Too Many Crooks Spoil the Plot

by Sarah Osborne

  “What shall I do?” I asked.

  Eddie stared at me. “I don’t suppose you’d like to spend the day baking with Lucie. Take her mind off things, and yours as well.”

  Lucie. Very-good-at-keeping-secrets Lucie. Was there anything else Lucie might know that she wasn’t telling me? “Hmm. I could do that,” I said. Baking would give me time to think about our situation. I could think and grill Lucie at the same time. Gently, of course. My supervisor didn’t expect me back at work until next week, so time was my own.

  Work. It was certainly on the back burner, and I didn’t like that. It wasn’t that Vic couldn’t keep the place running without me. Of course she could. But I missed the place. The work grounded me. It gave me perspective. Then there was the fifteen-year-old who was so distraught. I wondered if the social worker had resolved that situation at home. If I had a second I’d give her a call.

  Eddie brought me back to the current situation. “We can’t have the kids out of our sight. If Marie figured out where we were, anyone else could as well. Dan, let me hear from you every hour and I’ll keep up with Mason if he doesn’t call you first.” Eddie was clearly command central. I felt sorry for anyone who tried to mess with her.

  Lurleen and I went upstairs to find the kids. They were settled on the bed, a card game spread out in front of them. Lucie was teaching Jason the rules.

  “Can we talk?” I whispered to Lurleen. I stepped into the hallway and Lurleen followed me.

  I stood with my cell phone in one hand.

  “Who are you calling?” she asked. “Not Phil Brockton I hope.”

  I shook my head. “He’ll call me if he wants to meet. It’s lunch, nothing more.”

  “Brockton would never call you if he didn’t want something from you. This isn’t a let’s-be-friends invitation. He was never concerned with anyone but himself. I’m surprised you still don’t know that.”

  “I’ve thought a lot about our relationship. I see him more clearly now, but people do change. I’m not going to chase after him, that’s for sure. And lunch is to give me some closure, that’s all. I haven’t seen or heard from him in seven years.”

  “Seven years and you still think about him. Mon Dieu, I stop thinking about an ex-boyfriend in seven seconds.”

  “As I said, Lurleen, it’s not Phil I’m calling. I had a fifteen-year-old in the clinic the other day, the one I mentioned before. She was hysterical, complaining of stomach pains, aches, everything imaginable. There wasn’t anything physically wrong with her that I could find. When I asked about her home situation she burst into tears.”

  I closed the bedroom door, so the children couldn’t hear what I was saying. Lurleen moved closer to me.

  “An ‘uncle’ moved in. He was terrifying her. I did a pregnancy test, and that was negative. But I am worried about her. She wouldn’t say he was molesting her but she was too frightened to say much of anything. We have a great social worker, and that’s the person I want to call.”

  I looked at Lurleen. She was trembling. “What is it? Are you sick?”

  “No, no, I’m fine. These stories make me sad, that’s all. A child in trouble with no one to protect her.”

  Lurleen didn’t look fine. I led her to the bench near the window at the top of the stairs. She let me put my arm around her.

  “Please, Ditie, no questions. Not today.”

  “Not today,” I said. “But someday I hope you’ll talk to me about your past. Your real past.” I held her until she’d regained her composure.

  “Do you mind if I sit here while you call?” she asked.

  “Not at all.” I called the clinic and asked to speak to Cheryl, the social worker. She was out, so I left a message to have her call me when she could. “Well, that’s all I can do for now. Are you ready to get the kids?”

  “Ready,” Lurleen said, putting on her happy face. “Jason will never leave my side.”

  We opened the bedroom door without knocking and two very guilty-looking children stopped talking. They weren’t playing the game. Lucie slid something in her pocket and gave Jason a look.

  “What’s going on?” I asked Lucie.

  “Nothing, Aunt Di,” Lucie said and turned red. “Jason didn’t want to play by the rules, so I had to talk to him about that.”

  Jason remained uncharacteristically quiet.

