by Nic Saint
“A very good reason,” said Johnny. “You have something that belongs to us, Marge. Only it doesn’t really belong to us, if you see what I mean.”
“You’re talking in riddles, Johnny,” said Marge, still speaking in her stern librarian’s voice, which was very effective, I must say.
“What’s all the noise?” suddenly a voice called out from the door, and soon we were joined by a sleepy-looking Gran. When she saw the small gathering, her irritation rose. “What’s up with this midnight meeting? Don’t you people have jobs to go to in the morning? I know I have.”
“Johnny and Jerry were just telling us why they decided to break into our house in the middle of the night,” Marge said. “Go ahead, Johnny. Tell us what’s going on.”
“Do you wanna tell ‘em or shall I?” asked Johnny.
“You better tell them,” said Jerry.
“Well, it’s like this…” Johnny began.
“See, that diamond you’ve got in that safe of yours—it’s ours,” said Jerry, unable to restrain himself.
“We had it and then we lost it,” Johnny said, pulling a sad face.
“No, you lost it, you big dummy.”
“I lost it,” Johnny agreed, looking shamefaced now, as he was still twisting his hands.
“Look, I’m this close to arresting you both for breaking and entering,” said Chase, “and if you don’t start talking right now, and making sense, that’s exactly what I’ll do.”
“Of course, Detective,” said Jerry. “And you have every right to be upset with us—but imagine our frustration when we lost that nice Pink Lady and then suddenly it turns up in the hands of that little girl, and before we can explain to her that the rock isn’t hers but ours, she hands it to her mom, and before we can talk to her, she goes and hands it to some jeweler who calls the cops!”
“The Pink Lady is yours?” asked Gran, adjusting the hairnet that keeps her nice white perm in place during the night.
“Sure, we found it fair and square, and as we all know,” said Johnny, “finders keepers.”
“You found that diamond? Where?” asked Marge.
“At the bank we burgled last year,” Johnny said.
“You ‘found’ it in one of the safes you burgled?” asked Odelia.
“That’s right, Miss Poole—Mrs. Poole,” he quickly amended. “Congratulations on your wedding, by the way. And I’m sorry we couldn’t attend. We were otherwise engaged.”
“You were in prison, you mean,” said Tex as he yawned then plunked his head down on his pillow again and crossed his hands in front of his chest.
“So you burgled the bank, and you found this Pink Lady inside one of the safe-deposit boxes,” said Odelia, nicely reiterating the story as it had unfolded so far, “and then what?”
“Well, then we took a trip to Mexico,” Jerry continued the story.
“You mean, you ran away to Mexico, cause there was an arrest warrant out on you at that point,” Chase said.
“Unfortunately our trip was cut short by the very unhelpful local authorities,” Jerry continued, ignoring Chase’s amendment, “and so we lost the opportunity to sell the rock.”
“We’d found a buyer for it—a very upstanding gentleman from Colombia,” said Johnny. “But before he could hand over the cash, we were arrested and deported.”
“How much?” asked Gran.
“How much what?” said Jerry.
“How much was this Columbian gentleman offering for the diamond?”
“A hundred thousand,” said Jerry proudly.
There were shared looks of consternation in the room. “You do know that that stone is worth millions, right?” said Chase.
“We do now,” said Jerry. “Which is why we’ve decided to find ourselves a new buyer.”
“So in spite of the fact that you were arrested, you still managed to hang onto the stone?” asked Chase.
“Oh, sure,” said Johnny. “I hid it in the sole of my shoe. Only my shoes were in my luggage, and that was confiscated when we were arrested. Lucky for us the cops didn’t find the rock in my shoe.”
“I hate when that happens,” said Tex absentmindedly. He’d closed his eyes and looked as if he was napping. “A rock in my shoe,” he explained. “Very annoying.”
“So it took until last week before we got our stuff back,” said Jerry, “and frankly we were surprised that the rock was still there.”
“Couldn’t believe our luck,” Johnny said.
