Too Many Crooks Spoil the Plot

by Sarah Osborne

  Eddie hugged me the way I hugged the kids. The way my mother could never hug anyone but Tommy. Eddie didn’t let go until I was ready.

  “I was gone longer than I expected to be,” she said. “I found tire marks and wanted to see where they were headed. Two sets. Down toward the main road. One of them Mason’s—I know the kind of tires he has. I’m sorry I worried you. I’m going to call the police. How much do we tell the kids?”

  “Let me think about that while I get breakfast started.”

  “Keep it simple, dear. I’m not sure any of us will have much of an appetite.”

  I nodded. I’d brought an untouched canister of home-made granola to Lurleen’s, to Tommy’s, and now to Eddie’s. It was time it got eaten. As I set the table I thought about what to tell the kids about Mason and Dan. I was used to telling parents bad news, and children as well. The kids usually handled it far better than their parents.

  Lurleen, Lucie, and Jason were downstairs in ten minutes. They sat at the table as Eddie and I served up a breakfast of granola, yogurt, and fruit.

  What I decided to do was tell them the truth and what we were doing about it. I made it sound like Mason was chasing the bad guys and the police were going to help.

  “What about Uncle Dan?” Jason asked. “Is he chasing the bad guys?”

  Lurleen stepped in. “You know Uncle Dan. He has to be in the middle of the action. He probably has the bad guys pinned down somewhere and is waiting for Mason and the police to come.”

  I squeezed her hand under the table. I realized what a great actress Lurleen could be when the circumstances called for it.

  She looked over at me and tried to smile. Lucie caught the glance. She got up from the table, gave Lurleen a pat on the shoulder, and started clearing the table. “It will be all right,” she whispered as she took Lurleen’s untouched bowl. Lucie stood beside me at the sink. I rinsed and she loaded the dishwasher. Eddie took Jason and Hermione outside for a little exercise. It was light now and promising to be a glorious day.

  “You can go outside with Eddie,” I said.

  “No, Aunt Di, I want to stay with you.”

  “You’re a brave girl, Lucie, and you’ve been through a lot.”

  Lucie looked up at me. “It will be all right, won’t it, Aunt Di?”

  “It will be all right, sweetie. Whatever happens, we’ll handle it together.”

  Lucie took my hand when we finished with the dishes. “I love you Aunt Di.”

  “I love you too.”

  Lurleen was just where we’d left her—at the table staring into her cup of tea. We sat on either side of her, determined to cheer her up. Lucie spoke first. “Lurleen, could you tell us the story about your old boyfriend Andre, the one who gave you the jeweled tiara and then took it back when you wouldn’t marry him?”

  I saw a tiny sparkle in Lurleen’s eyes.

  “That’s one I haven’t heard,” I said.

  “Really?” Lurleen said with a sly smile. “I’m sure I’ve told you about Andre a dozen times. Sometimes I think you don’t listen to me. Very well, if you really want to hear it. I had just turned eighteen and I was visiting my aunt in Paris. Eighteen in France is quite old, old enough to marry, to do a lot of things.” She looked over Lucie’s head at me, and I shook my head ever so slightly. “I mean things like date without an escort, that sort of thing.”

  Maybe Lurleen was right. Maybe I didn’t always listen to her. Her lilting voice faded into the background. Why hadn’t we heard from Mason and Dan? It was one thing to run off without telling us, but it was something else altogether not to call by now, two hours later. It wasn’t like either one of them. They had to be in trouble. No forced entry. No sign of a struggle. Just whisked away. Without the memory card. That fact made it sound more like a chase than an assault. If someone had attacked them, wouldn’t they have demanded the memory card and wouldn’t we have heard something in the house? My thoughts were interrupted by a clamor on the back porch.

  Jason burst into the kitchen, a ball and bat in his hands. Hermione and Eddie came in panting behind him.

  “I hitted it a mile,” he said to me. “Didn’t I, Miss Eddie? Hermione had to run and run to find it. Didn’t I hit it far, Miss Eddie?”

  “Almost out of our yard,” she said and smiled. “Now I need to have a chat with Ditie.”