  “You must obey me,” Lurleen said to Jason. “I am the Femme Merveilleuse. No one can disobey the Femme Merveilleuse.” She began tickling Jason, who screamed with delight.

  “Come, Lucie,” I said. “We have a busy day ahead of us. We have to make enough sweets to satisfy this household and take care of lunch and dinner as well. We are the catering service. Are you up for that?”

  Lucie jumped down from the bed. “Of course,” she said. “But what about Jason?”

  “Lurleen is Jason’s sidekick for the day. Don’t worry about him.”

  Lucie whispered something in Jason’s ear and left the room with a single stern glance in his direction.

  She took my hand and walked slowly downstairs with me. When we got to the kitchen I pulled out a few cookbooks from Eddie’s vast collection and put them on the island. Lucie climbed up on a stool and sat quietly beside me. I thumbed through the index looking for a brownie recipe that might rival my own.

  “What is it, Luce? You’re never this quiet.”

  Lucie pretended to be interested in a recipe she’d found. “We could make this,” she said.

  “Lucie, what is it? What did you whisper to Jason?”

  Lucie bit her lower lip and concentrated on the recipe.

  I took the book out of her hands. “What’s going on? You have to tell me.”

  “You’re not my mother! I don’t have to tell you anything!”

  She jumped down from the stool and ran out of the room. I found her in the giant hallway, hiding behind the massive staircase. There was an open space underneath the stairs—a perfect hiding place for a young girl in trouble.

  I sat down on the floor beside her and took her in my arms. “What is it, Luce? Don’t you trust me?”

  “More than anyone.”

  “Then tell me. What is it?”

  Lucie sat rigid in my arms. In a silent battle with herself—or someone else.

  She finally spoke. “Someone might get hurt if I tell.”

  “Lucie, secrets are never good. Not secrets that threaten someone. Bad people try to get children to be quiet. Please tell me what’s going on.”

  “It’s Jason,” she said.

  “What about Jason?”

  “He’s seen his dad.”

  There. It was out. Lucie looked relieved and terrified at the same time.

  “What do you mean? I know his dad came over to see your mom with Billy Joe. Is that what you mean?”

  “No. Jason has talked to his dad a bunch of times. At school. At your house. His dad knows we’re here. Jason has his cell phone. They talk.” Lucie reached into the pocket of her jeans and pulled out a cell phone. “This is what I took from him when you came in.”

  She handed me the phone. “Jason’s dad said someone might kill us if we ever said a word.”

  “Oh, Lucie. We have to tell Eddie and Mason. You understand that, don’t you?”

  Lucie nodded. “I know.”

  I started with Eddie. She was sitting in the parlor talking on the phone. When she got off she began speaking before I could.

  “That was Mason. He still doesn’t know what’s going on. The order to take him off the case came from higher up. Nothing his captain could do. Mason’s furious, of course. Now he’s supposed to go to Albany on a cold case. That could keep him out of town for days.” She looked at me. “What is it, Ditie? We’ll be okay here, I promise you. And I’m not sure Mason will go on the assignment even if it costs him his job.”

  “I
t’s not that,” I said, “although that’s a huge problem.” I gave her the phone. “This belongs to Charlie Flack. He’s been in touch with Jason all along. I have no doubt he knows where Jason is right now.”

  Eddie examined the phone and then put it in her pocket. “This changes things,” she said. That was all she said for a moment. “I’ll get in touch with Mason—with luck, he can trace the phone. We’ll make sure every window and door is locked.” She used a key to open the gun case at the back of the room, selected a firearm, and slid it into her apron pocket. “We’ll be fine.”

  Lucie had been standing in the doorway throughout the conversation. I motioned her over and she sat between us. “You did the right thing by telling us,” Eddie said to her. “Now we can keep you and Jason safe.”

