by Lizz Lund
“Girls, really! We’re going to be late!” For all of K.’s wonky creative tendencies, he does harbor a sincere work ethic. Which I guess is why he’s so successful. As well as becoming increasingly compulsive about never being late.
“Coming! Coming!” Trixie clopped down the stairs.
“Brrr-wuf?”
“Yep, I’ll be back soon, sugar bear.” I hugged Vinnie hard. In fact, since I got released from the hospital, I hadn’t ventured about the house without him tagging alongside. And vice versa.
Mike Green stood at the bottom of the steps, his arm around Trixie’s shoulders. “You be good. Don’t spend too much. And nothing…fancy, right?”
“You’re so boring.”
“That’s why you love me.” He kissed her softly on her forehead.
“Are you sure you’re okay staying here, Mike? It’s not necessary,” I began.
“Yes it is!” chorused everyone else. Marie piped up from her room.
Yeeshkabiddle.
Mike pretended to clear his throat. “I’m better off here. I’m not big on craft sales.”
“Besides which, your pets are on the nervy side. They didn’t know what happened to you!” Miriam bobbed her head up and down emphatically.
Vito flapped his arms. “Sure they did! They smelled burnt hair, right?”
“What’s that supposed to tell them? Their mother stuck her head in the oven?”
He frowned. “The oven’s electric.”
“You see?”
I considered it. Unless my pets thought I was about to commit suicide with an electric oven, this made sense. That, and Vinnie’s trip to the vet – thanks to Miriam, after she noticed him walking funny – probably did mean they were on the nervy side with my taking off for a bit. Even if it was just for a couple hours at the Christmas Bazaar.
“I don’t really need to buy anything. Maybe I shouldn’t go.”
K. rolled his eyes. “Of course you should go! You shouldn’t shop because you need something!”
“But my Christmas shopping’s done.”
“No it isn’t. I saw that stash of chicken stock in your freezer and I refuse to accept it as a gift.”
“It’s useful.”
“So is toilet paper. But you don’t give it as a present!”
I gave him the squinty eye. “Ha! So you dumped the Hoisin Duck!”
“Huh?”
“I made a glazed duck. I left it in the fridge.”
Trixie leaned in. “That sounds yummy!”
“I hoped so. It was going to be your present.”
Miriam cleared her throat. “You mean that big chicken?”
“Chicken?”
“In the middle of your fridge.”
“It was a duck.”
“Well, it was.”
“Was what?”
“Delicious!”
“Huh?”
“We got a little side-tracked, what with looking for you and still working on the Manishewitz contest and all. And then we found the chicken – errm, duck - with the glaze on it. And we wondered if it tasted like our glaze.”
Vito help up a hand. “You wondered.”
“I did not!”
I rolled my eyes and shrugged at Trixie. “So much for your present.”
Trixie smiled. “You can make us another.”
“Or maybe actually buy something normalish, at the bazaar?” K. asked pointedly.
“Whatever.”
Trixie and I hopped into her Jeep and waited to tag behind Vito and Miriam to St. Bart’s.
K. took off in his loaner Mini. Staring after the matchbox size car, I hoped it was a phase.
“Thanks for cleaning up all the blood in the basement.”
She shrugged. “No biggie. I do it all the time.” She pulled out a cigarette and puffed.
“I thought you quit?”
“I did. This is an e-cigarette.”
“Oh. Mike’s okay with that?”
She exhaled. “I can’t keep snappin’ gum all the time. My jaw hurts.”
We followed Vito’s new Towncar into the parking lot and parked side by side. Vito popped open his trunk and pulled out a gigantic cardboard box loaded with cartons of tape.
I stared at it. “I thought there was a shortage?”
Vito shook his head. “I wondered what everyone was making such a fuss about. I knew I smelled a rat.”
“Or in this case, a vampire!” Miriam wiggled her eyebrows.
Vito stared at Miriam. “I told you, that wasn’t no such case.”
“I know, I know. But it sounds lots more interesting.”
“I told you I had the whole thing figured out. Especially after finding the pickle.”
“Pickle?” I asked.
He nodded. “It was Bernie’s signature. I figured he was behind blowing up my car. Especially after I out-bidded him at the auction.”
“Auction?”
“A wholesale auction for tape and giftwrapping and such. I was bargaining for the bizarre.”
“Bazaar.”
“Whatever. Anyway, Bernie had a fit after he saw me there, bidding on a bunch of office supplies, which included a ton of tape.”
“Naturally.”
“It seemed to me he was acting like a complete whack job. Especially after he bit me on the neck and all.”
“Natch.”
“But I didn’t figure out how involved Myron was with you getting kidnapped, until after I got your ride dusted.”
“Dusted?”
“For fingerprints!” Miriam was really enjoying this. “You see, Vito was worried about the Doo-doo getting blown up, after finding more doo-doo again, see? And especially since he knew Bernie blowed up his car. He thought we’d find Bernie’s prints.”
I rubbed my forehead.
Vito waved at her. “A friend owed me a favor.”
“What do you mean?” I had to ask. I needed closure to the poopy thing.