“So we tried to get in touch with our Columbian friend again, only he’d recently been found hanging from a bridge in Mexico.”
“Occupational hazard,” Johnny explained with a shrug.
“So we needed to find a new guy. And we’d just been asking around when doofus here went and lost the precious gem, didn’t you?”
“We went for a walk on the beach yesterday, and I decided to wear my lucky shoes. Only the sole must have come loose in that hot sand, and by the time I discovered I lost my sole—”
Tex laughed at this. “He lost his soul,” he said. “Literally, and figuratively!”
“Okay, so a little girl found the diamond, and then what?” asked Chase.
“We’ve been trying to get it back ever since,” said Johnny sadly.
“So how did you know it was in our safe?” asked Marge.
“Oh, Scarlett told me,” said Johnny, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
“Scarlett told you!” Gran cried.
“Sure. After the flat earth show was over—which honestly was a big disappointment, as I’d been led to believe it was a meeting of the brothers and sisters of the Jehovah’s Witnesses—I asked her out for a drink, and we got to talking—she’s a very nice lady, by the way, and very pretty.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” said Gran irritably. “Get to the part where she told you about the safe.”
“Well, like I said, we got to talking, and I told her how I lost that diamond, and how I didn’t know how to get it back, so she said I should talk to Marge, because she had it safely locked away in her safe, hidden behind the picture of an ugly gnome.” He directed a nervous look at the gnome. “I hadn’t expected it to be this ugly, though.”
“I’ll have you know that my gnome is a work of art, mister,” said Tex. “Precious art!”
“I’m going to have to have a long talk with Scarlett in the morning,” said Gran. “About secrets and how we don’t spill them to the first pretty face that comes along.”
“Why, thank you, Mrs. Muffin,” said Johnny, preening a little.
“I’d never call Johnny pretty, would you?” asked Harriet as she studied the big guy’s face.
“Well, he has a certain animal magnetism, I guess,” I said. “Which some women find attractive.”
“I certainly don’t think he’s pretty,” said Brutus. “But he is butch, and like Max says, a lot of ladies like butch. Isn’t that so, mama bear?”
“Absolutely, papa bear,” Harriet simpered.
“Oh, dear God,” I said under my breath.
“So what’s going to happen now?” asked Jerry, as he darted a nervous look at the cop in the room.
“By all rights I should arrest you,” said Chase, but then directed a questioning glance at his wife. “What do you think?”
“I’m not sure,” said Odelia, then looked to her mom for advice.
Marge, still sitting upright in bed, like a strict disciplinarian—though the impact of her iron front was slightly diminished by her unflattering flannel nightgown—seemed to waver. “Like Chase says, we probably should have you both arrested. Then again, you did try to retrieve a diamond you thought was yours.”
“A diamond they stole, Marge,” Gran pointed out.
“Obviously,” said Marge, as she thought for a moment. “Here’s what we’ll do. You’re not going to get the diamond, of course, because that diamond isn’t yours. But I’m not going to press charges or ask Chase to arrest you, on one condition, and one condition only.”
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br /> “Which is?” said Jerry, nervously licking his lips.
“The history of the Pink Lady is a little fuzzy, and for reasons that are entirely my own, it intrigues me and I want to find out more. And since you are uniquely placed with contacts in the criminal world, I want you to find out what exactly happened to the diamond between the time it went missing thirty years ago, and the moment it popped up in a safe-deposit box at the Capital First Bank in Hampton Cove of all places. Do you think you can do that for me?”
“Not just for you, Mom,” said Odelia. “I’m sure that the people the diamond belongs to are dying to find out how it ended up here as well.”
“You want us to play detective, is that it?” asked Jerry, rubbing his chin dubiously.
“Absolutely.”
“Of course we will, Marge,” said Johnny, earning himself a look of criticism from his friend.
“How much?” asked Jerry.
“What do you mean?” asked Marge with a frown.
“How much are you paying us to play detective?”
