Too Many Crooks Spoil the Plot

by Sarah Osborne

  “Did you know Jason’s dad was seeing him?”

  Lucie nodded solemnly. “He showed up when no one else was around. Before Mom died, she said I must not tell anyone about him.”

  “Why did he come?” Mason asked.

  “He said we had something he needed. Something small but important. He searched through everything we had, and then he swore at us. Bad words I can’t say to you.”

  “He never found what he wanted?”

  Lucie shook her head again. “No. And he always said he would be back.”

  “Why did he think you had something he wanted?” Mason asked.

  “Because it was supposed to be in the Transformer Jason had. It was supposed to be left there. I heard Jason’s dad say that to my mom. She said she’d put it somewhere else for safe-keeping. Somewhere nearby, but no one would know where until she saw the money. She said us kids would keep it hidden even though we didn’t know what we were doing.”

  “So she did have whatever it is they wanted,” I exclaimed. “Lucie, you have no idea what it was or where it might be hidden?”

  Lucie solemnly shook her head.

  “When was the last time Jason saw his dad?” Mason asked.

  “He came to our window last night.”

  “What?” Eddie and Mason said together. “That’s impossible.”

  “Someone held the ladder for him. A man, I think. But I couldn’t tell for sure. It was too dark.”

  Eddie and I looked at each other. The footprints were just below the children’s room.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  We sat in the parlor, stunned. Two men had dragged a ladder to the side of the house, and we hadn’t noticed? Late-morning light filtered through the two front windows of the parlor. I had a strong urge to pull the curtains and make us invisible to anyone who might be lurking outside.

  “How is that possible?” Eddie asked.

  “We didn’t set the alarm,” Mason said.

  “But why didn’t Hermione bark?” Eddie said.

  “She only barks when someone rings the doorbell,” I said.

  “She was asleep,” Lucie added. “I heard her snoring. And Jason’s dad wasn’t there long. He said he’d be back. He told us to call him when the coast was clear. He said he couldn’t call Jason on the phone because he didn’t know who might be around to hear it ring.”

  Mason stood up. “Come on, Mom, we’ll have a look outside.” He pointed a finger at me. “You stay here with Lucie.”

  I nodded my assent, but I didn’t like the finger pointing. I didn’t like it when anyone ordered me about. Eddie and Mason were back in the house in ten minutes.

  “We found two sets of footprints. One small. One large. No ladder. Did you see a second person, Lucie?”

  Lucie shook her head. “I thought someone was holding the ladder. Jason’s dad called to hold it steady, but the other person didn’t speak.”

  “And Charlie Flack said he’d come back when the coast was clear?”

  Lucie nodded.

  Mason and Eddie were quiet for a moment. I knew what they were thinking. “You want to set a trap for them, don’t you?”

  “Right,” Mason said. “Lucie, you and Jason won’t be involved, except to tell one lie. You’ll say the coast is clear. Can you do that?”

  She nodded like a little soldier being asked to lead the charge out of the bunker. “Yes,” she said and reached for the phone.

  “Not quite yet, sweetie,” Eddie said. “We’ll work out the details and then we’ll ask you to do that.”

  Lucie looked relieved.

  “For now, do you mind playing with Jason and Lurleen? Not a word to Jason about this, okay?” Mason shook her hand.

  I took her to the foot of the stairs and kissed her on the top of her head. “You did the right thing.”

  She smiled at me. A small, scared smile. “I know. I love you, Aunt Di, no matter what happens.”

  I hugged her hard. “I love you too. Nothing is going to happen to you or Jason. I made a promise to your mother, and I never break my promises.”

  I watched Lucie climb slowly up the stairs. She made my heart ache. Is this what being a mother was all about? It was an unfamiliar feeling—like when the Grinch’s heart grew two sizes. Painful and powerful.

  As I walked into the parlor, I heard Mason on the phone. “We’ll see you when you get here.”

  He looked up at me and patted a seat next to him on the sofa. He could see I had something to say.