He tapped the side of his nose. “Myron got fingerprinted, after he got arrested for the Världen Vänder caper, right?”
“So?”
“So before that, there was no record of his fingerprints. Afterward, there was.”
“And?”
Miriam hopped up and down, giddy with excitement. “His paws were all over your van! Especially in the wheel well, where he hid the poop!”
I rubbed my head some more.
Trixie unwrapped some more gum. “What I’d like to know is where he got all that poop from? And how he got it inside your van? It’s parked inside your garage every night.”
“But not while she worked as a Sidekick!” Miriam was fully in her element now.
“Huh?”
“Vito’s pal tracked down the prints to Pets Galore! They were all over a whole bunch of crates used for pet grooming! One was even big enough for a mastiff!”
Huh. “Anything about a cursing parrot? Or a fat cat named Hamlet?”
Miriam looked at me funny. “Maybe you got hit on the head harder than we thought.”
Vito tossed his arms in the air. “She’ll be fine.”
“She needs looked after!”
“She’s all grown up!”
“But her mother’s in Virginia!”
They walked off together, bickering their way toward the bazaar.
Trixie grabbed me by the elbow, and we followed.
“Buddy – Bernie – was on Mike’s watch.”
“He was in the program?”
“Barely. He wasn’t much for laying low. But the department gave him a loose leash, to see what he was up to.”
“The counterfeiting?”
Trixie nodded. “Apparently it’s a widespread problem. Especially with the holiday crazies Bernie exploited.”
“Huh?”
Trixie opened the door to the church. “Bernie had a hook into one of the producers at WPAL.”
“What?”
“Blackmail. So the producer came up with the cockamamie scheme of creating local tab
loid news about a tape shortage, right before the holidays.”
“How was that supposed to work?”
“Easy. Anything that’s on TV people take as gospel truth. Just like War of the Worlds.”
“That was radio, not TV.”
“Same difference.”
“But it’s so dumb! Just saying there’s a tape shortage doesn’t create one, right?”
“But it did. Because most shoppers believed there was a shortage, they created one by buying up all the tape.”
“That sure was a long shot.”
She shrugged. “For the kind of money wired into Bernie’s account, Mike figured he thought it was worth the gamble.”
“Really? How much?”
“Millions. Plural.”
“Wow. From stamps?”
“Bernie sure would have been rolling in it, if he had lived.”
“That’s true. Except that as a vampire, he wasn’t technically alive, anyway.”
Trixie stopped in her tracks. “Bernie wasn’t a vampire, you kook!”
“Yeah? What do you make of this?” I showed her the bruised spot where he’d gummed my neck.
She rolled her eyes. “Bernie wasn’t one of the un-dead. He was one of the un-hinged.”
“Huh?”
“After the house blew up, his cover was over. His only next of kin was his wife, Dolores.”
“They separated.”
“Actually, they didn’t.”
“But he said…”
Trixie waved me to shush. “Yeah, they lived separately. Apparently he left it up to her to file papers, which she never did.”
“Why?”
“Because she was worried about him. The guy was nuttier than a fruitcake. At least, that’s what she told Mike, after he contacted her to give her the news.”
“So you mean all the vampire stuff was because he was nuts?”
“Not exactly. Right before he moved out on her, Dolores said he was diagnosed with a bad case of UTI. Turns out it was listeria monocytogenes. Which makes perfect sense.”
“Huh?”
“Causes headaches, cramps and confusion.”
“Wow. So his complaining about his head hurting and a belly ache was legit, huh?
“Yes. Except that he thought those were symptoms of his being a vampire, not an infection.”
“So the infection made him think he was a vampire?”
“Coupled with dehydration dementia. His doctor had him on the mend for a while, but he refused to keep up his fluids. His wife said he didn’t like to pee so much at night. He was up and down all the time, what with his blood pressure meds and all. So he barely drank anything.”
“Yikes.”
“I’ll say. Then she told Mike he’d been reading all these vampire novels. So on top of his starving his body of fluids, he was feeding his imagination with some pretty strange stories.”
“So he imagined himself a vampire?”
She nodded.
“And folks around here got conned into imagining a tape shortage?”
She nodded again. “Let’s hope they still think so.”
“Why?”
“Vito’s cornered the market for the bazaar. He’s got tons of boxes of the stuff. And, he’s targeting a 300% markup.”
A virtual light bulb went on over my conked cranium. “Is that what he stashed in my basement?”
“Yep.”
I rubbed my forehead. “Please tell me it’s not hot tape.”
Trixie shrugged. “Dunno.”
“Good grief.”
“That’s nothing. Wait until you see the Lost and Found table he and Miriam have set up.”
“What?”
“He told Mike he figured out where Dexter had been dumping the stuff that hadn’t been mailed. With the exception of the presents the guy sold on eBay.”
“He sold other people’s Christmas presents?”
“Yep.”
“Wow. That was mean.”
“And stupid. It led Mike right to him. I mean, it would have, before he got charcoal broiled.”
I winced.
“Anyway, so now Vito and Miriam get to make like Santy Claus. Look!”
