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

  “Isabel, I need you to answer a question honestly,” Mom said as we rolled the bed across the rug.

  “What?”

  “Are you in love with Henry?”

  The question was unexpected and so was my answer, which I blurted out minus my usual habit of censorship.

  “Uh, yeah.”

  “He doesn’t know?” she asked.

  I straightened up from my bed adjustment and looked my mother in the eye. “I thought I’d wait two and a half years until he gets Rae off to college. Then I’ll make my move.”

  It was really quite simple. Rae needed Henry more than I needed him. My mother got the point in a moment. Her expression softened in an instant. For my money, she looked disturbed. I didn’t like it.

  “Stop looking at me like that.”

  “Sorry. I just want to savor the moment,” Mom replied.

  “What moment?” I asked.

  “You’re in first place,” she said, and then began washing the windows.

  THE DOT CARRIES ON…

  I convinced myself that the terms of my plea bargain only involved me keeping my physical distance from Subject. The fact remained that I believed he was a danger to society and I wanted to catch him in whatever evil act he was guilty of, mostly to protect society, but also to redeem myself.

  Each day I kept careful track of Subject’s whereabouts without actually coming in contact with him. He never veered from his usual haunts. I decided that I would only strike when he ventured out of his comfort zone. Meanwhile, there was another part of the investigation that I could follow up on without breaking my probationary confines.

  I returned to the Davis residence to check in and see whether there had been any new developments in the disappearance of Jennifer Davis. This time around I tried a different tack. I concluded that Mr. Davis and I, in theory, should have the same agenda.

  Mr. Davis recognized me the instant he opened the door.

  “Looking for a book club?” he asked dully.

  “No,” I replied. “I’m afraid that was a ruse. I’m a private investigator,” I said, taking my card out of my pocket. Not the real card, the one that says IZZY ELLMANSPAY, PI and gives the address and phone number of the Philosopher’s Club as the contact info. In general, business cards seem to work like a police officer’s badge. Mr. Davis opened both his door and his home to me. I made a note to myself to suggest he not be so trusting in the future. A business card is as easy to come by as a sandwich.

  The house was a mess, the way a house inhabited by a married man whose wife was missing would be a mess. After a brief explanation of my interest in the case (I was investigating a person of interest in his wife’s disappearance) I cut to the salient questions.

  “Any word on your wife? Any new developments in the case?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” Mr. Davis replied. “The police have checked. There’s no activity on her credit card, nothing from her cell phone, she’s made no contact with any of her friends or family.”

  “Did you notice anything different about your wife prior to her disappearance? Did any of her habits change? Did she make any new friends or develop new interests?”

  “She was going to this community garden sometimes.”

  “Do you know which one?”

  “I think it was in the East Bay.”

  “Have you ever met a man named John Brown?” I asked.

  “Maybe,” Mr. Davis replied. “It’s a common name.”

  “I mean recently. Have you met a man named John Brown recently?”

  “Not that I can recall. What’s this about?”

  “Did you notice any unusual behavior from your wife prior to her disappearance?” I asked.

  “Do you know something about my wife’s disappearance?” Mr. Davis asked, becoming justifiably agitated.

  “Probably not,” I replied. “But your wife was in contact with a man prior to her disappearance. I’ve been investigating that man.”

  “You think she left me for another guy?” Mr. Davis asked.

  “Oh, no. Nothing like that,” I said, and then realized I had said way too much. “It’s probably coincidental. She could have been asking for directions. But I like to follow all leads.”

  “Who is this man?” Mr. Davis asked more aggressively.

  “No one,” I replied, already trying to figure out how to handle the situation. I was so preoccupied with my investigation of Subject that I didn’t consider how a man whose wife had recently vanished would respond to someone offering a potential lead.

  “Clearly he’s someone if he was in contact with my wife prior to her disappearance.”

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

  “Why were you investigating him in the first place?”

  This is where my quick-on-my-feet adolescence comes into play. Deceit requires a backup plan, a story you can turn to in case of emergency.

  “I’m afraid, Mr. Davis, that I’ve done you a disservice. I don’t want to get your hopes up when my investigation may have nothing to do with your wife’s disappearance.”

  “If you know anything, you need to tell me now,” Mr. Davis said more forcefully.

  “This is what I know,” I said, as I formulated my lie. “I was hired by two men to perform ’round-the-clock surveillance of a man who goes by the name of John Brown.”

  “Is ‘John Brown’ an alias?” Mr. Davis asked.

  “I believe so, but I can’t be sure. The men who hired me I’ve never met. They communicate with me through mail or e-mail and I’m paid via wire transfer from an account that I cannot seem to trace. My job is very simple: Follow Mr. Brown, document his activities, and provide a cursory investigation of anyone he comes in contact with. That’s all. One day while I was following Mr. Brown he was parked on this street and had a one-minute conversation with your wife. It is my belief that your wife does not know this man, that their brief encounter was simply a coincidence. But, you understand, I needed to follow up.”

  “I don’t understand any of this,” Mr. Davis replied.

