A Whisker of Trouble

by Sofie Ryan

  “That’s not a game,” Liz said. “You mean Where’s Wally?. It’s a book and it’s all illustrations.”

  Rose frowned. “Where’s Wally? doesn’t sound right.”

  Liz was walking around Liam, making a face, it seemed, at his hair. “I can’t help how it sounds,” she said. “That’s the name of the book.”

  We were getting way off track. Before I could try to rein them in, Charlotte clapped her hands. We all automatically turned and looked at her. She could still command a roomful of people.

  “You’re both right,” she said, looking from Liz to Rose. “It’s Where’s Waldo? here and Where’s Wally? in Britain.” She turned her head and looked at me. “Sarah, I Spy With My Little Eye is an electronics store in Portland. The camera is perfectly legal.” Finally she fixed her gaze on Liam. “Child, what did you wash your hair with?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Whatever Gram has in her shower.”

  “Organic Burst Rosemary Mint shampoo,” I said.

  “You smell too good,” Liz said, reaching up to run her fingers through Liam’s hair. “You smell like a girl, not a carpenter.”

  “Nobody’s going to smell his head,” Rose said, hands on her hips.

  “You don’t know that,” Liz retorted.

  I turned to Mr. P. “I’m coming with you. I can run the computer.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” he said.

  I nodded. “I know.” I tipped my head toward Liam. The three women had surrounded him, debating what was the best way to make him not smell so good. “You’re not going to make me stay here and miss all the fun, are you?”

  “Of course not,” he said, a smile playing around his mouth.

  Mr. P. gave me a crash course on how to record and monitor the feed from his beaver cam. I had no idea whether what we were doing was completely legal or not, but I decided that was something I could ask Michelle or Nick later.

  Liz and Charlotte solved the problem of Nick’s great-smelling hair with something they borrowed from Avery when she showed up at lunchtime. By a quarter to one we were in the workroom pretty much ready to leave.

  “Can I come?” Avery asked. She was way more interested in the beaver cam than I liked.

  “I need you here,” I said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Mac can’t do everything by himself.”

  “Is that just a line because you don’t want me to go because you think I’m a kid?” she asked, crossing her arms defiantly across her chest.

  “No,” I said. “It’s because Mac really can’t do everything by himself.”

  “Fine,” she said after a moment, “but you owe me a big hot chocolate from McNamara’s.”

  “Deal,” I said.

  Avery started back to the shop. “With extra whipped cream,” she called over her shoulder.

  “Have I been had?” I said to Liz.

  There was a gleam of amusement in her eyes. “I think the correct term is ‘well, duh.’”

  Liam and Mr. P. left in Cleveland’s pickup. I followed in the SUV with Rose riding shotgun and Liz and Charlotte in the back. The plan was for us to park in a lot across the street from the community center where the money management seminar was being held. The tiny digital camera had a transmit range of about five thousand feet.

  “What if this woman doesn’t show up?” Liz asked. “Do we have a plan B?”

  “We don’t need a plan B,” Rose said, very confidently, it seemed to me.

  “And that would be because?”

  “Because she’ll be there,” Charlotte stated calmly.

  I glanced in the rearview mirror. Liz was frowning at her friends. “What do you two know that I don’t?”

  “Good question,” I said. “What do you two know that Liz—and I—don’t?”

  “Our mystery woman has shown up at five financial seminars in this area aimed at senior citizens in the last six months,” Charlotte said. “Every time she talked about investing in things you can see and touch and every time she spent most of her time with someone who came to the seminar alone.”

  “So she’ll only have to win over one person, not two or three,” I said.

  “That’s what we think,” Rose said.

  “She’s going to show up,” Charlotte said. “This is exactly the kind of setup she likes—small town, a presentation aimed at seniors who have some money saved but not enough that they’d already have a financial adviser.”

  “It’s despicable,” Rose said. I glanced at her. Her mouth was pulled into a tight line.

  “It is hard to accept that someone who is a senior citizen would be taking advantage of other people her age,” Charlotte agreed.

  Ahead of us Liam put on his blinker and moved over into the exit lane. I did the same.

  “Maybe it’s all she has,” Liz said.

  Beside me Rose shifted so she could look at her friend in the backseat. “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “Maybe she’s doing this because she doesn’t have any other choice.”

  “There are always choices,” Rose said.

  “True,” Liz said. “But there aren’t always good ones.”

  Liz could be quick to judge, but the truth was she was probably the softest touch of all of us. No one said anything for a moment. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Rose reach her hand over the seat toward Liz. “Elizabeth Emmerson Kiley French, I love you,” she said softly.

