“You’re not taking this seriously, Val.”
Not true. Val made sure no one was on the dock before they got off the yacht. And she glanced behind her several times as they hurried to the parking lot and loaded everything into the trunk of her Saturn. Once in the car, she relaxed.
After dropping Bethany off at home, Val checked her watch. She had enough time to move the food from the cooler to the fridge at home and dispose of the garbage bag before driving back to Gunnar’s place. She parked as usual in Granddad’s driveway, grabbed her shoulder bag from the floor behind her seat, and went around to the back of the car. As she was about to lift the trunk lid, she remembered the fish stench that would assault her. She put her bag down so she could hold her nose, opened the trunk, and reached inside for the garbage bag.
Something rammed into her shoulders and shoved her forward. She went facedown in the trunk. Her legs stuck out like a piece of furniture that wouldn’t quite fit. Before she could move, the trunk lid came down on her calves. She yelped with pain.
The pressure on her legs let up as the trunk lid lifted, but it might come down again. To protect her legs, she rolled sidewise and curled up, knees to her chest. She glimpsed a figure in black behind the car. A second later the trunk lid slammed closed.
Chapter 11
Val broke out in a sweat and coiled herself into a fetal position. She could hear her heart pounding.
She had less room to stretch out than she’d have in a coffin. Her worse nightmares couldn’t compare to this. In one of her recurring dreams, the elevator she was riding morphed into a runaway subway car speeding through tunnels and stations. At least she could see the world whizzing by her in that dream. Here there was only blackness.
She shuddered as the claustrophobe’s demon took over her body. Only one way to exorcise it—Get out! But how?
She uncurled enough to check her pockets for the car keys. Not there. Oh no! They were probably dangling from the trunk door. Whoever shoved her into the trunk could drive her car somewhere remote and leave her there to die a slow and agonizing death.
A tremor seized her. Calm down, she told herself. The car hadn’t moved. Maybe her attacker had pushed her into the trunk to buy time for an escape after stealing her bag.
She rolled over on her back and reached up to touch the “ceiling” of her prison. Not enough room for her to sit. She might be able to crawl, but where? Hysteria bloomed inside her like a poisonous plant that would numb her limbs and brain. She fought it with action.
She pounded on the trunk door. “Help! Help!” She pounded some more. Then she screamed as loudly as she could.
No response from outside. Could anyone hear her shouts? Granddad would be back from pizza with his friend by now. He was probably watching TV with the volume on loud, only a few yards away from her. He wouldn’t hear her cries through the thick walls of the old house. The best she could hope for was a dog walker passing by at the moment she was pounding on the trunk door or yelling. How long could she keep making noise? Her throat and her hands were already sore. They would find her in the morning, of course. Her body trembled at the thought of spending the night scrunched up here.
She had to find a way out herself. The car’s back seat folded down and opened to the trunk. Maybe she could push on the seat back from this side and make it fold down. Then she could crawl into the passenger area. In total darkness, she felt her way toward the divider between the trunk and the rear seats. Her hands touched the cooler and the garbage bag. Only five minutes ago the reek of fish had concerned her. Now she couldn’t smell it even when her nose was up against the bag. Either her senses were dulled by her terror or she’d gotten used to the odor.
When she reached the “wall” between the trunk and the back seat, she felt around for a latch or a strap. She found neither, but her fingers closed over a cable. She tugged and pulled on it. Nothing happened. She tried again and gave up, but at least she’d stopped trembling. She’d regained some control of her body.
Her brain kicked into gear. The trunk lid must open from the inside. She wiggled on the floor to turn her body around and reached for the latch on the trunk lid. Her left hand grasped it. She jiggled the latch, but it didn’t open. If she had any light, she might be able to figure out how it worked. In the dark all she had was her sense of touch. She gripped the metal mechanism and tried to move it up and down. It didn’t budge. She pushed sideways on it and heard a click.
