Caught Read-Handed

by Terrie Farley Moran

  Holly gave a decisive nod and took a deep breath. “Sassy, we were wondering if you needed any help, like, with finding Mrs. Lipscome’s killer.”

  “I’m not looking for any killer.” I crossed my fingers behind my back.

  “Sure you are. And look what happened the last time we had a killer on the island. Nearly killed you, too.”

  I so wished people would stop reminding me about that. I found myself quoting Aunt Ophie. “Well-mannered ladies do not inject themselves into dangerous situations.” I shook my finger in their faces and used the sternest voice I possessed. “You stay out of this. I am leaving the investigating to the deputies. You are to do the same.”

  Only the little blonde looked the least bit bothered by my harangue. Holly and Angela were bouncing happily in their seats. They looked at each other, did the metal-telepathy thing and then Holly yelped. “Too late. We already helped.”

  My knees actually buckled. I sat in the one vacant chair at their table. “You did what?”

  “We helped.”

  All three girls were nodding at me like bobblehead dolls at hurricane speed.

  I looked directly into Holly’s eyes. “And what did your mother say?”

  Ah, the power of “mom.” The very thought got the girls squirming in their seats.

  Holly looked at the salt and pepper shakers for a while. “We didn’t tell our moms. Not because we’re afraid to get into trouble or anything. We wanted to tell you first.”

  Again, the bobbleheads.

  I was horrified at the thought of these girls doing . . . I don’t know what. So I asked. “Please tell me exactly what you did so I can gauge the danger. And I will have to speak to each of your mothers. You understand that, right?”

  The bobbleheads slowed to a more somber up-down, up-down. Full stop.

  “Everyone knows that our neighbor Mr. Ertz, the wrestler guy, threatened Mrs. Lipscome. I even heard him once. Mega-loud and double cranky.”

  Bridgy came out of the kitchen and brought the girls’ food order to the table. I pointed to Holly. “Green Eggs and Ham.” Then I swung my finger to Angela. “Extra onions.” The final plate went to the curly blonde.

  The girls started to open napkins and pick up cutlery. They realized I’d gone silent and looked at me, confusion in three sets of eyes. I nodded. They began eating with massive enthusiasm. I guessed they were right about lunch being far too early.

  I was short on patience and I knew the other kids would be showing up very soon for the Teen Book Club. I needed answers. I gave them a few minutes and then said, “Okay, let’s talk while you eat. Holly?”

  “So, you know I live right across form Mr. Ertz. We”—she circled her hand around the table to indicate her coconspirators—“were on my patio and FaceTiming from my iPod Touch—it’s fifth generation—to Angie’s mad-awesome iPad.”

  Angela pulled a hot pink case out of her backpack and set it on the table. “Totes fabu, right?”

  Fabulous though her new iPad may be, I was more concerned about whatever trouble the girls might have wandered into on their devices, so I asked the evident question. “Who did you FaceTime?”

  All three girls rolled their eyes in perfect synchronization. Then Holly tried again. “I told you. Me and Angie. We FaceTimed each other.”

  Clearly I was losing my ability to understand. “I thought we were talking about some, well, some investigating you’d done. Now you tell me you were on FaceTime while sitting next to each other on the patio. Sorry, not following.”

  Holly slowed down as if she was explaining to a two-year-old. “Okay, so, we set up the FaceTime and then we went to play soccer in the street. Daphne”—she indicated the blonde—“kicked the ball into Mr. Ertz’s side yard, and then I ran in to get it and propped my iPod Touch up against the patio screen. Mr. Ertz and the man in the slick suit went right on talking.”

  Light was beginning to dawn. “And you three listened in on the iPad.”

  “Now you’re catching on. They were talking about Mrs. Lipscome. The man we didn’t know said that the world would be a better place without her. I mean, really, who says things like that?

  “Mr. Ertz called her a female dog, you know, the ‘B word.’ Said he was glad the ‘B word’ was dead. Then the other man told Mr. Ertz not to talk like that otherwise the sheriff would consider him a suspect.”

