Lisa Lutz Spellman Series E-Book Box Set: The Spellman Files, Curse of the Spellmans, Revenge of the Spellmans, The Spellmans Strike Again

by Lutz, Lisa

  “Therefore, you have an almost five-month supply of cereal in the pantry.”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “You hoard cereal. Mr. Lubovich hoards newspapers. Mr. Peabody hoards used tissues. The symptom is different, but I’m not sure the impulse is.”

  “No! No! No!” Rae shouted in her weak defense. “Are you equating my cereal collection with storing a week’s worth of gooey snot rags in a desk drawer?”

  “I liked your use of the word ‘equating.’ That was good,” Henry replied.

  “They’re completely different, Henry. What I’m doing is based on survival.”

  “How so?”

  “Haven’t you heard of earthquake preparedness?”

  “I have,” Henry replied. “But if you’re so concerned about a natural disaster, why don’t you have any bottled water back there?”

  Rae stared back at Henry blankly.

  “I’d just like you to have an open mind,” he said, ending the conversation once and for all.

  “Dammit!” I shouted.

  “What’s wrong?” Henry asked.

  “Batteries are dead on the tape recorder. Mom would have loved that one. Think you can reenact it?”

  Henry confiscated the tape recorder.

  After downing half a pain pill for dessert, I decided to slip out for a little R&R.2

  “Where are you going?” Henry asked as I gingerly put on my raincoat.

  “I’m sorry, Dad. Am I grounded too?” I asked.

  “You’re not supposed to be driving, Isabel.”

  I tossed Henry my car keys. “Then you drive me.”

  “Okay,” Henry said, unexpectedly. “Let’s go.”

  “Can I come too?” Rae asked.

  “You’re grounded,” Stone replied.

  “Whatever,” Rae replied, picking up the remote control and plopping herself down on the couch.

  GATHERING INTELLIGENCE

  Turn left. Turn right.”

  “Up here?”

  “That’s a driveway. At the next street turn right.”

  “Then what?”

  “Go straight.”

  “Until when?”

  “Until I tell you to turn the car. If I had known you were going to be such a nosy chauffeur, I would have driven in pain.”

  “Why don’t you just tell me where we’re going? I might know a shortcut,” Henry said.

  “I’m not sure where we’re going. I have to retrace my footsteps, so to speak.”

  “Perhaps you’d like to tell me why we’re going there?”

  “Just park, driver.”

  Henry pulled the car into a parking space about four houses down from the Excelsior residence I’d followed Subject to two nights earlier.

  “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

  Henry took hold of my arm before I could get out of the car.

  “First tell me what you’re doing.”

  “I’m just checking an address from a surveillance job the other day. Subject was on the move and it was too dark for me to read the street numbers. I need to put it in the report.”1

  Henry released my arm. “Okay.”

  I noted the address as 1341 San Jose Avenue. The house was dim inside, so I thought it would be safe to check the name on the mailbox. I could run a reverse address search, but if the owner of the house was renting, then I wouldn’t get the identity of the true occupants.

  MR. AND MRS. DAVIS

  According to the 1990 US Census, Davis is the sixth most common surname in the United States. I explained this earlier and in my previous document,2 so I don’t want to keep repeating myself, but the common name makes my job extremely difficult. Instead of reading the mailbox and running, I lingered a bit on the front porch of the Davis (the assumed “Davis”) residence and looked for any further evidence of the resident’s identity. I lingered too long, to be blunt, and a man I could only presume to be Mr. Davis opened the front door of the residence.

  “Can I help you?” “Mr. Davis” asked. He was wearing a flannel shirt over a white T-shirt, blue jeans, and slippers. A can of beer dangled from his hand, his eyes appeared bloodshot, and his skin looked sallow, perhaps from lack of sleep or a vitamin deficiency.

  “Is Mary3 home?”

  “My wife’s name is Jennifer,” presumably-Mr.-Davis said.

  “I think I have the wrong place. You don’t have a book club going on back there, do you?”

  “Uh, no.”