A crack of dim light appeared as the door unlatched. Dizzy with relief, she raised the door. She breathed blessedly fresh air and scrambled out of the trunk. Her knees, bent for what seemed an eternity, nearly gave way when her feet touched the ground.
Her keys dangled from the trunk door lock. She closed the door, removed them, and rushed into the house by the side door. She’d take the food and garbage from the car later, but first she’d call the police.
Granddad was snoring in his easy chair while a 1940s film noir from his DVD collection played on the TV screen.
She called 911 and reported the incident. When she hung up, she thought about the things in her shoulder bag. Her driver’s license, phone, and credit cards—all gone. What a pain.
Granddad woke up when the doorbell rang. A middle-aged Bayport police officer with broad shoulders and a weathered face stood on the porch. She remembered him from last summer when she’d reported a prowler around the house. He’d blamed a raccoon for the noises she’d heard and suggested more outdoor light fixtures to discourage trespassers. This time he couldn’t scapegoat a raccoon.
She invited the officer into the sitting room. He took the armchair, while she sat on the sofa near Granddad’s lounge chair. She told the two men what had happened, without mentioning her claustrophobia and her frantic efforts to escape the trunk.
The officer took notes. “Did you see anyone walking in the neighborhood or an unfamiliar car on the street when you drove up?” When she shook her head, he continued, “What can you tell me about the person who shoved you?”
“Nothing. He came at me from behind.” Val flashed back to the second before her attacker shut the trunk. “I take that back. I caught a glimpse just before the trunk door came down. I didn’t see a face, just the torso.”
“Man or woman?”
Val conjured an image of the shadowy figure. “Probably a man, but I can’t rule out a tall woman in bulky clothes. Dark clothes, black or navy blue.” Like the figure Bethany had seen standing on the dock. Val decided not to mention that her attacker might have followed her from the marina. She didn’t want to worry Granddad.
He piped up. “You’ve got a good nose, Val. Did you get a whiff of the guy who pushed you?”
“Good question, sir,” the officer said. “Did you smell anything, like cigarette smoke, perfume, or chewing gum?”
“I smelled nothing but two-day-old salmon from the trash bag in the trunk.” The fish odor would be worse by morning. “I need to take the garbage out of the trunk. I also have coolers full of food that should come inside.”
The officer grimaced. “Better not touch the trunk lid ’til we have a chance to check for fingerprints. If we get some, we’ll see if your thief is in the system.”
“I can reach into the trunk from the back seat.”
“Okay. I’m going to check the neighborhood in case your thief is looking to snatch other purses.”
Once the officer drove off, Val brought the leftover food inside, and Granddad dumped the trash in the garbage can behind the house. When he came back to the kitchen, he picked up the scripts she’d left on the counter. “So you got ’em.”
“All but one. See if you can figure out where Otto was going with his mystery game.”
Granddad sat at the kitchen table and spread out the scripts.
After storing the leftovers, she made him a cup of tea and joined him at the table. “Reach any conclusions?”
“Yep. It was Miss Scarlet in the dining room with the candlestick.” He grinned at her and gathered
the scripts into a pile. “I can match questions with answers. But there’s so much information, it’s confusing. You might have to make a grid with the suspects and the evidence and clues against them.”
“It’ll be less confusing if we act out the roles. Bethany’s coming to dinner tomorrow. We’ll do it then.”
“We need another person so we’re each keeping track of only two people. A good job for an unemployed actor. Ask Gunnar.”
Gunnar! Val thunked her forehead. “I was supposed to meet him for dessert two hours ago.” He’d probably tried to call her cell phone, now stolen. The doorbell rang. “Maybe that’s him now.”
She rushed to the hall and flung open the door. The police officer stood there, his uniform glistening with rain. She hadn’t even known rain was in the forecast.
“Is this yours?” He held out her shoulder bag. At her nod, he continued, “Found it lying near the curb three blocks away. I picked it up before it got too wet. Take a look inside and tell me what’s missing.”