  “I’m not okay with involving Lucie in this,” I said. “No phone call to Flack. No lies. The kid is scared to death. I protect kids. I don’t put them on the firing line.”

  Eddie took my hand. “You do realize the children are in danger whether or not we call Flack directly.”

  “Of course, but I can’t ask her to do this. Lucie’s a trouper. She’ll do anything we ask her to do, but I won’t ask her to do this.”

  Mason nodded. “It’s off the table for now, and maybe it will never come to that. Dan’s been busy. He had a long chat with a receptionist at Sandler’s. According to the receptionist, Marie Vanderling didn’t go into work today and didn’t call in. It was totally out of character for her.”

  “So she’s either on the run or she’s in trouble,” I said.

  “That’s what it looks like,” Mason said. “Dan went through her house pretty carefully and didn’t find anything suspicious.”

  “He broke into her house?” I asked.

  “He didn’t have to. The back door was unlocked. Dirty dishes were piled in the sink. It’s as if she left to go to work and changed her mind. Or someone changed it for her.”

  I put my head in my hands. “She sounded so frightened on the phone.” All I could see was Ellie’s face after she’d been shot. Unrecognizable. Horrible. Had this happened to Marie? I couldn’t stop myself from shaking. Mason put his arm around me.

  “We don’t know anything yet,” he said, “but we do know that whoever is behind this is getting more brazen. For Charlie Flack to come to the house in the middle of the night, he must be stupid or desperate or both.”

  “He looked scared to death when I saw him in the car. What happens next?” I asked.

  “First off, Dan is going to see what else he can find at Sandler’s. According to our very talkative receptionist, all the high-level execs and their staff were called to an emergency meeting. Marie was a no-show. I think we need to get Lurleen involved. She may have some ideas about where Marie went.”

  “I’ll relieve her,” I said. “And get the kids to help me with lunch.”

  “Good.”

  I went upstairs in time to see Lurleen and Jason rescuing Lucie from the clutches of Hermione, aka Chien Mauvais. Hermione was lying on her back being scratched vigorously by Jason and obviously in heaven.

  “That’s one way to subdue an enemy,” I said. “I’m here to get recruits for lunch duty. I need you both.” I pointed to Jason and Lucie. “And Mason would like the presence of your company, Lurleen. He’s in the parlor.”

  “Avec plaisir,” Lurleen said. “I shall be on my best behavior. You have nothing to fear. He’s all yours, ma chérie.”

  “Thank you. Now come along, kids.” We headed downstairs to the kitchen with Lurleen tripping down the steps in front of us. I watched as Eddie closed the door to the parlor after Lurleen entered.

  I made a big production out of lunch, getting down pots and pans, planning a menu with Lucie, searching the kitchen for ingredients. I didn’t want the kids, especially Jason, to get any ideas about leaving the room. “How about home-made macaroni and cheese? One of my best secret recipes.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Lucie.

  “And how about brownies for dessert?”

  Jason was more enthusiastic about that.

  “To be healthy we’ll throw i
n a fruit salad with my own special topping.”

  Lunch kept us busy for an hour. Jason grew restless when we had the brownies in the oven. After our third game of twenty questions, Lurleen popped her head into the kitchen. “May I be a sous-chef?” she asked and winked at me.

  “Perfect timing. Can you assist Lucie? The brownies should be ready in ten minutes. I’ll be back to finish up lunch and we’ll eat in fifteen. I didn’t hear Dan come back.”

  Lurleen shook her head. “Still on assignment,” she whispered as I wrapped an apron around her. “He’s interviewing Barry Hampstead.”

  The name sounded familiar.

  “You know, Ditie, the head of Sandler’s mail room. The dear man who’s been wanting to marry me for years.”

  “Isn’t that the story with every man you’ve met?” I asked.

  “Oh chérie, you are much too kind. I can think of at least two men who never made a proposal. They weren’t my type anyway.”

  I left her with both children seated at the island beside her. She’d come up with some game for them to play—undoubtedly situated in Paris or the south of France.

