investigating these fires as arsons. They think whoever is setting the fires is trying to destroy Mr. Horne’s businesses — the primary suspects so far have been associated with the local Irish mob. Mr. Horne is already at odds with them. He’s been pretty outspoken against some of their leaders.”

  I didn’t know any of the details regarding the fires, but that theory sounded reasonable and solid enough to me.

  “And what does Adele think?” I asked.

  Another sign announced we’d reached Grandmother’s block. Will’s eyes rested on 224 Knight Street four houses down on the left before answering.

  “That instead of investigating arson, the police should be investigating art theft.”

  I didn’t know what I’d been expecting, but it definitely had not been art theft. The idea was so surprising that I couldn’t even mock it properly.

  “Art theft?” I echoed. “But what would lead her to think that?”

  “Not what. Who,” Will replied. I stared at him blankly until he realized he needed to explain further. “Listen, Mr. Horne is known around Boston as this big art collector — paintings, sculptures, whatever he can get his hands on. He’s got so much, he can’t keep it all inside his own house over on June Street. So Adele tells me he secretly stores the art in safes hidden inside his warehouses. He switches around the pieces that are on display in his house a few times a year so everything he has gets the chance to be put on show. The ones not on show go back to the warehouses.”

  I wrote everything down feverishly. My hand began to cramp. “So who led Adele to believe her father’s art was being stolen instead of burned?”

  Will courteously waited to begin until I’d stopped scribbling. “I wasn’t at the second warehouse fire scene, but Adele was. She said some man — someone she’d never met before — told her the art wasn’t being destroyed like everyone thought. That it was being nicked right out from under everyone’s noses.”

  Adele trusted some random stranger’s opinion versus that of Bruce Snow, a successful and seasoned detective? I arched an eyebrow to show Will what I thought of that.

  He held up his hand, palm out as if to fend off my skepticism. “I know exactly what you’re thinking.”

  “That there are more holes in Adele’s theory than a slice of Swiss cheese?”

  Will laughed. “I know it sounds far-fetched. But after the first two fires, Mr. Horne decided to move the rest of his art from the remaining two warehouses to other locations, a few private homes. Any guesses as to what happened next?”

  I didn’t particularly enjoy baited questions, but there was no way around this one. “More fires?”

  “No. One of the homes was burglarized, and the paintings Mr. Horne stored there were stolen.”

  I had to admit that was a bit curious. “What happened to the rest of the art he moved from the warehouses?”

  Will’s shoulders rose up to his ears in an animated shrug. “I guess it’s safe so far. I haven’t heard anything from Adele and there haven’t been any more fires.”

  I tapped my pencil against the page. “Mr. Horne didn’t take his art to a bank vault. Why?”

  Will nodded, seeming happy I’d asked. “Because he doesn’t trust the banks. There’s no proof of anything, of course, but you never know who’s tied to the mob. And since the mob and Mr. Horne aren’t friendly, well, you can see why he only trusts himself.”

  Another minute pondering Adele’s surprising theory turned up yet another sizable hole in it.

  “Were the safes destroyed in the fires?” I asked. My father’s safe at the Rosemount was solid steel. Fire wouldn’t eat through that.

  “They were made from steel and wood,” Will answered. “So the remains were burned-out steel shells with some unidentifiable rubble inside.”

  Which Mr. Horne and the police assumed was the destroyed artworks.

  “I’m guessing Uncle Bruce didn’t take Adele’s theory seriously?” I asked. According to my uncle, children weren’t reliable witnesses. It had to do with too-active imaginations and underdeveloped occipital lobes, or so he said. Personally, I just thought Uncle Bruce disliked children in general.

  Will’s smug expression faltered. “Do you even need to ask?” His lips pursed and twisted to one side. “I don’t even know if I totally believe it. But Adele’s nice and she asked me for help. We won’t be able to see each other as much since we’re at different schools, so I thought you two might be able to check things out together. Kind of like how we worked together in Loch Harbor?”

  My mind stuck to the “Adele’s nice” comment. I must have made an appalled expression, because Will frowned and shifted to the side, looking uneasy.

  “She’s nice? I don’t think so, Will,” I said. “She locked me in the attic at Miss Doucette’s!”

  Will stopped and dropped his jaw. “What?”

  I closed my notebook and shoved it deep into my cloak pocket. “She can’t possibly want my help. Besides, her whole theory is a mess: She’s basing everything on what some random stranger told her. She has no proof for any of it.”

  Warehouses burned down to cover the tracks of a true crime of art theft … it was too flimsy. Too extreme. And it was exactly the kind of thing that got my blood pumping fast and hot.

  Will took a few slow steps toward Grandmother’s house without a reply. I felt bad for taking out my frustration on him, but how could he actually like Adele? After the stunt she pulled that afternoon, I wouldn’t help tie her shoelace, let al
one solve the art thefts or arsons or whatever they really were.

  “I have to go. I’m sure my grandmother will be wondering where I am,” I said, but then remembered that she’d forgotten to send a carriage for me in the first place.

  “Sure,” Will said. “But will you at least think about talking to Adele? I don’t know why she’d lock you in some attic…. Maybe if you tell her you saw me, she’ll know that I told you everything, and that she can trust you. Okay?”

  I muttered a weak promise that I would and then said a hasty good-bye, rushing down the street toward the brownstone. Talk to Adele? I dreaded even seeing her the next day.

  I reached the front steps to Grandmother’s home, still fuming. I opened the door and came face-to-face with a tall man with a crisp black hat and a long black overcoat. I screamed, and the man shot out his hand and slapped it over my mouth.

  Detective Rule: Real detectives do not scream. They may flinch or startle, but they do not scream. Ever.

  THE MAN DROPPED HIS SWEATY PALM FROM my mouth and grimaced. “Great heavens, child!”

  My blanched face started to color again as embarrassment settled in. This man didn’t have the narrow, defined cheekbones that the stranger at the academy had. The man standing in Grandmother’s foyer was about fifty pounds heavier, too, with bristly white eyebrows overdue for a good trim.

  “Who are you?” I asked. He puckered up his lips.

  “Who am I? I am Dr. Philbrick, young lady.”

  Doctor? “Has something happened? Is my grandmother sick?”

  I tried to rush past him, but Dr. Philbrick held his black leather doctor’s bag up in my path.

  “Your grandmother is resting at the moment, and is not to be disturbed.”

  “I want to know what’s happened.” I lifted my chin and attempted to look indomitable.