  The door opened and the other three members of the Teen Book Club came in. I waved them to the book corner and Holly dropped her voice to a whisper. “Mr. Ertz said, ‘Don’t worry, they can’t prove a thing.’ Then he laughed like . . . like a jackal howling at the moon. It was scary.”

  I stood, ready to let the girls eat in peace and get the other young clubbies settled, when Angie said, “Wait. We took a screenshot.” And she let her fingers walk around her iPad screen until she pulled up a picture. At first I thought it was grainy but then I realized I was looking at two pairs of legs through the mesh of the patio wall.

  Holly said, “The hairy legs belong to Mr. Ertz. We don’t know the man in the pants.”

  I looked closely. Gray sharkskin dress slacks. Goddard Swerling. He might have been there about the swimming pool lawsuit, but I knew for sure civil law wasn’t his only area of expertise. Was his criminal law practice the real reason for their meeting?

  I stood and motioned to the girls’ plates. “Finish up and I’ll stall the meeting with a plate of cookies.”

  Sounding like the little girl she was when I first met her, Holly asked, “You’re not mad at us, are you, Sassy?”

  I couldn’t help but smile. “No. Not mad. Just worried for your safety. Let it go for now. Eat up.”

  The two boys sitting in the book nook nearly jumped on the plate of chocolate chip cookies I passed around. Jenna, who was the youngest of the teen group, took one and said, “No more, thank you.”

  They were still munching when the three teen detectives joined us. After some shifting of chairs and rummaging through backpacks, we were ready to talk about Treasure Island. Angela held up her hand, then remembering we were far less formal than school, asked, “Who picked this book? I wasn’t here last month and I would have x-ed it right off the list.”

  Larry, a muscular boy who played tackle football and was an expert long-board surfer answered. “Me. I suggested the book. What’s your problem?”

  Angela grimaced. “Surfer dude. I should have known.”

  “Known what?” he snapped back.

  “You’d pick a boy book all about pirates and sailing and such. We promised no girl books, no boy books.”

  I hadn’t foreseen this dustup, but before I could interfere, Holly offered an opinion. “It’s not a boy book. Treasure Island is an adventure book. I don’t know about you, but I love adventure.”

  Daphne agreed. “Sure. Girls love adventure. Like with the iPad, iPod thingy.” She went no further, because Holly’s glare stopped her in her tracks.

  Jenna piped in, “Oh, new app? Tell me later.”

  Angela and Larry sent air daggers with their eyes and then pretended the other didn’t exist for the next hour until Angela said, “Jim Hawkins was younger than we are and he had the courage to go on the Hispaniola with that violent and dirty crew. And then the mutiny! Even though he’s just a kid, he is majorly loyal to Captain Smollett and Squire Trelawney. Hard-core, really hard-core.”

  Larry tilted until his shoulder touched Julio, who was sitting between him and me. Then he stage-whispered, “I thought she said it was a boy book. I thought she didn’t like it.”

  Julio said, “I know, man.” But I was probably the only one to hear him since Angela roared back, “I never said I didn’t like Treasure Island. I only wanted to know who chose it.”

  I held up my hand. “Stop. Right now. You two can argue later if you wish, but we are not going to waste our time listening to you.” I plastered a bright
, cheery smile on my face. “Now whose turn is it to pick the next book?”

  You’d think I asked them to walk on jellyfish. Not a word. Finally I picked up the cookie platter and passed it around. “Okay, finish these off. I’ll pick the next book and email the name to you later on today. Anyone change their email addy lately? No? Good.”

  Bridgy met me at the counter. “What was that all about?”

  I shrugged. “Who knows? Might be young love. Remember how you and Mary Baronne’s brother fought all through our junior year of high school and then he asked you to the Bishop Ford High School prom?”

  “I forgot all about that. I do remember that I had a good time, but I think that was because Mary went with somebody so we hung out. How did we not rope you into coming along?”

  “I was ‘going steady’ with what’s-his-name, remember? He didn’t go to Bishop Ford.”

  The kids finished their cookies and gathered their pile of books and bags and backpacks.