  I stood to leave, deciding that it was time to implement an exit strategy. I handed Mr. Davis my un-card.

  “If you think of anything else,” I said.

  “Wait,” Mr. Davis said, “I need you to explain to me who this Mr. Brown is.”

  “Unfortunately, that’s the problem. I don’t know,” I replied, trying to come across as enigmatic rather than suspicious. This was a mistake, bringing an outsider into my own warped investigation. It was a mistake bringing a man who had no leads a lead that would probably go nowhere, a lead that I was on probation for investigating.

  “I’ll be in touch,” I said as I made my way to the door. “I promise I’ll contact you if any new developments arise,” I added, and exited without looking back. I could feel Mr. Davis’s eyes on me as I strode over to my vehicle. I hoped his eyes would not be able to make out the license plate number on my car. I further hoped he would not call the police and provide my license plate number. This whole thing would be hard to explain.

  NOT-SO-SWEET SIXTEEN

  Saturday, May 20 1200 hours

  Henry Stone stayed true to his word after “the incident,” as Rae called it, or “the almost-vehicular-manslaughter” as Henry called it: He never gave my sister another driving lesson. My parents’ recent disappearances, and work catch-up after their disappearances, offered little time for further driving instruction. Moreover, they asked me not to give Rae any driving lessons, since they “didn’t want me to ingrain in her any bad habits.” So, other than the school driving lessons and the rare supplement from my parents, Rae’s sole practice came during my brother’s depression when he let her drive his BMW.

  We later discovered that while Rae drove David around on errands like his own mini chauffeur, David offered no element of instruction. He would stare out the window in a state of melancholy and not notice when Rae merely slowed down at a stop sign or failed
to use to her turn signal or exceeded the speed limit in a school zone. He failed to comment on the car’s three-foot distance from the curb when Rae would parallel park. On occasion he would correct it himself, but mostly Rae simply pulled into driveways, which, to her credit, she had mastered.

  That said, the day Rae turned sixteen my parents agreed to let her take her driving test, even though she was under suspicion at her school for spray painting the word “Rat” on Jason Rivers’s locker. They arranged a small party for after the driving test, which would include the usual suspects—Henry Stone, Mom, Dad, me, and Rae’s single age-appropriate friend from school: Ashley Pierce.

  The celebratory spirit vacated the room the moment Rae stormed into the house, disparaging her driving test proctor.

  “Bastard.”

  “Pumpkin, calm down,” interrupted my father, who had accompanied her to the DMV.

  “Rat bastard.”

  “Rae, stop that.”

  “Stinking rat bastard.”

  “That’s enough!” my father said as he guided Rae to the couch for a brief chat.

  “When you fail,” my father began, “it is your fault alone, not somebody else’s.”

  “We have a driveway. I don’t need to parallel park.”

  “Actually you do, because you won’t always have a driveway to pull into.”

  “I can learn that later.”

  “You also need to stop at stop signs. That’s why they say ‘stop.’”

  “I did stop.”

  “You slowed down.”

  “Enough to see that no one was coming in either direction.”

  “The sign says ‘stop.’”

  “Whatever,” said Rae, who then turned to and on Henry. “This wouldn’t have happened if you kept giving me driving lessons.”

  “You’re probably correct,” Henry replied. “And I would have continued to offer driving instruction if you hadn’t run me over.”

  “I don’t know how many times I can say I’m sorry,” Rae replied.

  “I’ve forgiven you, Rae. But, seriously, you need to take responsibility for your actions. Today is your birthday; why don’t you forget about the driving test. You can take it again when you’re better prepared. There’s cake to eat and presents to open. Shake it off,” Henry said assertively. And, miraculously, she did.

  My mother then turned to my father and whispered, “Maybe we should just let her move in with him for the next few years. We can take her back when she’s completely house-trained.”

  “Fine by me,” my dad replied.

  Ashley Pierce arrived fashionably late, with her mother. Apparently my sister’s recent antics had gotten around the school and up the ladder to the PTA. The Pierce mom decided that this would be a supervised visit. Rae introduced her school friend’s mother to “Henry” as a friend of the family, sensing the mother was a judgmental type. The room took notice and saw Rae’s improving social radar as a sign of good things to come.

  David was sitting in the corner, wearing a wrinkled shirt, eating a slice of cake and drinking a beer, surefire evidence that he was still in a serious funk. I sat down next to him and tried to impersonate a warm and approachable sibling.

  “How are you doing?” I asked, trying to keep the conversation casual and unforced. The night before I had called Henry and asked him to give me a list of safe conversation-starters for my brother (see Appendix for full list). I was trying to avoid peeking at my cheat sheet for the rest. Fortunately, David carried the conversation in an entirely new direction. He watched as Rae picked up her first present and tore through the wrapping paper before reading the card. Henry corrected her and Rae promptly rectified the situation. She hunted for the card, opened it in a flash, smiled politely, and then continued the attack on her gift.

  David observed the scene with a sense of detached bemusement. “I can’t figure those two out,” he said. “I questioned her about it not too long ago. I asked her what it was about him she liked so much.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She said the strangest thing. She said, ‘Because he’s better than us.’ What does that mean?”