  Everyone was quiet when I entered the parlor and shut the door behind me.

  “Apparently Marie kept her private life pretty close to the vest, even with Lurleen,” Eddie said. “Lurleen’s worried sick, of course, but she doesn’t have a clue where Marie might be.”

  “What do we do now?” I asked.

  “Let’s see what Dan turns up.” Mason stood up. “I’m hungry. I can smell something delicious from the kitchen. Any chance of an early lunch?”

  “You smell brownies,” I said. “You can set the table if you’re so eager to eat.”

  “Avec plaisir,” Mason said, “to borrow one of Lurleen’s lines. In the kitchen, Mom?”

  Eddie nodded. She walked into the kitchen beside me. “You’ve already accomplished something I’ve tried years to pull off—Mason setting the table. Next he’ll be doing the dishes.”

  Lunch was a noisy affair with everyone talking at once.

  “I made the brownies, Miss Eddie,” Jason exclaimed. “And Lurleen let me eat one before lunch. My mom says no sweets before dinner, but Lurleen said it was okay.” Jason got quiet for a moment until Lucie jumped in.

  “I helped make the macaroni and cheese,” Lucie said. She blushed. “Aunt Di made most of it, but I helped.”

  “It’s delicious,” I said. “And the honey topping for the fruit—perfect.”

  “You are not a modest cook,” Mason teased me.

  “If something is good, why not say so? And if it doesn’t turn out to be tasty, then I’m happy to acknowledge that as well. An experiment gone awry. That’s the joy of cooking.”

  “Don’t put that in a book, my dear,” Eddie said. “Someone’s beaten you to it.”

  Dan arrived as we were finishing up. He turned off the alarm as he entered the house and then reset it. Lurleen fixed him a heaping plate of food. He worked his way through a second helping before he said he’d had enough. Then he spied the brownies on the counter. “Maybe I have a little room for one of those before we talk.” He ate one and then grabbed two more.

  Eddie stood up. “If you think you can handle clean-up, I’ll take the kids outside.” Jason was only too happy to get out of the house, but Lucie shot me a worried look.

  I gave her my best everything will be all right look and hoped she believed me.

  Eddie walked to the security panel in the kitchen and turned off the alarm. “We won’t be needing this for the next half hour.” Then she slid the dead bolt to the side, opened the door, and ushered the kids outside. Hermione was on Jason’s heels, a ball in her mouth. Even Majestic wanted a taste of freedom. She appeared from nowhere, swished her long orange tail in our direction, and left in her Sarah Bernhardt way, ready to find a bird or two she might chase.

  Mason and I cleared the table. He put the dishes in the dishwasher, while I scrubbed the pots and Lurleen dried. Dan stood nearby eating more brownies and filling us in on his morning.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  We finished the dishes as Dan stood beside us, munching and talking. Then we all settled around the kitchen table.

  Dan brought the plate of brownies with him, but he didn’t offer to share. “The receptionist had a lot to say. I’m not sure why she opened up to me the way she did.”

  “I know why,” Lurleen responded. “You, in that Acme Heating and Air uniform, blue to match your eyes, muscles bulging. She would have talked to you all day. Was she . . . cute?”

  Dan knew a trap when he saw one.

  “She was okay. I didn’t really notice.”

  Smart boy. He didn’t really notice. Right. But Lurleen seemed satisfied.

  “She said Marie worked harder than anyone she knew. Marie was there in the morning before the receptionist arrived and still there when she left. If anyone started to give Marie a hard time, she’d give it back to them in spades. Guys high up in the organization or not so high up—it didn’t matter.”

  “I’m not surprised to hear that. We saw that attitude at lunch,” I said.

  “The receptionist liked working for her. Marie was reliable, fair, spoke to her like she was a real person and not just an extension of the telephone. If she did something wrong, Marie would call her on it immediately, but she never humiliated her. One time Sandler Senior wanted to speak with Marie, and the receptionist told him she was in a meeting. ‘Never do that again,’ Marie told her. ‘If Mr. Sandler calls, I’m always available.’”