  When Holly came over to say good-bye, I said, “Tell your mother I’m going to call later, or she can call me when it’s convenient for her. You might want to talk to her first.”

  Holly, completely resigned to the inevitability that her mother would have to be told about the escapade involving Mr. Ertz, was back to her usual bubbly self. “No probs. I’ll talk to her and ask her to call you.”

  She turned to give me a final wave as she and her friends bounded out the door.

  My first thought was, if Lieutenant Frank Anthony was irritated when he thought Pastor John and a few veterans might wind up acting like what he called the “Estero Boulevard Irregulars,” I could only imagine that he would go ballistic at the thought of three teenaged girls spying on suspects, real or imagined. I’d have to talk to the moms. I decided to call George while I waited to hear from Maggie.

  Chapter Thirty-two ||||||||||

  Before I got a chance to take my phone out of my pocket, Miguel came out of the kitchen, looking for the teens.

  “I should have known they were gone. It is so quiet. I’m sorry I missed them. Holly and her two friends volunteer at the temporary animal shelter and I was hoping to recruit some of the others. Dr. Mays could use the help.”

  I thought Jenna wouldn’t be a problem, but I suggested that if he wanted to invite the boys, he might get a better response if the girls weren’t around when he asked.

  Miguel laughed as he headed for the front door. “Ah, having been a teenaged boy, I well remember the fear instilled by teenaged girls. Mañana, chica.” And he was gone.

  I called and got George’s voice mail. I left what I hoped was a cheerful message and then began wiping down the tables and chairs. A few minutes later my phone rang. When I punched “Talk,” it was Maggie. Holly hadn’t wasted any time in confessing her escapade.

  “Thanks so much for ending the girls’ detective careers before they got into serious trouble. I can’t image what they were thinking. Otto Ertz has a very short fuse. Why don’t you and Bridgy come over later? I can show you the lay of the land and you can see for yourself how close the girls came to getting into real trouble.”

  I told her I was waiting to hear from George but Bridgy and I could probably stop by. No point in mentioning that I’d already scoped out Moon Shell Drive not once, but twice, with very little in the way of results. If the residents had secrets, the street wasn’t giving them up.

  While we were doing the final spit-and-polish cleaning for the day, once again, Bridgy brought up the dreaded ice machine. I pulled the paper from my pocket and looked at the numbers with the hope that the cost was less than I remembered. It wasn’t. “This will absolutely break the bank, but if you and Miguel are sure we need to replace ours, this is a great buy compared to the prices we saw the other day. Order it, but make sure delivery is late afternoon so we don’t have the mess of installing when we have customers.”

  Bridgy gave me her “How stupid do you think I am?” look, but at least there were no hands-on-hips poses involved.

  We were putting the cleaning supplies in the cabinet when I mentioned that Maggie had invited us to take another look at Moon Shell Drive. I was surprised the usually sociable Bridgy was reluctant.

  She was vague about her plans. “I have chores and I need you to go with me.”

  “Okay, but can’t we stop by Maggie’s first?”

  Bridgy went outside to make a phone call. When she came back she said we could stretch half an hour but no more. As I turned out the lights she said, “I mean it, Sassy. I’m on a schedule.”

  When we turned onto Moon Shell Drive, I said it was beginning to be as familiar as our own street. Bridgy didn’t find me to be amusing. I hoped once we got her “chores” done, she’d be in a better mood. Bridgy parked her fire engine red Escort ZX2 right in front of Maggie’s house. I panicked for a moment, fearing that Barry Lipscome would see it and our cover would be blown, but then I realized that, a) the last time we were here I was driving the Heap-a-Jeep, and b) who cares?

  Holly came running out to greet us. “My mom and Aunt Karen are on the patio. Come on in.”

  I looked at Bridgy, who tapped her imaginary wristwatch but followed along behind Holly.

  The patio ran along the side of the house that faced Estero Bay. I took in the wide expanse of scrub pines and sea grape bushes. I pointed to a couple of small trees that were dwarfed by palms. “Those are unusual trees.”