  “Sorry. I must have written the address down wrong.”

  “Must have.”

  “Have a nice evening,” I said, about to slip away.

  “Hey there,” presumably-Mr.-Davis said.

  “Yes?” I replied, turning back around.

  “Where’s your book?”

  “What?”

  “You were planning on going to a book club. I was just wondering where your book was.”

  “Oh, I never read the book,” I said. “I just go for the free booze. See you.”

  “Let’s go,” I said to Henry once I was back inside his car.

  “You made a new friend?”

  “Nah. I just got made.”

  Stone and I drove home in silence. It had been a long day and what I needed most was one more full night of narcotic-induced rest. If breathing were unnecessary, I would have been pain free. But you know the story.

  Henry pulled the car up in front of the Spellman house. Just as I was reaching for the door, I had a flashback from the previous night’s adventure.

  “Who was that kid, Henry?”

  “What kid?”

  “From the party. You went right up to that kid and shook him and said something like ‘You’ve disappointed me.’”

  “I don’t remember,” Henry casually replied.

  “I was doped up on Vicodin and Ambien and I remember.”

  “Another way to look at it,” Henry replied, “is that your memory is cloudy from prescription drugs.”

  “You know that kid. Who was he?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You’re a lousy liar.”

  “I haven’t had as much practice as you.”

  “Who was the kid?”

  “Isabel, at this point, I’ve spent almost twenty straight hours with you.”

  “I too have enjoyed our time together.”

  “Get out of my car,” Henry said, trying to sound threatening.

  I studied Stone’s stolid expression to gauge his resolve.

  “Okay, good night.”

  Then I did the oddest thing. I kissed him on the cheek. Henry flinched slightly when I moved toward him, as if he thought I might injure him.

  “Sorry,” I said, feeling my skin flush with embarrassment. “I have no idea why I just did that.”

  “Must be the drugs you’re on.”

  “Must be,” I echoed as I exited the vehicle.

  HOME ALONE

  CHAPTER-5

  I entered the Spellman home and found my sister plopped in front of the television watching some old sci-fi movie on DVD.

  “What are you watching?”

  “Dr. Who: The Five Doctors.”

  “Where did it come from?”

  “Henry. He has, like, all forty years of Doctor Who on DVD. I just want to watch the new series, but he won’t let me until I’ve viewed some of the older stuff. He has so many rules,” Rae said.

  “Yes, he does,” I agreed. “At the party,” I said, changing the subject, “there was a boy about sixteen, maybe seventeen. Lanky, sandy-brown hair, skater wear all the way. After we busted into the joint, Henry took him by the shoulders and said, ‘You’ve disappointed me.’ So?”

  “So what?”

  “Answer the question.”

  “That was not an interrogative.”

  “Rae, who was the skater dude?”

  “I think his name is Dylan Loomis, although
there were a couple of boys there matching your description.”

  “Why would Henry say ‘You’ve disappointed me’?”

  “I don’t know. Did you ask Henry?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did he say?” Rae asked, turning to me. Her demeanor had remained casual up until this point. But the answer to this question held some genuine interest for her.

  “He said nothing. But there’s no reason for him to be disappointed in a random boy at a party you attended. So here’s my follow-up question: Is Dylan Loomis your boyfriend’s real name or did you supply a fake one to keep me off the scent just a little bit longer? And I know there was an interrogative in that last sentence.”

  Rae pressed the Play button and returned her attention to five middle-aged men in lab coats. I had a brief flashback to my own adolescence and thought perhaps if I didn’t push, didn’t pry, Rae might have a better chance than me. So I let the subject drop. For now.

  “You know what? It’s none of my business, although you should probably lay off the beer at parties for a while.”

  This time Rae pressed the Pause button. “Are you going to tell Mom and Dad?”

  “If I don’t, Henry will. You got drunk at a party, Rae.”

  “No, the other thing.”

  “They don’t know you maybe have a boyfriend?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  “Why does Henry know and Mom and Dad don’t know?”

