Shirley Link & The Black Cat

by Ben Zackheim

  "You think she took it?" I ask.

  "Of course she did!"

  "Mrs. Olivander," I say, as gently as I can manage. "A lot of people have made assumptions in the last day or two and none of them have turned out correct."

  Mom nods. "Shirley's right. Let's just take it easy and see how things shake out. I know it's tough, but hang in there. You can do it."

  Mrs. Olivander thinks on it. She stares at her coffee, eyes misted with tears. "I'll try."

  “When did you last see Erin?” I ask

  “Last night. We... argued. I hate falling asleep angry but there was no way to help it. She’s being so difficult about this whole Bobby thing. She thinks she’s in love with him. When I woke up this morning, she was gone.”

  “Has she ever run away before?” Mom asks.

  “She’s run up to Cooldown Hill for a few hours, but she’s terrified of bears so she won’t go back up there again. Maybe the kids have another place they go?” She looks at me, hopefully, with wet eyes.

  “Not that I know of,” I say. “I mean there are a lot of hangouts, but no place where you can disappear for a few hours without being seen. Mrs. Olivander, did you get my message last night?”

  “What message?” Mom asks, her voice going into suspicious mode.

  “Your daughter was kind enough to warn me that a cat snuck into my house last night.”

  “I saw it from my bedroom, Mom.” Which is true, though I leave out the part where I climbed out my window to investigate.

  “I need to keep that window closed, but it’s so hard when the weather is nice like this. I didn’t see a sign of the little pest anywhere. Thank goodness.”

  “Like a thief in the night,” Mom says, with a smile.

  Like a thief in the night.

  Like a thief in the night.

  “Gotta go,” I say, and run out of the kitchen, slip on my sneakers and leap out the door before Mom can even say, “Stop right there, you!”

  Marie answers her cell phone on the first ring.

  “What’s up?” she asks quickly. “I hope it has something to do with all this disappearing stuff.”

  “It does.”

  “Good. I can’t find my diamond earrings anywhere.”

  “Sounds like all the other cases. Have you seen Elvis around?” I cross the street and go through Mrs. Cox's yard. It's a shortcut to the Watley's home.

  “Elvis is dead, Shirley.”

  “Not the rock star, Marie. The cat.”

  “Oh! Him. Yeah, he’s been hanging out. Why?”

  “Meet me at the Watley’s house."

  "Should I call Wylie?"

  "Sure, if you want," I answer, distracted by how beautiful the morning is.

  Uh-oh. The line has gone silent. It's the forever dreaded Marie-is-angry-at-me-about-something-random silence.

  "What do you mean, if I want? Is that supposed to mean that I want Wylie to come along more than you do?"

  "Marie..."

  "Or maybe you mean that I can't get by without big, strong Wylie Lee!" Poor Wylie can get in trouble with Marie without even being here. "Because I can get by just fine without him, Shirley. I'm not the one who's always asking for his big muscles to get me out of trouble."

  I wait for a few seconds to see if the storm has passed. I'm almost to the Watley's place, so I hope we can call a truce quickly.

  "Feel better?" I ask.

  "Much," she says from right behind me. Marie had been following me the whole time! She's getting good.

  She hangs up her cell, and puts an arm around me. She smiles, and I just shake my head.

  "Our friendship exhausts me," I say.

  "Oh, you love me and you know it," she says, looping her arm through mine.

  I knock and cross my fingers. I hear footsteps, so I lucked out. They’re home.

  Mr. Watley opens the door. “Hi Shirley, any news?”

  “Not yet.” The disappointment on his face is irritating. “Have you had the stray black cat outside your home recently, Mr. Watley?”

  “Elvis? Yeah, he was here a couple of days ago, last I heard him.”

  “Do you feed him?” I ask.

  “Yeah, it's the only way to get him to go away," he answers, with a shrug.

  "See? I told you, Shirley," Marie boasts in her best sing-song voice.

  "When's the last time you saw him, Marie?"

  "Last night. He was hanging out on the Graham's estate wall."

  D.L. Graham is the town's wealthiest man. He might even be the state's wealthiest. He's an inventor who has never been seen in public. And I mean ever. The only D.L. spottings we get are when his helicopter swoops over us to take him somewhere. I heard it flying low late last night.

  "What time?"

  Marie thinks about it. "Around ten."

  "I saw him at around eight," I say, thinking out loud. "The Grahams live three miles out of town. That's a long way for a cat to travel in such a short time."

  "Unless he got a ride," Marie says.

  I look up at her and Mr. Watley. My head is popping with ideas. "When did you two first hear Elvis warbling like a zombie opera singer?" I ask.

  "A month ago?" Mr. Watley says.

  A month ago sounds about right. It may be a coincidence, but that's when Officer Sparks moved to Shelburne Falls. If the cat belongs to him, then this case just got really and truly interesting.

  I leave Marie and Mr. Watley to chat while I call Jacob Graham on my cell.

  "Speak of the devil!" he says immediately after picking up.

  "Don't tell me," I say. "You were robbed."