  Lurleen offered to take the kids upstairs. “Did I ever tell you about my adventures in the Black Forest of France?” she asked. “About how I became an expert archer?”

  “Archer?” Jason asked.

  “Like Robin Hood,” I said. “Shooting arrows.”

  “Robin Hood?” Jason said.

  “I’ll take it from here,” Lurleen said, giving me a patronizing look. Suddenly she was the expert on little boys.

  Eddie waited until we heard the upstairs bedroom door close. “The police will be here soon,” she said to me. “Mason’s captain—Dave Blakely—is coming. I’ve told him what happened.”

  Captain Blakely came with two patrolmen. He sent them outside to examine the area.

  “We have an APB out for Mason’s car,” Blakely said. “Now tell me again what happened.”

  Eddie told the story succinctly, in a way that suggested Mason’s primary concern was protecting me and the children. She didn’t mention the memory card.

  Blakely didn’t push for more information, but Eddie did. “What is this all about? Why have you left Mason in the dark?”

  “Has to be that way right now. This is way over my head and yours.”

  Blakely left fifteen minutes later. He said the patrolmen would keep an eye on the house but that we shouldn’t go anywhere without letting him know.

  Eddie and I sat huddled on the couch in the parlor.

  “Where would we go?” Eddie said. Wrinkles I’d never seen before on her face now looked deeply etched. “Why wasn’t Blakely more worried about what was going on?” she asked. “I’ve known Dave for years. He and Mason go way back. Why did he act so casual about the whole thing?”

  I shook my head. “Someone will call.”

  The police officers knocked on the front door to announce they were leaving. Captain Blakely had an urgent assignment for them.

  “About the case?” Eddie asked.

  “Something else,” one of them said, “but we’ll be back and check in with you later on.”

  “Check in with us?” Eddie was incredulous. “Two men are missing—one of them a detective—and you’ll check in with us?”

  “I’m really sorry, Mrs. Garrett. Those are our orders.”

  She closed the door with enough force to let them know what she thought of their orders. Then she joined me in the parlor. “Something is terribly wrong,” she said. “And I don’t mean just about Mason and Dan. Something is wrong in the police department.”

  “I’ll going to call Tommy,” I said. “He’s somewhere in this loop.”

  I reached for my phone, but before I could dial, Lurleen burst into the parlor, phone in hand. “It’s Marie. She’s alive. She has news.”

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Lurleen closed the parlor door and held the phone in her hand. She punched in some numbers and waited. “Marie’s gone again,” she said. “I can’t reach her back, but she gave me information. Are the police still here?” Lurleen looked around the room frantically as if a cop might be hiding behind a door somewhere.

  “They left,” Eddie said.

  “Good. Marie said I was not to talk to you if the police were still around.”

  I motioned for Lurleen to sit down on the sofa, but she was too wound up for that. “What did Marie say?” I asked.

  “Dan is with them. They’re holed up on West Paces. Marie’s boyfriend’s house.” Lurleen started pacing. I stopped her so I could hear every word. “Is Dan all right?”

  “Yes, thank G
od.” She smiled and then caught herself. She looked at Eddie, who was standing as still as a statue by the fireplace. “They don’t know a thing about Mason. I’m sorry.”

  “Who are ‘they’?” I asked. “And who is Marie’s boyfriend?”

  “They are Tommy and . . . Mr. Sandler Senior. Mr. Sandler is Marie’s boyfriend.”

  “Tommy? And Mr. Sandler?” Eddie jumped in. “Isn’t Mr. Sandler too old to be involved with Marie? He took over the company when I was in my twenties. It made the news because he was such a young man and it all happened so quickly. His father was forced out—that’s what the tabloids said. Early Alzheimer’s. But that was forty years ago.”

  “He’s old enough to be Marie’s sugar daddy, if that’s what you mean,” Lurleen said. “Late seventies but looks like he’s sixty. Plenty of hair. Gets it styled every week I suspect at that very exclusive salon Stefan’s. He’s trim, rides his bike to work when he can. He’s no slouch, and he’s not about to let his business be destroyed. He’ll stop at nothing to save it.”