  “Because I tell Henry everything,” Rae said, getting up and scouring the pantry for more snack food. Rae grabbed a bag of potato chips and a can of root beer and sat back down on the couch. “So you’re not going to tell?”

  “I don’t know. I have to think about it.”

  “I have something to offer you in exchange for your silence,” she said in a conspiratorial tone.

  “What?”

  “If you want to investigate someone in the family, how about choosing a more worthy subject?”

  “Who?”

  “Dad.”

  “What about him?”

  “I don’t think he’s having a REAFO.”

  “What are you saying, Rae?”

  “Look in the glove compartment of his car.”

  SUSPICIOUS BEHAVIOR REPORT #10.1

  “Albert Spellman”

  Confidential sources are common in all investigative work, but this was the first time Rae had ever passed on information instead of using it to her own end. It is true I had found my father’s behavior suspicious as of late, but I never thought beyond the wet hair, leafy greens, and attempts at heartfelt chats about life and death. I was purely of the school of thought that Dad was going through yet another REAFO. But after opening Dad’s glove compartment, I determined that the suspicious behavior report needed an upgrade.

  I found three child-proof pill bottles with prescriptions from a Dr. Nate Glasser at the California Pacific Medical Center. I slipped the bottles into my pocket (Mom and Dad weren’t due home for another three days) and re-entered the house. I pressed the Pause button on the remote control and asked Rae if she had researched anything on the internet. She said she hadn’t; she was afraid of what she might find out. I told her not to worry. I lied and told her I was certain that Dad was fine. It took tremendous discipline for me to avoid researching the prescriptions myself, but I waited until the next afternoon when I met Morty at Moishe’s Pippic for lunch.1

  SUNDAY, MARCH 19

  1100 hrs1

  Morty ordered decaf coffee with his pastrami sandwich. I noted that the coffee-sandwich combo was perhaps one of the great symbols of our generational differences. I can think of few things more unappetizing. Then Morty did what he usually did after being served a cup of coffee; he burned his tongue on the brew and then put an ice cube in his beverage. He then started talking and forgot about his decaf.

  “You mentioned on the phone yesterday that you had a favor to ask.”

  “I was wondering if you could give me your son’s phone number.”

  “I thought you said he was too old for you.”

  “He is. But I need to ask him about a prescription I found in my Dad’s glove compartment.”

  Morty wrote down the number, ate a couple messy bites of his sandwich, and then tasted his coffee. In the interim the beverage had dipped into the lukewarm range and Morty, as usual, called the waitress over.

  “Can you heat this up, dear?” he asked with a wink.

  The waitress, Gayle, aware of Morty’s beverage MO, hid her annoyance behind a fake smile, took the coffee behind the counter, and stuck it in the microwave.

  “You are so predictable,” I said to Morty.

  “You like lukewarm coffee?”

  “Forget it.”

  “Forgotten.”

  The waitress brought back Morty’s beverage and like déjà vu, Morty sipped the beverage, winced in pain, said “Too hot,” stuck an ice cube into the brew, talked some more about a recent bridge game, drank two sips of the coffee, and asked the waitress to heat it up again.

  THE “LAW OFFICES” OF MORT SCHILLING

  Monday, April 24

  1245 hrs

  “You exaggerate,” Morty said, commenting on my retelling of his coffee temperature obsession.

  “Every time,” I replied.

  “Bah,” Morty said, waving his hand dismissively. “Can we move on?”

  “Sure.”

  “So, did you talk to my son about your Dad’s prescription?”

  “Yes. The prescriptions were for Lisinopril, Zocor, and Coreg. Your son said that those were the standard regimen for coronary heart disease. I explained my father’s recent lifestyle changes and your son surmised that my dad was aggressively trying to avoid heart surgery.”

  “Your mother didn’t know a thing?”

  “Had no idea. She knew he had a bit of a cholesterol problem, but that’s it. She thought he had just decided to take care of his health. I mean, he hid the extent of his healthy activities. If he could go to the gym unbeknownst to her, or eat a vegetarian meal without her knowledge, he would. Because she would have known something more serious was up if she witnessed the extent of the turnaround.”