“Jerry Vale!” said Marge. “Isn’t it bad enough that we caught you burgling our house?”
“All right, fair enough. So how about a finder’s fee? At least we should get a finder’s fee, right?”
“No finder’s fee,” said Chase. And when Jerry started to protest, he continued, “You’re lucky Marge and Tex aren’t pressing charges.”
At the mention of his name, Tex opened his eyes again. “You know, Fido just may have a point. The Cookie Monster could be ruling the world.”
“Go back to sleep, Tex,” said Gran with a disgusted gesture of her hand. “You’re drunk.”
At the mention of the D-word, Marge and Odelia frowned, and directed a curious look at the good doctor. But Tex had closed his eyes again, and was now snoring like a practiced lumberjack.
“I guess we’ll be going then,” said Jerry, and headed to the window.
“You can take the stairs,” Marge said, her expression having softened now that she knew she’d added Jerry and Johnny to the family payroll as her own private detectives.
“Gee, thanks, Marge,” said Johnny.
Jerry directed a final, longing look at the portrait of the gnome, probably the only time anyone who wasn’t Tex had ever looked at that ugly munchkin that way, but then his shoulders slumped and he followed his friend out of the room, and soon both crooks were stomping down the stairs.
“What a night,” said Gran, voicing everyone’s opinion on what had definitely been an eventful evening.
“Next time you really have to let me arrest them, Mom,” said Chase, who had the air of frustration any cop would feel when he comes this close to collaring two criminals and then is told that he can’t.
“I know, Chase, and I’m sorry,” said Marge. “But I really want to get to the bottom of the mystery of the Pink Lady, don’t you?”
She’d directed her question at her daughter and son-in-law, and they both nodded.
“I have a feeling there’s probably a great story there,” said Odelia.
“Absolutely,” said Marge, and glanced over to the nightstand, where a very large book was lying. And when I hopped up on the bed to satisfy my own curiosity, I saw that it was titled, ‘The Sheikh’s Passion,’ written by Loretta Gray.
Next to Marge, Tex was still snoring away. The man might be Marge’s own sheikh, but he certainly wasn’t very passionate.
Which reminded me that his was another case we urgently needed to take in hand.
Humans. Even when they reach adulthood they never stop causing trouble, do they?
17
The next morning, Dooley and I decided to take a walk into town. I wanted to see how Fido’s performance had affected his standing in the community, and if perhaps it had had a positive effect on his business. It wasn’t entirely inconceivable, after all, that people would now flock to his hair salon, to find out all there was to know about a Cookie Monster named Roger, who seemed to hold the world’s fate in his hairy paws—when he wasn’t snacking on cookies, that is.
“Do you think Johnny and Jerry can be trusted, Max?” asked Dooley as we sauntered along the sidewalk, passing the paperboy who was aiming newspapers at every porch he passed with unerring accuracy. It was a skill that must have taken him years to develop. Until one of the papers sailed through an open kitchen window and must have landed in a pot of steaming soup, for mere moments later a very irate-looking lady appeared, her face splattered with tomato soup and shaking a very angry fist at the kid, who made sure he pedaled out of reach as fast as he could.
“I’m not sure, Dooley,” I said. “They are two crooks, after all, and being crooks seems to be in their blood at this point, and it must be very hard for them to reform now, after all those years of following the criminal path.”
“I hope they can reform, because Scarlett really seems to like Johnny.”
“What makes you think so?” I asked, surprised. I’d seen firsthand how Johnny had taken a liking to Scarlett, which wasn’t so hard to imagine since most men of a certain age took a liking to her, falling frequently and fast for her allure. But it was only very rarely that Scarlett reciprocated that liking.
Dooley pointed in the direction of the corner of the street, where a cozy little patch of green had been fashioned by placing a bench underneath an old tree. On that bench Johnny and Scarlett were now sitting, and they were gazing lovingly into each other’s eyes, clearly discussing something other than the interest rate policy of the Federal Reserve.