  “Not so unusual along the edge of the bay. Called devilwood—they’re from the olive family. They bloom tiny white flowers for about a minute near the end of spring.” Maggie gestured us to seats around a table covered with a cheerful cloth decorated with waves and seagulls. “I thought you might want a drink before we explore.”

  I didn’t even have to look at Bridgy. “We’re short on time. Chores, you know.” I thought Karen was looking well and said so.

  “Oh, I feel great. Running at a hundred percent. I’m sort of stalling, hanging out with my sis for a while longer before I have to go back to the real world. You know—the home, work, home, work cycle.”

  We all laughed. We knew the feeling.

  Maggie stood. “Well, let’s take a look around.”

  When Holly started to rise from her chair, Maggie ordered, “Sit.”

  Maggie opened the patio door facing the bay, and we stepped out into a small clearing with flowerpots scattered around. Most were filled with greens. I pointed to one that was overflowing with gray-green leaves and golden yellow flowers. “Those are pretty.”

  Maggie smiled. “I keep them for color. Clustered rockrose blooms year-round in south Florida. No matter what stage the other flowering plants are in—I always have sunshiny blossoms.” She motioned to the road. “The first house you pass coming into the street is Cordy Ramer’s. Next to it is Otto’s. You can’t see the Lipscomes’ walled-in property from either of their houses or yards. Can’t see it from here, either. Only the wall. So no one on this block could have witnessed anything. Unless the killer parked a car outside the Lipscomes’ driveway gate. That we would notice.”

  I nodded. A parked car on this block would definitely stand out. Maggie walked about two feet past the turn in the road and stopped abruptly. “This is my property line. The rest of the waterfront land belongs to the Lipscomes. This is where they want to build the pool and block everyone’s view of the bay. Well, Cordy and Otto’s view. I’d still have a straight view from the house and a full expanse to the north, but my view to the south would be nonexistent.”

  We walked a few more steps. I stared at the wall ahead of us. “So anything could happen behind that wall and no one could see a thing.”

  “Well, unless you were in the house, or, say, in a helicopter hovering above.” Bridgy thought she was funny but I was totally perplexed by the lack of any way to even see the scene of the crime. Somehow, I thought if I could see it, something would trigger a clue of s
ome sort. Too many mystery books, I guess.

  Maggie walked us back to the car. We asked her to say good-bye to Karen and Holly. Sotto voce I asked, “How much trouble is Holly in?”

  “Just enough to keep her from pulling any stupid trick like that again.”

  I’d barely fastened my seat belt when Bridgy tore away from the curb. She kept looking at the clock on the dash. When she came very close to running a red light for the second time, I complained. “Whatever it is, we can be a little late.”

  She shook her head. “No can do. I made an appointment and then I rescheduled it for half an hour later. I don’t want to miss it.”

  She was heading north. I thought we were going over the San Carlos Bridge but we zipped right past it. Bridgy didn’t stop until we were in Bowditch Point Park, and she slid into a parking spot outside of Tony’s marina.

  She looked at the clock and banged her hand on the steering wheel. “Yes. We made it.”

  I looked at her and shook my head emphatically. “I am not going kayaking. Much as I love it, today is not the day.”

  “I promise there will be no kayaks used in this investigation.” Bridgy’s impish grin led me to suspect that kayaks might be the least of my worries.

  “Investigation? Investigation of what?”

  “Just get out of the car and follow my lead. For goodness’ sake don’t contradict anything I say. Oh, and if anyone wishes you a happy birthday, say thank you.”

  I pushed my sunglasses up on my forehead so I could stare her down, but she dismissed me by saying, “Put on your sunglasses. You’re going to need them.”

  We got out of the car and she led the way to the dock. Tony, the proprietor, a large, jovial man with a more-gray-every-day Poirot-type mustache, clapped when he saw us. “Right on time. That’s how I like my customers. And where . . . Oh there she is, the birthday girl. Happy birthday, missy. You are in for quite an adventure.” He pushed his straw porkpie hat a little farther down his forehead. “You must be really super friends for Bridgy here to arrange such a whoo-hoo birthday present.”