  “Yeah, yeah, everybody does,” Liz said.

  I looked in the rearview mirror and blew Liz a kiss. She never ceased to amaze me.

  The community center was easy to find in Rockport. Liam actually found a place to pull in at the curb in front. We retreated to the back row of the parking lot across the street, according to plan.

  I set Mr. P.’s laptop on my knees, turned it on and followed the instructions he’d given me. After a few moments we were looking at the dashboard of Cleveland’s old truck. Rose pulled out her cell phone.

  Mr. P.’s cell played the first notes of “Ode to Joy” as his ring tone, the sound coming clearly through the computer as I turned up the volume.

  “Sarah has everything working,” Rose said.

  “Thank you, Sarah,” Mr. P. said.

  I gave Rose a thumbs-up.

  Everything went smoothly after that. Liam played the role of the good son, walking Alfred inside, standing awkwardly around for a couple of minutes and telling him, within earshot of others, that he didn’t need an inheritance and maybe they should just go home.

  For his part Mr. P. was the epitome of a hardworking dad. He patted Liam on the arm and said he’d call if he needed a ride home.

  Liam pulled the truck into the parking lot a row ahead of us and sprinted back to the SUV, sliding onto the backseat next to Liz.

  “How was I?” he said with a grin.

  “You were perfect,” Rose said, beaming. Charlotte nodded.

  “Good job,” Liz agreed, giving him a fist bump.

  He looked at me. “What do you think, Sarah?”

  I smiled at him. “Good job, big brother.”

  Mr. P. had chosen an aisle seat and he looked around a couple of times, which gave us a good view of the small meeting room. It was about five minutes before the start of the seminar when Mr. P. said softly, “She’s here. I’m going for a cup of coffee.”

  I looked at Rose and the hand folded in her lap gave me a thumbs-up.

  Mr. P. was a born actor. He got himself a cup of coffee and managed to knock over the container of plastic stir sticks. It was all the opening our con woman needed.

  “Let me help you,” she said. “I don’t know why they can’t just put out some spoons.” Then she gave an embarrassed laugh. “I’m sorry—I sound like an old fogey, don’t I?”

  “No, you don’t,” Mr. P. said. “Excuse my language,
but those plastic thingamajigs aren’t worth a damn. Someone can’t wash a few spoons?”

  That was all it took. It shouldn’t have been that simple, but it was. Mr. P. carried his coffee back to his seat, and his new friend, whose name was Leila, took the empty chair next to him.

  The presentation was mind-numbingly boring and from my perspective seemed to be geared to five-year-olds, not people with decades of life experience.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Liz exclaimed after the first five minutes. “How stupid do they think the average person over sixty-five is?”

  “It is a little . . . insulting, isn’t it?” Charlotte said.

  Liam leaned his elbow on the back of my seat. “So why don’t you do something better?” he said to Liz.

  “I could,” she said.

  “So why don’t you?” he asked. “Seriously, those two guys”—he gestured at the computer screen—“are acting like they have an audience of kindergarteners who get two quarters for an allowance. I know you could do better. Why don’t you put together a program that actually gives seniors some decent advice? Because this one sure as hell doesn’t.”

  “You know that Channing Caulfield would help you,” I said.

  Liz made a face at me.

  “Well, he would,” Rose added.

  “It’s not a bad idea, you know,” Charlotte said. “You’ve been looking for a way to get Jane Evans to come work for the foundation. This might be it. She used to work for the bank.”

  “I’ll think about it,” Liz said. We all looked at her. “I promise,” she added.

  I held up a hand. “I think Mr. P. is getting the pitch,” I said. I nudged up the volume.

  “If it makes me old-fashioned, then fine, I’m old-fashioned,” Leila was saying, “but if I’m going to invest in something, I want it to be something I can see and touch.”

  “My father used to say, ‘Invest in land, boy. They aren’t making any more of it,’” Mr. P. said.

  “He was right,” Leila agreed.

  Mr. P. sighed. “I don’t have that kind of money. I just, I just want to be able to leave something for my boy. He’s got an ex-wife who pretty much took him to the cleaners a couple of years ago.”

  Liam put a hand to his heart and tried to look wounded. I rolled my eyes.

  In short order Leila had confided in Mr. P. about the money she’d made with her “tiny” wine collection and offered to introduce him to the wine broker she dealt with.

  “Yes!” I said, softly, doing a little fist pump in the air.

  “Does he have references?” Alfred asked.

  “Of course,” she said, “and I can promise you I checked Mr. Logan out very carefully. You can’t be too careful with your money.”