  Dan looked sadly at the empty plate of what had been a half-dozen brownies.

  “I put some away in the freezer. Shall I get them out?”

  Dan shook his head and patted his belly. “Watching my weight,” he said. “Where was I?”

  “Repeating your conversation with the receptionist,” Lurleen said, “but I could have told you all that.”

  Dan continued as if she hadn’t spoken. I could see her start to bristle. And then her expression turned to one of sadness.

  “She said Marie hadn’t seemed like herself in days. Distracted. Secretive. The receptionist had no explanation for Marie’s absence, and it obviously worried her.”

  “Et moi, ausi. Je suis desolee,” she said. “If I’ve caused Marie harm, I’ll never forgive myself. Never.”

  For once, Lurleen was not being melodramatic. I knew the feeling. It was the feeling I had when I learned Ellie was dead. “You can’t think like that. You didn’t make Marie do anything. She prided herself on knowing all the secrets at Sandler’s and using them to her advantage. That’s a dangerous game to play.”

  I gave Lurleen a tissue, and she dabbed at her eyes.

  “Besides, we don’t even know that anything has happened to her.”

  “Yes, we do,” Lurleen said. “We just don’t know what.”

  At that moment my cell phone rang. We both glanced at the number, hoping it might be Marie’s. I didn’t recognize the number, but Lurleen did.

  “It’s Phil Brockton,” she said much too loudly.

  “How’d you know that?” I asked.

  “I’m an accountant,” Lurleen said. “Or I used to be. Numbers are a part of my brain. I’m surprised he even owns a phone.”

  When Mason gave her a questioning look, she continued.

  “Phil Brockton is the guy who sent Ditie the rose. The guy who’s down here so he can play Civil War games. Everything is all about the eighteen hundreds. And I mean everything. His office is probably an antebellum mansion with gas lighting.”

  “He lives in New York,” I said.

  “So what?” Lurleen asked.

  “Antebellum isn’t really the style in Manhattan.”

  “I’ll bet you a nickel he’s got a Civil War museum somewhere in his house or office. You know it’s the truth.”

 
“Are you done?” I asked. By this time, Phil had gone to voice mail. I stepped into the hall to get the message.

  It was Phil all right. “Hi, Ditie. We need to set a date for lunch. Soon.”

  Everything was urgent with Phil and always on his schedule.

  I sighed and called him back. He started talking immediately. “I stopped by your house and then your office. No one seems to know where you are. Your house looks like no one’s been there for weeks. Your grass needs cutting. I saw weeds around the roses. That’s not like you, Ditie. Where are you and what’s going on?”

  I’d never known Phil to take an interest in what I was doing. I guess a less than manicured yard bothered him. Normally, it would bother me as well.

  “I’m okay, if that’s what you’re asking.” Of course, it wasn’t what Phil was asking. He just didn’t like his perfectly controlled world to seem out of order. “I’ve been busy and I’m staying with friends right now. I can’t do lunch at this point.”

  Phil was quiet for a heartbeat. “But I have to see you,” he said. “Everything has changed. My wife has left me. She couldn’t handle my outside commitments. She wanted me to turn my life around just for her. You’d never ask me to do that.”

  I wouldn’t have seven years ago, and I wouldn’t now. But for very different reasons. “I know the Civil War reenactments are your passion, Phil. I know they keep you sane when you see too much real death and dying in the work you do. But I’m not married to you. I don’t have to stitch the official patches on your uniform with specially spun thread or help you get your gear together when you’re off to Gettysburg or Yorktown. I’m sure that could get old. And what about your children? Do they get to see enough of you?”

  “No children, Ditie. We never had time for that. Tiffany got on that kick as well. Her biological clock was about to explode. Now was the time for children. Now or never. So I said never. And she said bye.”

  Phil sounded as if he were talking about an outdated television set. Time for a new model. And perhaps the new model was supposed to be me. Someone who wouldn’t demand too much of him.