The Sayers Swindle (A Book Collector Mystery)

by Abbott, Victoria

  Who was he?

  Why was he there?

  Was he a he?

  Could this be a potential buyer for the loot that Delilah and Mason were plundering from Randolph? Or a confederate?

  Too many questions.

  Not a single answer.

  But if he was watching the Adamses—and seriously, who else could he possibly have been watching—then he must have been watching me too. And most likely seeing right through my ridiculous ploy. What would Wimsey do? Use the truth with just an element of deception? I thought so. Perhaps that’s why I had what was not my best idea ever, maybe even one that Wimsey would have warned against.

  I don’t know what came over me. I tossed a handful of treats toward Walter, which sent him off to the furthest end of the yard. Then I dashed forward and ran down the sidewalk, waving my arms and yelling, “Walter! Where are you?”

  Not quite as dangerous as it would have been without Uncle Lucky, parked nearby as a fail-safe and a witness. Speaking of witnesses, the other dog walker was now slowly making his or her way down the opposite side of the street with the large, shaggy pooch. I decided the dog walker was a man, as he was on the tall side for a woman.

  I walked up to the car with the fog on the windows and pressed my face close to the window. I knocked. The man inside could clearly see me and could just as clearly see me see him. He stared. I knocked again. And smiled. Slowly the window lowered.

  “Can you help me?” I whimpered. “I’ve lost my little pug, Walter. He’s my fur baby and he was just here with me and he ran behind these houses, but he’s not there now and I don’t know where he got to. Have you seen him? Did he run out of the yard and down the street? I just need to know what direction he ran in if so. And I saw you here and I wondered . . .”

  My uncles have taught me to be observant. I took careful note of the man inside the car. He had a narrow, lean face, chiseled cheekbones and a jawline that should have made him handsome but just made him look fox-like. His dark eyes glittered at me. Maybe he was bitter because someone somewhere had broken his nose more than once. Possibly the same person who’d left the scar that cut his forehead and eyebrow, and even his cheek. He was fortunate he hadn’t lost an eye.

  A snuffling sound at my ankles somewhat detracted from my story. If that wasn’t enough, Walter uttered a sharp pair of barks.

  “There you are, Walter,” I squealed. “Thank heavens.”

  The foxy-faced guy leaned forward, squinted down at Walter and back at me. Thanks to the sou’wester I wouldn’t be that easy to identify. The window rose, the engine started and the Impala peeled off down the road, spewing Walter and me with muddy water. Maybe that was the same mud that made the license plate impossible to read, unless I was one of those brainless people Mick mentioned earlier.

  I hoped that Uncle Lucky had picked up on the car and the driver and had found something to ID him. One thing for sure, solid citizens don’t behave that way.

  “Thanks a lot, Walter,” I said. “You’re a perfect sidekick.”

  Walter wagged his tail and took off into the inky night. I chased after him into the backyard of a plain brown house two doors to the right of the Adams residence. Calling for Walter was part of my cover story. I figured on such a vile night, people wouldn’t pay too close attention and certainly no one would step outside to help me. I was counting on it.

  “Come on, Walter, we have to go get in the car with Lucky. Walter? Walter?” Really, what was I doing trying to reason with a dog, a spoiled dog at that? Walter stayed just out of my reach. “What’s the matter with you? Wouldn’t you like to be warm and dry? Aw, come on, Walter.”

  But Walter was hiding. This hiding place had nothing to recommend it. You couldn’t see Number 87 from here. You couldn’t really see anything. It was as if Walter hadn’t listened to the plan at all. Number 89 was in total darkness, something I don’t advise for homeowners who don’t want to get burgled. Just sayin’. Dark house equals not home. Not home equals opportunity for housebreaking. In these days of automated timers, there was no excuse for it. Not only was it dark, it was dangerous. Kids’ toys and garden tools were strewn across the side and backyard. I tripped over a bicycle, swore and kept going. I imagined Walter wheezing with laughter.

