Cat in a Bag

by Angela M. Sanders

  Cat in a Bag

  A Booster Club Caper

  Angela M. Sanders

  Contents

  Cat in a Bag

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Afterword

  Also by Angela M. Sanders

  Cat in a Bag

  Angela M. Sanders

  To Aunt Pucci, kind reader and great gal

  * * *

  Don’t miss the author’s monthly e-newsletter, full of good things: cocktail recipes, gorgeous old gowns, fashion advice from Edith Head, book reviews, and more.

  1

  Not much broke the routine of the Carsonville Women’s Correctional Facility, so the weekly 12-step meeting for shoplifters was a treat. Inmates from embezzlers to streetwalkers to Adele, the prison’s lone art forger, attended en masse. A few actual shoplifters showed up, too.

  If Adele planned things right, this would be her last 12-step meeting. Ever.

  “Please,” the facilitator said. A new one, Adele noted. “Be seated. We’re already five minutes late.”

  The spring morning’s light sliced through the barred windows in a pattern that might have graced a Rembrandt, only this scene was closer to an illustration in a Depression-era confessional magazine. Bit by bit, the chattering quieted as women in blue cotton shirts and matching elastic-waist pants dropped into folding chairs.

  “I’m sorry the regular facilitator can’t make it.” The woman glanced at her watch. “Let’s get started. I’m Deborah, and I’m a shoplifter.”

  “Good morning, Deborah,” the women said in unison.

  “I understand that last week you talked about step eight, forgiveness. For homework, you made lists of people you wronged. Forgiveness is a big topic. Let’s continue today.”

  Adele sat near the room’s edge. The group leader had an innocence about her, not like the other leaders hardened through years of social service work. With her delicate features and short hair, she might be Adele’s sister. Adele touched her own head, shorn into a pixie only the day before.

  “Who’d like to begin?” the facilitator asked.

  A small, plump woman toward the front raised her hand. Her metal chair scraped the linoleum floor as she stood. “My name is Shirley, and I used to rob banks.”

  “Not a shoplifter?” Deborah asked.

  “Not regularly.”

  “You do know this is a meeting for shoplifters, right?”

  “What?” Shirley said. “You want me to steal something so I can come back to the meeting? I could go down the cellblock and boost some tampons.”

  “Of course not, Shirley,” Deborah said. “Maybe we could hear from a shoplifter first, that’s all.”

  The inmates looked at each other. Adele figured maybe a third of them had some kind of theft in their backgrounds. One woman, a kleptomaniac, raised her hand.

  “Yes?”

  “My name is Claire, and I’m a shoplifter. I steal other things, too. I mean, not just in shops.”

  “No kidding,” one of the inmates murmured. Just about everyone in Claire’s cellblock had lost a comb or bottle of shampoo at some point.

  “Go on, Claire,” the facilitator said, her voice full of sympathy. With her translucent skin and blue eyes, she looked as if she’d stepped from a Flemish painting, Adele thought. The drab walls added to the effect. All she needed was a vase of parrot tulips nearby and a bowl of fruit with a fly on the peach.

  “I still struggle,” Claire said. “I think I have it under control, then something happens, and I get angry—”

  “—And you can’t help but steal something,” the facilitator finished. “Tell me more.”

  “I really like hair products,” Claire said. “For our homework, I made a list of people and places I’ve stolen from.” She unfolded a piece of paper. “It started when I was in second grade. Judy Berman’s mom had packed her a deviled ham sandwich, and I….”

  For the next hour, inmates rose one by one and recited the wrongs for which they sought forgiveness. Listening to them, it appeared that Carsonville County’s entire stock of goods regularly shifted hands. Adele suspected some of it was invented. Did an inmate really steal two goats and dress them in cheerleading outfits and send them to tryouts? That story about the microfilms of Latvian submarine blueprints was hard to swallow, too. Adele had her own wrongs to right, which meant today’s plan had to go smoothly.

  She glanced at the wall clock. Each click of the minute hand seemed to take hours. Catching herself balling her hands into fists, she flattened her palms on her knees.

  “And that wraps it up,” the facilitator said. “Thank you, everyone, for sharing.”

  The room began to empty, but Adele hung back. A guard at the door watched as inmates filed back toward their cellblocks. Next on the schedule was an hour of free time, then lunch. She folded the chair next to hers and carried it to the rack in the corner.

  “The bathroom is in there?” the facilitator asked.

  Adele nodded and watched as the door clicked behind her.

  “You coming?” the guard asked Adele.

  “I have clean-up duty this week.” She hoped the guard hadn’t noticed the tremor in her voice. Forging paintings was her business, not assault and battery. She stacked the used paper cups and glanced over her shoulder. When the guard stepped into the hall to chat with another warden, Adele sucked in a breath and shoved her way into the bathroom.

  The facilitator was washing her hands. She met Adele’s gaze in the mirror. “Did you—?”

  Adele shut the door behind them. “Sorry,” she whispered and tied the facilitator’s scarf around her mouth. The woman’s eyes widened, but she barely struggled as Adele fastened her wrists and ankles with the cord she’d made from shredded socks and hidden in her bra. It was a moment’s work for Adele to strip her of her dress and tote bag. Adele clipped the visitor’s ID badge to the dress’s collar and slipped on the therapist’s oversized sunglasses.