She was relieved to see her phone and her wallet. Her driver’s license and credit cards were untouched, but the bills were gone. “The only thing missing is money. Around fifty dollars.”
The officer grunted. “Smart thief, taking only cash. If he used the credit cards or your phone, we’d have a good chance of tracking him down. I don’t want to raise your hopes that we’ll catch the guy. We don’t have much to go on. No description. Probably no fingerprints on your cloth wallet and bag. The rain’s washing away any fingerprints on the car.”
And the police weren’t likely to divert resources from a murder investigation to nail someone who stole fifty dollars. “I understand. Thank you for retrieving my bag.”
As she closed the door behind the officer, Granddad came into the hall and said he was turning in. She told him she’d gotten her bag back, kissed him good night, and then checked her voice mail. Gunnar had called at nine thirty, when she was in the trunk. Too bad the phone hadn’t been with her. She called him back.
He picked up the phone after three rings. “Val.”
She expected him to be annoyed, but the coldness in his tone surprised her. “Sorry I didn’t get back to your place. I had a really good reason.”
“I’m sure you do. Save it for another time.”
His words hit her like ice water in the face. “I was locked in a trunk, Gunnar.”
He said nothing for three seconds. “A storage trunk? How did you get—?”
“A car trunk.” She told him how she’d ended up there.
“Are you hurt?”
“My legs will be black and blue. I’ll never buy another car with a trunk. Otherwise, I’m fine.”
“I was worried when you didn’t answer your phone. I went to the marina to make sure you were okay. Your car wasn’t there, so I drove by your house and saw it in the driveway.”
“Then what? You went home?” She concluded from his silence that the answer was yes. “Why didn’t you ring my doorbell?”
“I assumed you forgot about dessert because you were busy solving your latest mystery.”
His peevish reply surprised and annoyed her. “While you were driving by the house, I was screaming for help and banging on the trunk lid.”
“You can’t blame me for not guessing you were in the trunk.”
True, but he should have known something was wrong. “I’ve always called when I’m running late, which isn’t often. And I’ve never failed to show up.” He had no faith in her—not a good sign for their future together.
“I’m sorry, Val. Tonight didn’t turn out the way I planned. Can we start from scratch tomorrow evening?”
He’d suggested starting from scratch once before when he’d misjudged her. Would this be the last time they’d have to reset the clock on their relationship? “Tomorrow I’d like you to come here and eat Titanic dinner leftovers with Granddad, Bethany, and me. We’ll do some role-playing too, reading Otto’s scripts for his mystery game.”
“I’ll do it, if we can stage a redo of tonight’s dinner on Wednesday, just the two of us.”
“Agreed. See you tomorrow at seven.”
Val trudged upstairs to her room, taking the booklets with her, but she was too tired to pore over them. She dreamed that the missing script had fallen down a well and that only she was small enough to ride down in a bucket to fetch it. Gunnar lowered her down, but the well was deep, and the rope broke. She snapped awake in a sweat. Trying to calm down, she planned how to get hold of the missing script without going down a well. When she finished her shift at the café, she would visit Cheyenne and, if necessary, take a trip to Homer’s antique shop in Annapolis.
* * *
Val called Chief Yardley in the morning to tell him about the note on the back of Otto’s business card. The chief’s voice mail message said he’d be in an all-day meeting.
The café was busier than usual for a Tuesday morning. The TV interview Cheyenne had given the day before brought Val new customers, eager to hear about the dinner she’d catered and the Titanic collector’s yacht. They also asked questions she couldn’t answer about the investigation into his death.
Midway through the morning she noticed Damian Brown in the club’s reception area, outside the café. He looked buff in an athletic shirt that hugged his shoulders and biceps. He lingered near the café alcove until the three people at the eating bar left. Then he took the seat at the end and put his athletic bag on the seat next to it. If the café had been busy, Val would have asked him to move the bag, but he’d hit the slack time between breakfast and lunch.