  “You can have my Alphagetti any time you want it. Let’s go, Walter.”

  I tried being tougher. “You want to walk home by yourself? Good luck with that, Walter.”

  I could see the spoiled little fiend dancing just out of my reach.

  “Fine. You’re on your own. I’m going to the car to eat a treat with Lucky.”

  I felt a powerful push on my shoulders. I staggered forward, tripping over a rake and splooshing into the cold, slippery and treacherous mud. Walter barked in approval. I couldn’t respond as the breath had been knocked out of me.

  Something licked my ear and panted. A dog? What dog? Of course, it could only be the large, shaggy pooch that pokey dog walker had been idling with.

  “Nice doggy,” I said, trying not to inhale the reek of wet dog hair.

  “You shouldn’t have mentioned that treat,” a male voice said.

  I managed to twist my head and look up. A man with a beanie and a hoodie was staring down at me. That might have been less intimidating if I hadn’t been lying belly-down in the mud in this forlorn and dark yard. With a dog more or less standing on my back.

  “I hope you really do have a treat,” the hoodie guy said.

  “Oh, sure. Call off the Hound of the Baskervilles and I’ll get it out of my pocket. Is this dog dangerous?”

  “No more dangerous than Walter,” he said.

  “How do you know Walter’s name?” I narrowed my eyes.

  “Well, aside from the fact that you have been bellowing it for about half an hour, Walter and I are old friends.”

  He moved around to face me and took his hand out of his pocket and leaned toward me. I managed to get my hand into my pocket and reach for a treat. I sloshed in the mud and struggled to my feet, but my galoshes slipped and I was down again.

  The guy grabbed for me. The dog barked loudly. Walter yipped. Just as I had managed to grip the treat, he spoke again. “Give me your hand before you drown in this mud, Jordan.”

  Jordan?

  He knew my name too?

  I stared. I attempted to struggle to my feet.

  “Who the hell are you?” I sputtered and slipped again.

  “What do you mean? You mean you don’t recognize me?”

  In my cartoon life a light would have gone on over my head at that moment. But of course, this was real life and all I could think of was, “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Same as you. Walking the dog.”

  “You don’t have a dog, Tyler Dekker.”

  “I do now. But you don’t have one, Jordan Bingham.”

  “Walter is Karen’s dog, as if you didn’t know that. I’m just helping walk him.”

  He extended his hand to help me up. Beggars can’t be choosers, as my uncle Mick likes to say, and people lying in the mud can’t be too choosy either in my opinion. I reached out for his hand and pushed forward.

  “Mud becomes you,” he said. “Who would have thought it?”

  I scowled at him and then stared behind him where another figure was looming. This one was brandishing a shovel.

  “Oh no!” I shouted.

  “Yes, it does,” he chuckled. “Not every woman can claim that.”

  “No, don’t!” I yelled, lurching forward. “Put that shovel down!”

  “Just kidding,” he said. “But really, it would take more—What? Put what shovel down?”

  The shovel put an end to that when it smacked his head with a thunk. Officer Tyler Dekker sank with a splat in the mud. The large shaggy dog howled. Walter whined. I screamed. “Uncle Kev, are you out of your mind? What have you done?”

  I dropped to my knees to help. A person could drown in this mud.

  Kev let his hurt feelings show. “What do you
mean? This creep was going for you.”

  “This creep as you call him is a police officer.”

  “A cop? That’s even worse.”

  “Kev, you don’t know what you’re talking about. He is the closest thing to a friend on the force that any Kelly or Bingham has ever had.”

  “Jeez.”

  “What are we going to do? He’s out cold.”

  “Well, how was I to know?”

  “I told you to put the shovel down.” Of course, I’d been talking to Uncle Kev. Part man, part vortex of destruction.

  “I thought you were yelling at your attacker.”

  “I didn’t have an attacker. I was talking to a friend who did not have a shovel. I told you to put it down.”

  “An easy mistake to make,” Uncle Kev said peevishly.

  “Not really. You had a shovel and he didn’t.”