  The guard was still chatting with her colleague in the hall when Adele emerged from the bathroom and shut the door behind her.

  “I’m ready for you to escort me out,” she said, mimicking the facilitator’s girlish tone.

  “Where’s that inmate, the one with the short hair?” the guard said.

  “I’m not sure who you mean.” Adele kept her smile steady. “She must have left. There’s no one else here.”

  The guard glanced behind Adele at the empty room. All was quiet beyond the bathroom door. Adele was sure her thumping heart must be audible above the prison’s humming HVAC system.

  Finally, the guard turned. “All right. Let’s go.”

  * * *

  The sedan pulled up to a stucco building that sported a few Italian-inspired arches in front but wen
t full-on institutional toward the rear. “Villa Saint Nicholas” was inscribed over the portico. Sitting near the front door in a worn Adirondack chair was an elderly man in a baseball cap, cane at his side, shuffling cards.

  “Where are we?” Adele asked.

  “Home, my child,” the car’s driver said. He’d introduced himself as “Father Vincent,” and he looked like a priest: fatherly bearing, white collar, and black raiment with a tasseled belt. But he piloted the car like he was born with a hand on the gearshift.

  “For a while, anyway,” added the car’s other occupant, a middle-aged redhead named Ruby. Her T-shirt featured the silhouette of a small dog with the words “Cheers to Chihuahuas” printed above it.

  “Oh,” Adele said. She leaned back. The scheme had gone off exactly as planned. She’d stridden to the visitors’ parking lot and headed for the sedan with the red silk rose in its back window, as instructed. Father Vincent and Ruby had popped up from their hiding places, and, an hour later, here they were.

  “You girls get out here, and I’ll take the car back to the motor pool before anyone misses it,” the priest said.

  That would explain the Department of Property Assessment parking pass in the window.

  “We’ll get you settled,” Ruby said.

  Freedom, Adele thought as, for the first time in three years, her feet hit ground not owned by the county. She was free. The air smelled better out here, bursting with oxygen. On the drive to town, every gas station and fast food restaurant fascinated her. The naked street trees, their boughs barely tipped with the green of spring, engrossed her more than the color plates in the book of Redoute’s paintings of roses she’d studied in the prison’s library. She’d forgotten how vivid the colors on a political billboard could be or how fascinating the jangle of shapes in a backyard strewn with tricycles and tools.

  As they entered the building, even the disinfectant’s tang was somehow fresher. Now she could dig her hands in the dirt, eat ice cream all day, and, best of all, paint. No one could tell her what to wear or when to go to bed.

  Ruby glanced her way. “Sorry you won’t really be at liberty here.”

  “But I—”

  “If we’re caught harboring a fugitive, the whole place will go down.” Ruby patted her arm. “But you understand that.”

  Adele’s enthusiasm was only slightly dampened. She was still out of prison. That was the main thing.

  They passed a small office off the entry hall, and Ruby waved at a muscular, tattooed man leaning back with his feet on the desk. His novel featured an embracing couple on its cover. “Hi, Warren.”

  “That the new tenant?” The man set his novel aside and swiveled his legs to the floor, but he didn’t stand.

  “I’m Adele.” She stuck out a hand.

  He didn’t move.

  Ruby lifted her chin. “Warren, we talked about this last night. I don’t expect you to be happy about it, but you could at least be courteous. Adele is our guest for as long as she needs us. You know the deal.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” Warren said, still avoiding eye contact.

  “Warren is the Villa’s manager. He keeps an eye on the entrance, does a little plumbing and electrical. Used to be a prison warden.”

  What an odd place this was. Was it only last week that she’d put out the word to Uncle Larry that she needed his help? Through Larry’s note in the prison library’s copy of Carpet Care Through the Ages, she’d learned that something called the “Booster Club” had taken her on, and that today was the day for her breakout. All she had to do was follow their instructions regarding the 12-step group facilitator—poor woman, hopefully she was all right—cut her hair into a pixie, and look for the sedan with the red rose. She winced at the memory of the facilitator’s shock when Adele had gagged her.

  Now, here she was, free, but with nothing but this strange group’s benevolence. Not even a toothbrush.

  “What room, Warren?” Ruby asked.

  “We’ll put her on three. The room toward the alley.” He folded his arms in front of his chest. “Remember, blinds closed. No one can know she’s here.”

  “You hungry, doll?” Ruby asked Adele as they passed through the corridor. She pushed the button to call the elevator. “I bet the food in prison was awful. With Cook, you’re in for a treat. I’ll take you to settle in and come up with a sandwich in a few minutes.”

  “Where are we?”

  “The Villa Saint Nicholas. A retirement home.”

  Adele turned this over in her mind a moment. “He doesn’t like me. Warren, that is.”

  “Don’t worry,” Ruby said softly. “He’ll come around.”

  The elevator stopped with a jerk at the third floor, and Ruby and Adele walked down a dimly lit hall to an even dimmer room toward the building’s rear.