  “I don’t know,” I replied, “but she’s right.”

  More silence hung in the air. I recalled a few more Henry-approved questions and decided to go for it.

  “Seen any good movies lately?”

  “Nope.”

  “How’s work?”

  “I’ve been out since I left for the yoga retreat.”

  “How was that, by the way?”

  “I was only there two days.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they really frown on lying in bed and drinking bourbon.”

  “I see,” I replied, without any kind of snappy retort, you might notice.

  “You were gone for a week. Where did you go?”

  “I checked into a five-star hotel just a few miles away.”

  “What did you do there?” I asked.

  “Lay in bed and drank bourbon,” David replied as if it were the most obvious of answers.

  More silence, and then David offered the information I was subconsciously fishing for.

  “She’s coming back.”

  “When?”

  “Today or tomorrow.”

  “Are you going to try to work things out?”

  “I don’t know,” he replied.

  “You should go home and shower and bathe and stuff, so you don’t look pathetic.”

  “Thanks for the advice.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t know what else to say.”

  “Finally,” David replied.

  I got David another slice of cake and a beer and left him to wallow, since that was clearly what he needed to do.

  While Rae was opening her presents, I managed to slip out of the room and steal away to the attic apartment. The binoculars were right where I left them—under the bed. I pulled them out, parted the curtains, and viewed Subject’s residence for any signs of life or death. I suspect, in my absence, Subject had once again developed some confidence in his own privacy. The shades were drawn, a few windows were open, and there were no signs that he was attempting to hide from me or anyone else.

  Subject appeared to be packing. I came to this conclusion after I watched him fill cardboard boxes with items from his apartment and tape them up. I watched Subject repeat the same task for the next five to ten minutes. Then I observed Subject carrying—you won’t believe this—a rolled-up rug down to his truck. He carefully placed it on the bed, looked around nervously, and then got into the truck and drove away. I was so engrossed in Subject’s activity that I didn’t notice a door open and close behind me.

  “Sometimes a rolled-up rug is just a rolled-up rug,” Henry said.

  “But sometimes a rolled-up rug is a crime scene,” I replied.

  “If you make one move to leave,” Henry said, “I’ll tell your parents.”

  “You are so prehistoric,” I said, checking my watch. The fact was, I had no plans to leave. With my tracking device on the car, I could calculate Subject’s whereabouts and estimate where he dumped the rug and/or body.

  I returned downstairs with Henry right behind me.

  Rae was mauling the last of her presents. (She’s not the kind of girl to save the gift wrap.) Her final acquisition, from months of unsubtle persuasion, was from Henry. The entire Dr. Who collection on DVD. All of the newer unreleased series burned to disc, which, I pointed out to Henry, might be construed as illegal.

  “How did you know this is exactly what I wanted?” Rae asked, playing the part of surprised birthday girl.

  “If you were any less subtle,” Henry replied, “I would still be in the hospital.”

  I departed while Dad tried to convince Rae that he could watch television without talking to the TV. My mom eyed me suspiciously as I left. I returned to my closet to observe Subject’s moves from my computer screen.

  THE
CARPET CAPER

  1400 hrs

  Subject drove from adjacent residence at Clay Street to the intersection of Van Ness, Market, and Eleventh Street, where he remained for ten minutes. Then Subject drove to the intersection of Market and Castro and returned home at precisely 1530 hrs, and seemed to remain in for the night. I got in my car, when I assumed Subject was home, to check the locations that he visited earlier in the day. The Eleventh Street location was a Goodwill store. Could it be that he donated his carpet, to dispose of the evidence? A dump site would be more reliable, but perhaps more suspicious. The second location had too many establishments to predict which one Subject entered.

  I returned to the Goodwill Store that sat in an awkward triple intersection of Market, Van Ness, and Eleventh Street. I scanned the store for a rolled-up Oriental rug, but it seemed obvious that the item hadn’t gone through processing yet. I found the foreman, who accepts deliveries, in the back of the store and provided a simple explanation for my query:

  “So, my boyfriend and I just broke up and he got the rug in the settlement—but he didn’t really want the rug, he just wanted to keep me from having it. Anyway, I’m pretty sure he donated it to you guys this morning. Could you check around for it? I’m happy to pay whatever you think is fair, but I really need to have that rug back. It has a lot of sentimental value.”

  Twenty minutes later, the foreman was helping me load the rug into my car, not without some protest.

  “There’s no way this is going to fit,” he said.

  There was also no way I was going to leave this evidence unattended. We stretched the rug through the trunk of the Buick, across the flattened backseat, into the front seat, and out the passenger window.

  “You must really love that rug,” the foreman said as I was getting into the car to drive off.

  “You have no idea,” I replied convincingly.

  As soon as I exited the parking lot of the Goodwill store, I realized that the size of the rug and the experiment I needed to do on it presented a problem.

  First things first; I phoned Henry. “Where can I get Luminol on a Saturday afternoon?”