  I hugged Lucie, and she let out an enormous sigh. She rested her head on my chest, and for a moment I felt she was my eight-year-old daughter. “You don’t have to be the adult any longer, Lucie.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Eddie left us sitting on the sofa in the parlor and went into the hallway to call Mason. I could hear the murmur of her voice followed by silence and then more talking. Lucie kept her head on my chest. I realized by her soft, regular breathing that she was asleep. Poor kid. Holding all that inside must have been a dead weight for her. She was so desperate to keep everyone alive she didn’t know what to do. I got her comfortable on the sofa, covered her with a soft throw, and joined Eddie in the hall.

  “Mason is on his way here. We’ll make sure all the windows and doors are locked, and then I’ll show you how to set the alarm.”

  “Are you always this calm?” I asked her as I followed her into the dining room.

  “It’s the first thing they try to teach you at the academy, and it’s one of the last things you actually learn. Like being a doctor I suspect.”

  We latched each window as we talked.

  “Yes,” I said. “You graduate after four years of school, and then everyone calls you doctor. But you’re a doctor in name only—it’s pretty frightening. That first year of residency, your internship year, that’s what teaches you to be one. To ask the right questions, to stay calm, to cope.”

  Eddie motioned me to the kitchen through the butler’s pantry and then on to a guest bedroom that also served as her office. It was a beautiful space, added on when the kitchen was expanded I suspected. Cozy, with windows on two sides, a sleigh bed against one wall, and a lovely plantation desk in front of the windows. “My husband designed this space for me before he died. He knew how much I wanted a grand kitchen and a smaller space to call my own.”

  “It’s perfect.”

  Eddie nodded and finished with the windows as I stood admiring the room.

  “Please, don’t stop talking,” she said. “I’ve always wondered about life as a doctor. It’s something I might have considered if I’d been born in your time and not mine.”

  “Med school is all about endurance—budgeting your time, trying to remember too much information, but it’s nothing compared to the first year after you graduate. That’s when you have to make decisions, learn what you don’t know, and stay strong. I didn’t let myself cry for a year, and then on my weeklong break, it was all I could do. You see too much suffering.”

  “I can’t imagine working with a sick or dying child,” Eddie said. “I didn’t think I’d recover when my own son died. You don’t entirely, but you do learn to cope.”

  I nodded. I’d seen how crushing it was for a parent to lose a child. It was a pain that never seemed to end. “How did you cope?”

  “Time,” Eddie said. “Time and friends. I can talk about my son Michael now and remember the good times with him as well as the bad. Someone told me it’s like a circle that’s been broken. The circle will never be complete again, but over time you can appreciate the part of the circle that remains.”

  “If you don’t mind, I’m going to use that in the future. It may help people.”

  “Of course, dear. With the loss of my husband and my son, I take nothing for granted. I live every moment to its fullest. Maybe that’s why I stay calm. I know I can handle almost anything that’s thrown my way.” She squeezed my arm. “I see that same toughness in you, although I do wonder . . .” She paused and looked at me.

  “What?” I asked.

  “It’s none of my business.”

  “You can ask me anything you like,” I said.

  We kept moving, this time back to the kitchen and the bay of windows that filled the kitchen with light. Eddie dead bolted the door leading to the backyard, as I set to work on the windows.

  “I wonder why you aren’t married. Never married, Mason said.” She looked at me. “I’m sorry, my dear. I’m often accused of being too blunt. In the South, that’s not considered a desirable trait.”

  We both laughed.

  “I know. I find it refreshing. I never married because . . .” I couldn’t think of how to finish that sentence. “I guess I didn’t want to risk losing someone I loved the way I lost my father. It hurt too much. It seemed better not to get attached. To a person or a place.”

  “But, of course, we do get attached, don’t we?” she said, touching my arm. “Forgive me for prying. I want to know everything about everyone. It made me a good cop but an annoying friend.” She took her cell phone out of her pocket. “Let me check with Dan and then we’ll get the rest of the house secured.”

  I locked the remaining windows in the kitchen while Eddie made her phone call.