  “You’re suggesting murder?” I asked.

  Lurleen didn’t answer me.

  “What’s Tommy’s involvement? What is going on?” Now I was pacing beside her. I grabbed my cell to call Tommy.

  “Wait,” she said. “There’s more. They let me speak to Dan. They won’t let him leave but they haven’t harmed him. Marie says they have him in protective custody. So he doesn’t get hurt or in the way.”

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  “Marie said they are very close to identifying the mastermind behind all of it, but they couldn’t have a private investigator stirring up the waters. She said if they hadn’t stopped Dan, he might have gotten himself killed.”

  “You believe that?” Eddie asked.

  “I don’t know what to believe. I know Dan’s all right for now,” she said, looking at both of us.

  “What’s Tommy’s role in all this?” I asked.

  “I didn’t talk to Tommy. I don’t know. Marie just said he was there, as if he were a part of the whole thing. Helping Mr. Sandler I assumed.” Lurleen abruptly sat down, as if the weight of all the information had suddenly made her tired. “There’s something more. I told the children to stay upstairs. I didn’t want them to hear any of this, except the part about Dan being okay.”

  Eddie opened the door to the parlor. “We’ll hear them if they come down.” She positioned herself near the door so she could see the stairs. She nodded at Lurleen to continue. I took a seat next to her.

  “Marie is certain she knows who killed Ellie and Billy Joe. She said they were waiting for Charlie Flack to supply them with the proof they needed to arrest someone. She said it all to me in a code we used when we didn’t want the execs to know we were talking about them. We’d talk about a Mr. Fisher or Mr. Frye whenever we had gossip to share. Every exec had a nickname. I’m not sure why she had to use a code with me, unless she didn’t want Dan to know. Or Mr. Sandler. Maybe she didn’t think Mr. Sandler could handle it until he saw the evidence with his own eyes.”

  “Lurleen, we don’t have time for this,” I said. “Who is it?”

  “It’s Fairchild. Maybe I should say Ms. Fairchild. It’s Kathleen Sandler.”

  Chapter Thirty

  The three of us were silent. We could hear the first drops of rain outside. We were in for a typical afternoon storm. The drops of rain turned into a torrential downpour and the room darkened. I was the first to speak. “Kathleen Sandler killed Ellie and her own cousin?”

  “Or more likely had them killed,” Lurleen said.

  “I thought you said Kathleen was a straight arrow,” Eddie said.

  “I thought she was. But I don’t know her as well as Marie does. And I did wonder why she was opening up to me the way she did over drinks. Now I wonder if that was all a setup. Feeding me the information she wanted me to believe. I know Kathleen is tough. If she wants something, she gets it, like her grandfather.”

  “But what is it she wants?” Eddie asked. “She’s next in line to take over the company. It’s her family legacy. Why would she want to destroy it?”

  “You heard the rumor,” Lurleen said. “That she and the old man weren’t getting along, that she was about to be ousted.”

  “I’m calling Tommy,” I said. “I’ll make him tell me what’s going on.” His cell went immediately to voice mail. “Tommy, call me back.” I tried not to yell.

  The next thing we heard were footsteps running down the stairs. Lucie poked her head into the parlor. “I’m sorry, Aunt Di. Jason got so scared I couldn’t keep him in the room.”

  “Not scared,” Jason hollered. “Need to ’tect you. I’m Superman.”

  He was trembling. I took his hand. “We do need you to protect us. You did the right thing, Lucie. We have to stick together.”

  I looked at the windows in the parlor. Locked but the drapes were open. We were ten feet from the ground. The sky was dark outside, and the rain hadn’t let up. “Did you hear the thunder?” I asked Jason.

  Jason nodded.

  I took him on my lap. “I used to get so scared of the thunder and lightning. My dad told me it was God bowling. Every time the skies lit up, it meant God had made a strike. That’s when you knock down all the bowling pins.” The memory of my dad made me smile, and the story seemed to comfort Jason.

  “Is my mommy playing bowling with God?” he asked.

  “Maybe so,” I said. Jason cuddled with me for a minute and let me stroke his head. Then he jumped down and ran over to Lurleen. “Can you teach me to bowl, Lurleen? Like we did at my party?”