  "You are so good, Shirley. How did you know?"

  "Magic. Did you report it yet?"

  "We didn't need to. The new officer—Sparks is his name, I think—was already patrolling the neighborhood. We flagged him down and he took the report."

  "Can you have Frank pick me and Marie up, please? I want to come visit." Frank is Jacob's chauffeur, helicopter pilot and bodyguard. He's never spoken a word around me. Even when he was abducting me, under Jacob's orders, during the Avengers #1 comic book case.

  "Sure, we could always use some company around this wasteland," Jacob says. How he could hate that huge mansion of his dad's is beyond me. But Jacob has always made it really clear that he would rather be anywhere else but home.

  Mr. Watley says a quick goodbye, leaving Marie and I to sit on the curb while we wait for Frank.

  I think.

  Hard.

  I'm not about to point the finger at Officer Sparks until I have solid evidence. But his arrival in town around the same time the cat appeared is interesting to me.

  "Shirley," Marie says, nudging me awake from the spell of my heavy thinking. "What's up?"

  "Probably nothing," I mumble.

  "Uh-huh."

  "You'll think I'm nuts."

  She puts a hand on my shoulder. "I know you're nuts."

  "Okay, you asked for it. I think Elvis belongs to the criminal."

  "What? Come on. That's..."

  "Nuts? Not really. Criminals have used cats for a lot of things. Small saws were taped to a cat in Brazil so it could sneak into a prison and free a convict. I watched Elvis scope out the Olivanders' last night." I can see the scene in my mind's eye as I speak. "The lights were on in the house, a window was open. It looked like they were home. But Elvis sniffed around for a second, found out the coast was clear and slipped in to steal some food."

  "Then he looked for some jewelry to heist?"

  "No. I think he has a nose for empty houses. I think the owner sets him loose in random neighborhoods to scope out easy targets. Even houses that look like someone's home." The expression on Marie's face c
hanges from confusion to mild understanding. "When the cat meows outside the house, then that means someone is home. He's asking the residents for food. Probably because the owner starves him on purpose. When the phone rang really loud Elvis ran away and somebody called out to him in a whisper."

  "Was it the thief?" Marie asks, eyes wide.

  "I bet it was," I say. "My guess is that the only reason our house wasn't robbed is that I've been home sick for a week. And, like you said yesterday, he only leaves when you feed him. But when he quickly bypasses a house, or finds his way into it, then it's empty. So the crook can enter with confidence, especially since no one locks their doors in this town."

  "But why does the crook only take one small item?" Marie whispers as a couple of kids bike past us.

  "Easy to carry. Also, the trail will go cold. One missing thing could be gone for a long time before anyone notices it's gone. I think most of these reported robberies are real, but the items have probably been missing for days or weeks."

  "Wow. Yeah. That makes sense," Marie says to herself. Something dawns on her and she says, excitedly, "So it's only now that everyone in town is talking about the robberies that they're noticing stuff's gone.

  "Exactly," I say, proud of Marie's grasp of human nature. It's true that once a problem arises in any community, we all tend to see the world with that problem in mind. I call it the Problem Prism. The Problem Prism can be good if we're all trying to solve that problem. But it can also make people paranoid. "I think the thief knows his days of stealing one valuable treasure at a time are over. He'll either stop, or go for one big target before he retires the cat."

  "Retire? I don't like the sounds of that."

  "Yeah, he can't have any affection for it. It's likely that he keeps it hungry so it will sniff out the homes for food. Doesn't leave me with a feeling that he'll let Elvis retire fat and happy."

  "That's horrible!"

  "Another reason for us to catch this guy fast."

  Frank pulls up in the black Lexus with the tinted windows. He hops out and opens the door for us.

  "Thanks Frank," Marie and I say at the same time. I don't expect a response, and I don't get one. But Frank does strike me as particularly mad at the moment. His face is as red as a Red Sox hat.

  "The thief broke into your place, didn't he?" I ask him, as he drives us away from the Watley's house.

  Frank stays silent.

  "Why do you think that?" Marie asks for him.

  "Frank also lives on the Graham estate, where the cat was seen last night. He has a house near the gated entrance. My guess is that someone is always home at the Graham's mansion. Four kids. Two live-in maids. If Frank was flying the helicopter that I heard last night, then his home would be a prime target."

  Frank still doesn't say anything. He's a tough nut to crack.

  When we arrive at the Graham estate, Jacob is waiting for us at the security gate. Frank drops us off and drives on.

  "Poor Frank," Jacob says, leading us onto the beautiful, manicured grounds.

  "What was stolen?"

  "An antique postage stamp."

  "Just one?" Marie asks, as we approach Frank's small home. Frank is pulling the Lexus into his driveway.

  "It's worth like a hundred grand," Jacob says with a shrug.

  "For a stamp? Was it in a stamp album? Some kind of binder or case?" I ask.

  "Yeah, a case," Jacob says. "Only the one stamp is gone."

  "So the thief knows his stamps." Interesting. "Would Frank answer any of my questions?" I ask, watching the chauffeur/bodyguard/pilot/stamp collector unlock his front door.