  “So what did you do?”

  Once again, I get ahead of myself. The case of my dad had priority, but I must admit the case of John Brown was far more intriguing.

  SUBJECT IS UNOBSERVED FOR THREE DAYS…

  Monday, March 20

  1830 hrs

  Despite my constant vigil on Subject’s residence, John Brown and his vehicle were not observed for three days following the St. Patrick’s Day debacle. Without Subject to guide me in some direction, there was no place my investigation could go besides back to its point of origin. Since I had been made at the Excelsior residence as a book club wannabe with bad directions, I could not return for further information without raising a red flag. And so I turned to the only person I knew who was capable and willing to aid in my inquiry.

  “What’s my cover?” Rae asked.

  I stuck the listening device in my ear and watched from my car—parked approximately half a football field away—as my sister knocked on the door to 1341 San Jose Avenue.

  The transcript reads as follows:

  [Sound of knocking on door.]

  MR. DAVIS: Can I help you?

  RAE: Hi, my name is Mary Anne Carmichael. Is Mrs. Davis home?

  MR. DAVIS: No. Can I ask what this is regarding?

  RAE: I’m a Girl Scout and I sold her some cookies a few weeks back. I wanted to deliver them and receive payment.

  MR. DAVIS: You’re not wearing a uniform.

  RAE: We don’t wear the uniform anymore. We’re like nuns that way.

  MR. DAVIS: She’s not here. I don’t know if I have any cash on me.

  RAE: Do you know when she’ll be back?

  MR. DAVIS: No.

  RAE: You don’t know when your wife will be back?

  MR. DAVIS: No.

&n
bsp; RAE: I’m sorry. My parents got divorced. It’s hard on everyone.

  MR. DAVIS: We’re not getting divorced.

  RAE: Then why don’t you know where your wife is?

  MR. DAVIS: Because she’s missing.

  RAE: Have you contacted the police?

  MR. DAVIS: Of course.

  RAE: How long has she been missing?

  MR. DAVIS: About two weeks.

  RAE: Is there any evidence of foul play?

  I appreciated the thoroughness of Rae’s interview, but she was taking it too far. I dialed her cell phone.

  RAE: Excuse me. [answers her cell] This is Mary Anne.

  ISABEL: Your cover was Girl Scout, not Inspector Poirot. Get out now.

  RAE: [into phone] Yes, Mom. Yes, Mom. I heard you the first time. Good-bye. [to

  Mr. Davis] I’m sorry to hear what’s happened to you. I hope things work out. You can have the cookies for free. Sorry to take up your time.

  [End of tape.]

  “Those cookies were like four years old,” I said to Rae as we headed back to the house.

  “I know. That’s why I gave them to him.”

  “How did he look?”

  “He looked concerned. He looked like he hadn’t been sleeping. From what I could see of the interior of the house, it was a complete mess.”

  My mind was racing in different directions. I tried not to connect Subject’s meeting with Mrs. Davis and her sudden disappearance, but it was impossible to shake that association. Once again I was brought back to the same conclusion: I had to get into that locked office.

  When Rae and I returned home, we checked our e-mail, hoping for an ETA on Mom and Dad’s arrival the next day, but there was nothing from either of them. There was, however, a message from Petra.

  From: Petra Clark

  Sent: March 20

  To: Isabel Spellman

  Subject: No cell reception

  Hey, I know you tried to call me, but I decided to go to a spa out in the Arizona desert here and there’s no cell reception. I’ll be out of touch for about a week, but I’ll call you when I return to civilization.

  Not buying a word of Petra’s communication, I promptly e-mailed her back.

  From: Isabel Spellman

  Sent: March 20

  To: Petra Clark

  Subject: Re: No cell reception

  Are you telling me there are no land lines at your mysterious location? I understand that you’re avoiding me, but why? I’m on your side. Seriously, Petra, call me back. I’m starting to worry about you…