Vito and Miriam stood behind a long table piled with packages, with signs labeled across the front A-E; F-L, and so on through the alphabet. Long lines of folks snaked in front of each set of letters. PennDOT would have been proud.
I rubbed my forehead. “Please tell me he’s not reselling used Christmas prizes…”
“No! He’s actually helping the police out. After Appletree got pulled into all this, he complained about the station not really have the staff or the room to deal with it. That’s when Vito came up with the idea about returning the victim’s things here.”
“Without police staff?”
“Nope. Look.” She waved at Appletree and several other officers.
“Ah, ha! So that’s why you wanted Mike to hang back and babysit my pets!”
“Did you really want to see that much testosterone flying around?”
“No.”
We ambled over toward the table. Trixie leaned in and proceeded to flirt shamelessly with Appletree, in a too-bad-so-sad kind of way.
Bauser tapped me on the shoulder.
“What are you doing here?”
“Getting your Christmas present.”
“I thought you were giving six-packs?”
“I was.”
“But?”
“I drank them.”
I did a mental genuflect.
“Besides, Norman wanted to chip in. We got a little worried about you, what with your getting kidnapped a couple times and all.”
Norman nodded silently next to him, sipping from a large Styrofoam cup.
“You’re not drinking Krumpthf’s here, are you?”
He held the cup out. I sniffed. “Earl Grey?”
“We’re not a couple of alchies, you know?”
“At least not in church,” Bauser added quickly.
“Here.” Norman thrust a large, unadorned plastic grocery bag into my hands.
“What the?”
Jim stood up and pawed at the bag and my waist. He slid over. Norman caught him.
“Open it, okay?”
“You don’t want me to wait until Christmas?”
They shook their heads adamantly.
I began to open the bag, feeling a bit sheepish. While I was able to pick up some cute things for them during my search-and-destroy coupon sale, I certainly didn’t buy them anything extravagant. Knowing Norman’s bottomless bank account, I figured this was something top notch.
I opened the bag. “A helmet?”
“Not just any helmet! A lacrosse helmet!”
Bauser chimed in. “Now you can get whacked on the head with a ball or a stick – you won’t even feel it!”
Norman shook his head. “No, no, no. Of course she’ll feel it. The point is, you wouldn’t get knocked out.”
“Or more brain damage.”
More brain damage?
“Umm. Thanks.”
“Try it on!”
“Well, I…”
“See? It matches your crocs! You can even wear it to work!”
I sighed deeply and flopped the orange plastic insect looking helmet on my head. Judging by its wire cage, all I needed to complete my ensemble was a chain saw.
Bauser and Norman high-fived each other. Jim wagged and fell over.
“Thanks guys. I’ll catch up with your presents later, okay?”
“No problem,” Norman said.
Bauser sniffed. “I smell hotdogs.”
And away they went. Mission accomplished.
I sniffed in the opposite direction, toward the aroma of funnel cake wafting my way. I turned around to find Chef standing behind me, munching on one.
“What are you doing here?”
“Lost and found.”
“You lost presents to Mail-it-2?”
“No. I almost lost a particularly t
alented cook, and I was worried about her.”
“Really?” Did he mean me? I whipped the armor off my head and hid it behind my back.
“I called your house. Mike answered and said you were here.”
“You came here because of me?”
He nodded.
Trixie coughed a bit. “Oh. I forgot to tell you. Chef called asking about you, too.” She returned to taunting Appletree.
Appletree stared at me with all the desperation a drowning man eyes a rope. “Actually, he called you lots. Then he called me, asking me to check your place. Which I did.”
“Yeah, we sure did,” Vito added.
“Smart thinking, letting Vito have a spare key to your place.”
I closed my eyes and held my breath. Then I opened them. Nope, they were all still there.
Vito nodded behind the fake beard. “Sure. He could have been tangled up in red tape for weeks.”
“I guess giving a friend a key to your place is a good idea, hmmm?” Miriam elbowed Vito in the side. He grimaced.
Appletree stood up from the table and continued – giving Trixie a wide berth. “That’s right. If I hadn’t seen all that blood on the basement floor, I wouldn’t have thought very much about you being missing.”
Trixie snorted. “That figures.”
He ignored her. “Truth is, Chef was pretty upset about you’re not showing up for work.”
I stared at him “You were?”
Chef nodded. “I couldn’t imagine you’re skipping out on a shift, so I kept calling. After Vito answered and told me your van was still there, I called Appletree.”
“Even after Trixie called Mike?”
Chef rubbed his chin. “I didn’t know she’d called in the big guns.”
“Hey, careful now,” Appletree huffed.
Trixie rolled her eyes. “It was a two-pronged effort okay? Good grief.”
Appletree pressed on. “It was damn lucky. Otherwise, the state police wouldn’t have shown up when they did.”
I stared wide-eyed. “Really?”
“Mitchell’s partner was on the way. But he wasn’t planning on calling for armed back up unless he thought something was really wrong.”
“So he figured it out?”
“Eventually.”
“When?”
“After the house blew up.”
“That’s a good clue.”
“And it led Mike’s outfit to another case.”
“Really? What?”
“Hamilton.”
“The dead guy?”