  "If I told him to," Jacob answers.

  Frank senses that he's being watched and turns his head to meet my stare with a glare of his own.

  "Tell him to," I say.

  Chapter Ten

  Bingo!

  Frank sits on a big leather chair in his den. He has a nice house, a bungalow. Simple with touches of elegance that don't really fit this big brute of a guy sitting across from Marie and me.

  "Thanks for talking with me, Frank," I say.

  "Us," Marie snaps.

  "Us. Right. And thanks for answering our questions. Did you find any signs of a break-in?"

  At first, Frank just stares at me. Then, he shakes his head. Maybe he can't talk? I glance at Marie, who shrugs.

  "Did you ever hear a cat meowing outside?" I ask.

  He nods, yes.

  "Did anyone know about the stamp collection?" Marie says, trying to sound confident, but not quite managing.

  "The Graham family," Frank says in a super-high, squeaky voice. He sounds like a little girl. Or like he sucked down a gallon of helium. Which explains why he doesn't talk much. Marie's eyes are as wide as mine. "But they didn't steal it," he finishes.

  "Of course not," I say. "And no one else knows about the stamp?" I try not to let on that his voice reminds me of Mickey Mouse.

  "A couple of stamp collectors. But no one from around here," he says.

  "Where are they?"

  "Canada."

  I lean forward in my chair. "So you came home and found the stamp was gone?"

  "The stamp's called the Cape of New Hope. Yeah, I go through my collection a few times a week. I like the colors. They calm me down."

  "Sure," I say. "And nothing else is missing?"

  He shakes his head again. Back to silent mode.

  I leave the same way I arrived, filled with theories, with little evidence to back it up. I am genuinely concerned for the cat now. If that was the final, big haul for the thief, then the cat doesn't have any value to the thief anymore.

  Unless.

  It's a leap of logic, but I need to look into something.

  When I get home I go straight for my computer and do a search for the stolen stamp, the Cape of Good Hope. There are only a few in existence, so I know that it's rare. On page three of the search results I spot something.

  A name mentioned on a stamp collecting blog.

  Frank Sicone. Jacob's driver. Yup, in Western Massachusetts. That's our Frank. He probably doesn't even know that his name is mentioned in relation to the stamp on some random stamp collector's blog. But there it is. And I'll bet that's how the thief found out about it.

  If only I could call Google up and ask them who searched for—wait a second! I go to the blog that mentions the stamp and click on the Contact link.

  There's an email address.

  I send off a quick note.

  Hello,

  I'm looking into a robbery in my area and would like to know if you track your blog's traffic. If so, it's possible you can help me dig up some information on your blog post about the Cape of Good Hope stamp. Has any of your traffic come from Massachusetts in the last month or two? Thanks for your help.

  Shirley

  It's a long shot, but some bloggers are obsessed about tracking who comes to their website, how they move around the site, how long they're on it before they leave it, etc. If this person is one of them, and they're willing to help, they may have a lot of useful information for me.

  I make myself busy for about twenty minutes, until I hear the ping of an incoming email.

  Hi Shirley

  I'm sorry to hear there's been a robbery. I hope it wasn't the Cape of Good Hope stamp! I know that Frank Sicone lives down there. I heard about Frank from a friend of mine who sold it to him up here in Canada. I'd feel really bad if I somehow helped the thief find him!

  In fact, I DO have some interesting news for you. I checked my traffic logs. I run very detailed reports on my visitors. I see that one reader went to the Cape of Good Hope article a couple of times two weeks ago. He's from western Massachusetts, unless he's using a proxy address. He used Internet Explorer
6, which is really dumb because that browser sucks, and he clicked through to a site called AntiquesGold. That's a site that specializes in pricing out antique gold jewelry. Kind of sleazy. Definitely check for viruses after you use it. The second visit he made to the site ended when he did a site search for Frank Sicone, saw the same article he’d already seen and left my site for one called MassTreasures.com.

  I hope this helps. Good luck catching the bum!

  Jeff

  If he were any more helpful I'd have to hug him.

  An IP address is the assigned string for every computer on the planet. We all have a unique one when we connect to the Web. Jeff is right that some people use what is called a proxy, which means they're hiding their trail by connecting through a computer that's nowhere near them.

  I go to the MassTreasures site. It’s “under construction”, and gives no contact info. So I go to whois.com, which will show you who owns a specific site. You can pay extra to keep your name private. If this is the thief’s site, I hope he was too cheap to pay.

  I cross my fingers.

  Bingo. He was too cheap to pay.

  There’s our cat burglar.

  Reader, can you guess who the criminal is?

  HINT: He's the only guy we've met who has the means to turn small robberies into big profits.

  Chapter Eleven

  Where’s Elvis?

  The crook got sloppy. He saw that the jig was up, and decided to go for a big payoff. But he should have hidden his tracks better. Now I get to confront him. I need him to break before I tell the police, though. Once he gets arrested he has no reason to tell anyone where Elvis is.