  “In the heat of the moment, things got confused.”

  “No kidding,” I said, digging in my slicker pocket for the burner phone I’d taken from Uncle Mick’s. I prayed it wasn’t full of mud.

  “What are you doing?” Kev said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “I’m calling 911, and you definitely better take your own advice and hightail it before the cops show up.”

  “But . . .”

  “No buts. Hit the road, Uncle Kev. We’ll catch up later.” I pressed 911.

  “A man has been attacked behind a house on Lincoln Way! Number 89 or 91. What? I don’t know if it’s north or south. It’s to the right. It’s a mud-brown house with a muddy lawn. You may hear dogs barking.”

  Uncle Kev stood staring and listening to the one-sided conversation.

  “Send an ambulance.

  “He’s been hit on the head.

  “With a shovel.

  “I don’t know who hit him.

  “I didn’t see the person’s face.

  “Okay. Male. At least I think male. Between five-five and six-two, I think. Give or take.

  “I didn’t see what color his skin was. It was dark. No, the area was dark, not the skin. I don’t know what color. I didn’t see his hair. I don’t even know if he had any. He may have been wearing a hat.”

  Uncle Kev headed past me into the dark, slippery backyard and vanished into the gloom.

  I shook Tyler Dekker’s shoulder. “Tyler. Tyler. Are you all right?”

  He groaned, and that was a good thing.

  “The ambulance is on the way. And probably the police are too. Are you on police business? Tyler? You don’t live anywhere near here.”

  Another groan, followed by a moan and whispered words. I leaned forward. “What did you say?”

  “No police.”

  “What do you mean no police?”

  “No police.”

  “But Tyler, you are the police.”

  He pushed himself up to a standing position. It looked slow and very painful. He leaned against the side of the house. “Not here I’m not and not tonight especially.” He closed his eyes and swayed.

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Call them back. Tell them . . . No, they’ll come anyway.”

  “Yes, they will, and you need to go to the hospital and be seen to. You took a real slam with that shovel.”

  He met my eyes. “Who slammed me?”

  Okay, I just couldn’t rat out my uncle any more than I could abandon Tyler. “I don’t know. Some guy whose face I couldn’t see beaned you with a shovel.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “But you yelled at him. I heard you.”

  “I saw him raise the shovel and I said no and I told him to put the shovel down.”

  “And he beaned me?”

  “Yes.”

  He raised his hand, touched his head and winced.

  “There’s blood on your hand,” I said. “I think. But it could be mud. Let me see.” I reached over and touched his head.

  “I’m getting out of here.”

  “What? No. Wait until the paramedics get here.”

  “No can do. Gotta go. Take care of the dog.”

  “The dog? Really? Oh, come on.”

  As I stood there openmouthed, Tyler Dekker disappeared into the yard as well. I thought he turned in the opposite direction from where Uncle Kev had vanished. That was the only good thing. I turned and followed but found no sign of either one as I peered blearily around.

  There was nothing to do but leash up Walter. The other large, shaggy dog seemed just as mystified as I was. Was this Tyler Dekker’s dog? If so, why would he have left it behind? Was he in worse shape than I thought?

  “Can’t you find him?” I asked. “What’s the use of all you dogs if you can’t even locate an injured man?”

  I heard sirens approaching and made a quick call to Uncle Lucky to tell him I was okay. He’d make himself scarce when the cops showed, as is the Kelly policy, unless he thought I needed help. I assured him I didn’t.

  A siren whooped behind me on the street. I made my way to the sidewalk to meet the paramedics and, lucky me, the police.

  A tall, heavyset police officer got out of a Town of Burton police cruiser. He did a double take as he spotted me, covered in mud, including my face and hair. All very Night of the Living Dead.

  “Did you call in a disturbance, ma’am?” he said.

  Another officer, who I took to be his partner, also approached and walked toward the back of the house. This one was short and on the skinny side.

  “No,” I said.

  “What happened to you?” He seemed to have a bit of trouble keeping a straight face.