  “Of course, mon cher Jason.”

  “You won’t believe this,” Eddie said. “But I used to be on the police bowling league. Our team won three years in a row.”

  “We have no trouble believing that,” Lurleen said.

  Eddie smiled. “I think I have my old jersey somewhere. And I know I have a kids’ set of pins and a rubber bowling ball. My boys loved to play when they were little. Try the closet with the toy chest, Lurleen. I’ll search in the second parlor.”

  I took Lucie away to the sink where I could talk to her privately. “Lucie, big stuff is going on right now. We have to talk to a lot of people. I’ll need your help. You might hear some things that scare you, but I want you to help keep Jason occupied. Can you do that?”

  Lucie stood up as straight as a bread stick. “You know I can, Aunt Di. And I’m not scared. We’ll all take care of each other.”

  “Good girl, Luce. We’ll all take care of each other.”

  We heard Eddie call upstairs to Lurleen. “No luck. How about you?”

  “No luck,” Lurleen called down. “But I have another plan.”

  Moments later, Lurleen appeared in the kitchen with a large unopened suitcase. Jason was at her side.

  “I was saving this for a rainy day,” she said. “And here we have a very rainy day.” She opened the suitcase and pulled out what looked like linoleum squares. They locked together and formed a giant game board, painted with famous buildings from around the world. She began spreading them around the kitchen floor and out into the hall. Then she pulled out cardboard dolls in the likeness of Lurleen, me and the kids, Dan and Mason.

  “I didn’t have time to make one for you, Eddie, but I’ll work on it,” Lurleen said.

  “When did you do this?” I asked.

  “You know I can’t sit still. And I don’t need much sleep.”

  “I don’t play with dolls,” Jason said.

  “I know, I know, mon cher. But these are no ordinary paper dolls.” She pulled hers out for our inspection. It was made of pressboard with articulated arms and legs, dressed, of course, to the hilt with a silk scarf wrapped around doll-Lurleen’s neck. The hair was auburn curls made of shiny ribbon.

  “Michaels,” she said before I could ask where sh
e found all the material. “A store opened up in midtown. Lucky us.”

  She pulled me out next. I was rounded with cotton ball stuffing and Brillo Pad hair. I gave her a look.

  “See what you’re holding?” she said to stop me from fixating on my hair. “See the little rolling pin, the apron with your name on it, the doctor’s bag. I even put a stethoscope around your neck.”

  Lucie took the doll from her. “It’s soft like you, Aunt Di. The face is beautiful just like yours.”

  I squished it. It was soft like me. The face was carefully painted and lovely.

  Jason couldn’t stay away when Lurleen pulled out his doll. A real superhero. He was Spider-Man and Superman combined. Lurleen had made him bigger than all the other dolls.

  Jason picked up the doll. “It’s big like me,” he said. “You’re little, Aunt Di, and I’m big.” He took the doll over to mine and compared sizes. He began marching the figure around the room, diving it off the table ledge, zooming around Majestic, who got out of the way in a hurry.

  Lucie held her doll in both hands. She was gorgeous, with long blond hair made of shimmering yarn, a princess dress that was bejeweled. The doll held a book in one hand, an art pad in the other. “Oh, Lurleen,” she said.

  Lurleen beamed.

  I left my doll in the company of Lucie, who promised to take good care of it, and stood beside Eddie.

  “I called Captain Blakely and filled him in,” she whispered. “The police are on their way to Sandler’s house. We should know something soon.”

  Nothing to do but wait. Again.

  I studied the board. On it were various places in Paris. The Eiffel Tower. The Champs-Élysée, two cafes, a boulangerie. The spinner pointed north, south, east, and west.

  “If you get tired of Paris, I have other board pieces for other cities. Want to know the name of the game?” Lurleen asked, clearly bursting to tell us. “It’s Where in the World Is Lurleen du Trois? Or as I like to say, Ou se trouve Lurleen du Trois? When it’s someone else’s turn the name changes to them.”

  “Oh,” I said. “That old game that was on TV—Where in the World Is Carmen San Diego?”