  “Wait here a second.” Ruby flipped on the lights and closed the blinds. “There. Safe now. I’m afraid it’s not the most cheerful room. It was Candace’s until last November, when she passed, bless her soul. Her eyesight was failing, so she didn’t mind this atrocious wallpaper.”

  Adele took in the flurries of Southern belles and straw-hatted gents playing banjos on sternwheeler boats. “Maybe the dim light is best.”

  Ruby shook her head. “Such a shame for a gifted counterfeiter to go blind. You do forgeries, too, am I right?”

  “Fine art, mostly eighteenth century,” Adele said, but she was only half listening. As long as she was safe, she didn’t care where she slept. It was the mission that mattered. The amends. She had work to do.

  “Hon,” Ruby laid a hand on Adele’s arm. “I know we don’t have a lot of time. Larry filled us in about your trouble. I’m sorry.”

  Adele’s gaze dropped to her hands. “Thank you for everything you’re doing. I don’t know why you’re helping me, but—”

  “It’s Larry the Fence’s doing. Uncle Larry to you, I guess.”

  “He asked you, and you said yes?”

  Ruby sat on the bed’s edge. “It was a little more complicated than that. The Villa’s clientele are special. You aren’t the first inmate they’ve seen, and you won’t be the last. Just about everyone here has done time.”

  “They’re criminals? This is a retirement home for crooks?”

  “They had to agree to give up their professions before moving here.”

  “I see.” Adele let her hand sweep the desk’s top. Real wood. Battered, but so much nicer than the particleboard and metal in prison. “You don’t live here, do you? You couldn’t be old enough.” Adele put her age at fifty, maybe, with canny makeup and hair meant to lower the estimate ten years.

  “No, I’m just a friend of the Villa. I have a past, too, but these days I do hair. And the occasional prison break-out, I guess.”

  Adele smiled. Ruby seemed a genuinely kind person, but kindness and foolhardiness weren’t the same thing. “Why are you helping me?”

  Ruby pulled at a ridge of the chenille bedspread. “Your uncle said he’d make sure the Villa was relicensed if the Booster Club helped you out.”

  “Relicensing must be tough.” It had to be, seeing that they’d already gone to so much trouble, and the job wasn’t half over.

  “Like I said, the Villa isn’t your typical retirement home. They, well, they fly under the radar in a lot of ways, and I’m not talking simply about the building. Although it’s perfectly safe,” she added quickly. “But the residents don’t need inspectors marching in and out. Your uncle said he could help with that.”

  “I see.”

  Ruby rose and touched Adele’s sleeve. “We’ll get you squared away. Don’t you worry. I’ll be right back.”

  After Ruby left, Adele took her place on the bed. Other than the bed, the small room held a maple dresser and desk, both scarred from decades of use. She rose to open the door across from the bed. The bathroom. She sighed in contentment. Her room might not be much bigger than the cell she’d shared just this morning, but now she had a bathtub. Her own bathtub, too. Som
eone had thoughtfully set a toothbrush and toothpaste on the sink and a fresh stack of towels on the back of the toilet.

  She lifted the blinds an inch and peered out. No sirens, at least. She jumped at the sound of the door opening behind her. Ruby set a plate with a grilled cheese sandwich and a pickle on the dresser. “Here you go, honey. I’m cutting the hair of a few of the residents downstairs. You rest in the meantime.”

  Adele had been too nervous to eat breakfast. She didn’t know if she could eat the sandwich either, but she’d try. After a tentative bite, she devoured it. This was no simple white bread and American cheese number. Gruyère, if she wasn’t mistaken, and tangy Dijon mustard. She wiped her mouth with a linen napkin, pushed the plate aside, and yawned. Ruby was right. A nap sounded great. She pulled up a quilt and lay back on the bed.

  Until last week, she’d expected to be in prison another five years. Then she saw the prison’s doctor for debilitating headaches she couldn’t shake. At the memory, Adele rubbed her temples. The doctor had recommended a CT scan. The next day, she was called back to the infirmary and sat across the desk from the stolid-faced physician. “I’m afraid I have some bad news,” he said. She had an inoperable brain aneurysm. She shouldn’t count on living past spring.

  He’d taken off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose but wouldn’t look her in the face. “I’m so sorry. There’s nothing I can do.”

  So, she was going to die. She hadn’t panicked or cried or cursed fate. Before she’d even left the room, she knew what she had to do. The knowledge had settled as quickly and surely as the smudge on the bottom of the CT scan she’d just seen. She had to get her paintings off the market before anyone figured out they were fakes, and, worse, what she’d done to them. She got in touch with Uncle Larry. He’d told her the Booster Club would help. The Booster Club. With those words on her mind, Adele fell asleep.

  A knock on the door woke her. “May I come in?”

  With a jerk, Adele sat up. Where was she? The room was completely dark, unlike the prison’s relentless fluorescent buzz even after lights out. She let out her breath. The retirement home. She clicked on the bedside lamp. “Sure. Come in.” When the door opened, her jaw dropped. It was the 12-step group facilitator from the prison.