  “Dan hasn’t found Marie,” she said when she clicked off. “He’s been to her house and now he’s headed to Sandler’s.”

  She took my hand and led me across the hall to a room I’d never entered—a second parlor she called it. It looked like a glimpse into the past, full of antiques. “This is all the furniture from my parents and grandparents. Furniture that we couldn’t bear to part with and that never found a good home.”

  I could find a good home for it, I thought. It was beautiful. A fireplace stood in one corner surrounded by bookshelves and hundreds of books. The room itself was overstuffed with chairs and settees.

  “I’m not a hoarder, I promise you. I just couldn’t bear to part with what my parents and grandparents so loved.”

  “I completely understand,” I said. We made our way with difficulty to the windows that looked out on the right side of the house. The space outside was narrow and less well-groomed. “It’s like a secret garden,” I said. “Old rose bushes. An oak tree good for climbing. I hope Jason doesn’t discover this.”

  “Oh, he probably has. The front of the yard is fenced in, but there’s a gate leading to this area. We haven’t done much with the space. My husband was the real gardener, and this was the project he never got to. I suppose I’ve left it wild as a memorial to him.”

  “It looks like someone’s been in it,” I said, peering out the window. “See the footprints, the trampled earth.”

  “I can’t imagine who that would be,” Eddie said, looking where I pointed. “We have a gardener who comes every other week, but I’ve told him not to bother with this area. Not until we decide what we want to do with it. The footprints look fresh. I’m going to check it out. I’ll be back in a minute.” She could see the worried look on my face. “I’ve got my friend,” she said, motioning to the pocket that held the gun. “And it’s broad daylight.”

  I waited by the window. Eddie waved at me from outside and I watched as she examined the prints. Then she returned.

  “Looks like two different sets. Not work boots. Regular shoes. One around the size of Mason’s and one larger. Perhaps Mason and Dan walked out here. That would make sense.”

  We split up the rooms on the second floor and had everything checked and locked in ten minutes. Lurleen was busy playing I Spy with Jason and understood that her one assignment was to keep him safe. I knew she’d throw herself in front
of a bus to do that.

  I motioned her into the hallway and let her know the latest on Marie. Jason heard us whispering and joined us in the hall. “You have a secret,” Jason said. “When you whisper you have a secret. That’s what Mommy says.” His lower lip started to quiver.

  Lurleen looked at him with her hands on her hips. “You, mon cher Jason, or should I say Monsieur Spider-Man, must help us protect the household from intruders. That is our mission. I will teach you some moves from my karate class and then we’ll be all set.”

  Jason looked up at her. He mimicked her stance. Earnest face. Hands on hips. “Okay, Fam Mar-”

  “-veilluese,” Lurleen added.

  “Merveilleuse,” Jason said as if he actually spoke French. Better French than Lurleen. Even she was shocked. “But I don’t need no karate moves. I know karate.” He gave a pretty good rendition of someone who actually did know karate. Eddie joined us at that point and nodded her approval.

  “We’ll leave you two at it,” Eddie said. “He should never be out of your sight, Lurleen.”

  “He won’t be.” I thought she was going to add Madame Capitaine, but she didn’t.

  Mason entered the front door as we came downstairs. He looked grim. “Let me see the phone.”

  “You’re going to hand it over to headquarters?” Eddie asked.

  Mason shook his head. “Not right now. I’m taking a few days of sick leave. I’ve suddenly come down with the flu.” Mason was angry, but he clearly wasn’t sick.

  “What’s going on at headquarters?” Eddie asked.

  “I wish I knew. Not a word I can trust from anyone. Except that I’m off the case. They don’t need me in Albany, and a man can’t help it if he gets sick. So I’m here with you.”

  We heard Lucie stirring in the parlor. She seemed as happy to see Mason as I was. He knelt beside the sofa. “You’ve been a very brave little girl. I want to ask you some more questions when you’re up to it.”

  Lucie sat up straight, dangled her feet over the edge of the sofa. “I’m ready now.”