He smiled across the bar at her. “Hi, Val.”
“Nice to see you here, Damian. What would you like?” Coffee, tea, information?
“Coffee and, uh, one of those.” He pointed to the biscotti under a glass dome on the counter.
Val poured his coffee and put the biscotti on a plate in front of him. “Louisa often comes to the café after her fitness classes, but I’ve never seen you at the club before. What brings you here?”
“Needed some exercise. If it wasn’t for the rain, I’d be on the golf course. That’s where I conduct a lot of business,” he said, as if he had to justify his time on the links. “A week ago I was playing golf with Otto. Now the poor guy’s dead. And it happened at his own party.” Damian locked eyes with her. “Your food was the only good thing about that party.”
“Thank you.” Was he trying to butter her up or come on to her? An image of him flirting with Cheyenne popped into Val’s mind. “You looked as if you were enjoying yourself early in the evening.”
“Just being polite, but it wasn’t easy.” He stirred sugar into his coffee. “When Otto invited us to a formal dinner on a yacht, we thought we were going to be on a large boat with lots of prominent people. But there was nobody there except another Titanic fanatic, a chicken kook, and an eco-nut. Otto’s wife was the only normal person at the party . . . not counting you and your helpers.” He crunched down on the biscotti.
His wife had been more vocal than the fanatic, the kook, and the nut. “Stacy and Trey have strong feelings about the causes they believe in. Louisa’s like that too. She got pretty heated when she talked about chicken farming.”
He sipped his coffee. “An attack on chicken farming is an attack on her family, the Purtys. I learned long ago that Louisa always takes their side.”
Val heard the note of bitterness in his honeyed drawl. Was he still stewing over the prenup he’d signed decades ago? Maybe, but saying his wife always sided with the Purtys suggested that the in-laws took precedence over him even now.
A man at one of the bistro tables caught her eye and raised his mug. “Excuse me while I give a customer a refill.”
Damian nursed his coffee until she returned. “Too bad we didn’t finish the mystery game Otto made us play. I wouldn’t mind knowing how it ends.” He took two sips of coffee, giving her time to comment. When she didn’t, he said, “I noticed you collecting the booklets from the table Satur
day night. Did you take them home with you?”
“No.” Not Saturday night anyway. “If you’re really curious about how the game ends, ask the police. They searched the yacht thoroughly and might have found the envelope with Otto’s solution.”
“They have more important things to do than satisfy my curiosity.” He put his empty mug down. “I heard you’re no stranger to murders. You think that’s what happened to Otto, or did he off himself?”
A vulgar and unfeeling comment. “Off himself? That’s offensive to anyone touched by a suicide,” Val said through clenched teeth.
Damian’s eyes widened in surprise. “No offense meant.” He reached for his bag and climbed off the bar stool. “If it’s not suicide, my money’s on the ex or the kid.” He slapped a five-dollar bill down on the bar.
Val watched him leave the café. Cary Grant he ain’t, she thought, echoing Granddad’s comment about Louisa. Damian lacked the polish of the characters the Hollywood star played. In fact, he resembled the person Otto had given him to play in the mystery game—a man from a lower-class background who’d married for money. Did he have more than that in common with the Titanic passenger he’d played?
Val was convinced he’d come to the café to find out if she had the scripts. Why was he so interested in them, and could he have pushed her into her trunk to get them? She was still pondering those questions two hours later when his wife sat down at the eating bar for lunch.
Louisa’s outfit and air of serenity suggested she’d just come from a yoga class. She took her time eating her Cobb salad and drinking her smoothie.
With the café busier than usual, Val had little chance to talk with any of her customers.
Louisa caught her eye as the lunch crowd thinned out. “Cheyenne was on TV this morning, saying Otto would never have committed suicide. He was such an odd duck, I wouldn’t be surprised if he killed himself. When he disappeared on the yacht, it occurred to me he might have jumped into the bay.”
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