“I think it’s sweet,” said Dooley. “It proves that there is someone out there for everyone—even Johnny.”
“Do you think there’s someone out there for Jerry?” I asked. It was hard to imagine that anyone could fall for a man with the face of a rodent.
“I’m sure there is,” said Dooley, that eternal optimist.
We’d reached Main Street, and as we passed by Fido’s hair salon, we saw to our dismay that a sign was hanging on the door that announced that the shop was closed.
“Apparently Fido’s speech didn’t provide his business with a boost,” I said.
“I hope Buster is all right,” said Dooley.
We gazed at the storefront for a few wistful moments, mentally saying goodbye to a business that had gone bust, and then moved on.
Our next stop was the General Store, where our friend Kingman holds sway, and since so much had been happening lately, I felt it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to schmooze a little with the voluminous feline who always seems to know what’s going on in town, sometimes before the people involved themselves.
“Hey there, Kingman,” I said by way of greeting. The large cat was taking up a large swath of public real estate by occupying a prime spot on the pavement, and didn’t even lift his head in greeting when we walked up to him.
“Fellas,” he said lazily. The sun was out in full force, as it often is in our corner of the world, and obviously Kingman didn’t mind working on his tan a little.
“Did you hear what happened last night?” I asked, referring, of course, to the disastrous speech Fido had given to the people of his town.
“Yeah, I heard all about it,” said Kingman. “Sorry I couldn’t be there, guys, or cat choir. I had some important business to attend to.”
“What business?” I asked. I’d wondered why Kingman would skip cat choir. Usually he’s one of its fixtures, along with Shanille, the director, and all of our other friends and acquaintances.
“Oh, this and that,” he said vaguely. “Looks like Fido has finally burnt his final bridge, huh? He closed his shop this morning, after having been open one hour, and then he took off for a destination or destinations unknown, I’m afraid.”
“Where did he go?”
Kingman smiled. “I can’t fool you, can I, Max? Okay, so Buster dropped by to say goodbye. He says they’re off to California. To a place called Mount Shasta. According to Fido it’s a very spiritual place, full of his kind of people, whatever that
means.”
“Fido moved to California? That was quick.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, after last night’s disaster I suggested to Odelia she talk to Fido, and suggest a trip to Mount Shasta. It’s the Flat Earth Society’s headquarters.”
“Now why would you go and do a thing like that, Max?”
“I didn’t think he’d pick up on it so quickly. Actually Dooley gave me the idea.”
“Me?” asked Dooley, much surprised.
“Yes, you. With your idea about a rich family that swaps places with a poor family. In Hampton Cove Fido is just one guy calling in the desert, making him feel special, and having the effect of strengthening his convictions. Over there he’ll be one of many—just another cog in the machine.” I shrugged. “I just hope it’ll make him put things in perspective.”
“And I hope you know what you’re doing,” Kingman said. “Cause after the cold reception his little speech received, Fido clearly felt that he was no longer welcome here, so I doubt whether he’ll ever come back.” He sighed. “And of course he took Buster with him. I’m really going to miss that fella.”
We spared a moment for Buster, and I had to admit I felt a pang of regret. Buster had been a part of our lives for such a long time. I just hoped my gamble was successful.
“Look, I don’t know about you guys, but I’m hungry,” said Kingman, as he made a concerted effort to raise himself up from the sidewalk and move inside the store and into the cooling shade. Once there, he proceeded to gobble down a couple of nuggets from his bowl, then sat back, produced a tiny burp and said, “Dig in, fellas. I feel generous.”
We could hardly believe our luck, since Kingman isn’t always so forthcoming with his kibble, and so we didn’t need to be told twice and dug in with relish.
“Great stuff,” said Dooley. “We should tell Odelia to buy some of this for us, Max.”
“It’s something new. Wilbur got it in last week. Tastes great, doesn’t it?”
I had my mouth full of kibble, so I couldn’t immediately respond, so I simply nodded my agreement. It was, indeed, some pretty good stuff.