  “My dog ran off and I fell in the mud behind this house.” I pointed toward the brown house, which I had come to hate. “I don’t know if you can call that a disturbance.”

  “And you didn’t make a 911 call?”

  “It’s nothing a shower and shampoo won’t fix, Officer,” I said. “You might want to warn your partner that it’s slippery back there. I almost killed myself getting up once I fell in that mud.”

  He looked as though he wasn’t entirely convinced. “We got a call that a man was attacked.”

  “Attacked? Really?” I said.

  “Did you see anything, ma’am?”

  “Did the attack happen around here?”

  “We got a call saying there was an attack at this address.”

  I glanced around in alarm. “Now that’s scary.”

  “The caller was a woman. She said that a man was attacking another man with a shovel in back of this house here.”

  I said, “But I was just there.”

  “Yes, ma’am. And did you see anything?”

  “Just my dog being amused when I did the backstroke in the mud.” To reinforce my story, Walter panted wheezily, and as usual it sounded like the wickedest kind of laugh. The ridiculously shaggy dog that Tyler Dekker had left behind sidled up and looked sympathetic. He leaned in against my thigh. The cop snorted. Highly unprofessional in my opinion.

  “No guys running by?”

  “No.”

  “No one—”

  “Nothing, Officer.”

  “Did you hear anything?”

  “No. Well, splat.”

  “Nothing else suspicious?”

  “Nope. In fact, I . . . Oh, wait, you know, I yelled when I fell. I might have even cursed and swore a bit. And I grabbed at something to get myself out of the mud. I wonder if someone saw me and thought that I was a guy getting attacked.”

  The cop scratched his cheek. “Hard to say.”

  “It is possible. I thought I saw someone on the street, but they didn’t come near me. Maybe they called it in just to be on the safe side.”

  “Guy would have to be pretty chicken for that.”

  “I don’t think it was a guy. Looked more like a woman, although the visibility was really poor, especially from the mud puddle.”

  “No details that you recall?”

  What the heck? The man wanted details, so
I decided to give him some. This was in direct conflict with the Kelly motto not to complicate things with unnecessary whoppers that can trip you up. “Well, I could be wrong, but I thought she had an umbrella with polka dots. Or it could have been some other repeating design. As I said, visibility was poor.”

  “Anything else?” This guy was the reason my family didn’t like cops.

  “No. I didn’t see anything else. I didn’t hear anything else. I’d really like to go home and take that shower now, if you don’t mind. And if I think of anything, I’ll be sure to call you, Officer.”

  The other officer emerged from the back of the house and glowered. Unless I was mistaken, his knees were very muddy. He shook his head. “Nothing back there.”

  I turned to leave when the first cop asked for my name. “Carly Jenkins,” I said, plucking the moniker from nowhere. “I’m staying with my cousin, over at 4 Madison.” I mumbled the four, just in case he followed up. It could always look like a mistake.

  For the second time, I turned and began to limp off. No one tried to stop me.

  Of course, Uncle Lucky was nowhere to be seen. Even though I’d told him to go, I felt abandoned. Every man I knew was vanishing that night. Except, of course, for the cop who insisted on doing his job instead of thoughtfully disappearing.

  “You need a lift, ma’am? You’re limping.”

  I turned back and flashed him my best smile. I can’t imagine how grotesque that looked in my mud-spattered face.

  “No, thanks. It’s not far and I need to blow off steam. I don’t want to take this mood out on my cousin.”

  He shrugged and turned to flash his light into the muddy yard. The other one said, “I’m telling you there’s nothing and nobody there.” They both seemed disappointed. I think “my” cop had liked the story about the woman with the umbrella who’d gotten all mixed up.

  I glanced around as I made my way to the corner. My teeth were beginning to chatter and I felt a chill. There wasn’t much I could do in that state. Not the right time to try to get into the Adams house. The same went for speaking to Harry Yerxa. For the second time in the same day, I needed a hot tub and a signora special and I needed get out of the rain.