  Now came the tricky part. Mr. P. had to find a way to get the meeting to take place in North Harbor, instead of Rockport. The Angels had agreed to bring the police in on their meeting, which meant it had to happen in Michelle’s jurisdiction.

  “I don’t want my son to know,” Mr. P. said. “He keeps telling me I don’t need to leave him anything, but I want to. Maybe next time your broker friend is in North Harbor, he could give me a call.” He tapped his chest with one hand. “I got a bum ticker, so I can’t drive anymore.” Then he got to his feet and held out his hand. “It was nice meeting you, Leila.”

  I held my breath, wondering if she would let him walk away.

  She didn’t. As luck would have it, Mr. Logan was going to be in North Harbor the next day—big surprise—and Leila could set up a meeting with him. Mr. P. hesitated, all according to script, so he wouldn’t seem too eager and then agreed to meet Leila and Thorne Logan at McNamara’s.

  “It was lucky for me, meeting you,” Mr. P. said.

  Leila smiled. “Sometimes things work out the way they’re supposed to.”

  “Yes, they do,” Rose said softly beside me.

  I didn’t get to see Mr. P. face-to-face until we got back to the shop. “You were terrific,” I said to him as he climbed out of the old truck.

  He smiled. “Thank you, my dear. I was onstage many years ago. I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed it.”

  “I suspect you have many talents I don’t know about,” I teased.

  “Indeed I do,” he said with a wink. Then he headed over to Rose and the others.

  Liam came around the back of the rust-pocked pickup. “You walked right into that one,” he said with a laugh, putting an arm around me.

  I shook my head. “Yeah, I guess I did.” I looked up at him. “You were good, too.”

  “Thank you,” he said. “It was probably because there were no elephants in this story.” He ran a hand over his hair. “I’m heading over to the apartment. I don’t know what this stuff is that Liz got from her granddaughter, but it smells like bear grease.”

  I laughed. “Admit it. You like smelling all flowery.”

  He waggled his eyebrows at me. “Let’s just say it makes me very popular with the ladies.”

  I held up both hands. “I don’t want to hear about your love life, especially if it involves Jess.”

  Liam started swaying from side to side, pulling me with him. “I haven’t said a word about Jess,” he teased. “I haven’t, for example, told you that she’s a good kisser . . . or a bad one.”

  I put both hands over my ears and began to hum. Loudly.

  Liam just laughed. He pulled one hand away from my head. “I’m gone,” he said. “If ‘Dad’ needs me for anything, let me know.” With that he headed for his truck.

  I walked over to the others. “Where’s Liam going?” Rose asked. “I have a coffee cake in the staff room.”

  “He had some things he needed to do. He asked me to tell you that he’s available if you need him again.”

  “Your brother is a very nice young man,” Mr. P. said.

  I nodded. “Yeah, I got lucky.”

  We went inside.

  “How did it go?” Mac asked.

  “Good,” I said. “I learned that both my brother and Mr. P. are very good at pretending to be someone else.” I looked around. “How were things here?”

  “One customer,” Mac said, swiping a hand over the back of his neck. “He bought that old fiddle.”

  “Good,” I said. “I’d about given up on selling the thing.”

  “And the trestle table and six chairs,” he said with a grin.

  I blinked at him. “You’re kidding me?”

  He shook his head. “No, I’m not. The table sold itself, but it was Avery who sold him on the six chairs.”

  I looked over at the teenager, who was clearly getting all the details of our afternoon from the others. She held up a hand and high-fived Mr. P. “I think I should give her a raise.”

  Mac nodded. “I agree. She’s really been working hard.”

  “I have to make a couple of calls,” I said. “I’ll just be a few minutes.” I smiled at him. “There’s going to be cake.”

  “I like it when you all go on a quest,” Mac said. “We always have cake.”

  I laughed and started for the stairs.

  After some discussion Mr. P. had asked me if I would call Michelle, once we located Thorne Logan. I wasn’t sure she’d be interested in talking to the man, but I’d promised both her and Nick that I’d keep them up-to-date, so I’d said yes.

  I’d expected I’d have to leave a message, but she answered on the fourth ring.

  “Hi,” I said. “Do you have a couple of minutes?”

  “Sure. What is it?”

  “Well.” I wasn’t sure how to start. “I’m, uh, I guess you could say I’m acting as the spokesperson for the Angels.”

  “All right,” she said. It seemed to me that I could hear just a little amusement in her voice.

  I explained what had happened, leaving out some of the details like
Liam masquerading as Mr. P.’s son. “So Mr. P. has a meeting with this broker, tomorrow afternoon at Glenn McNamara’s.”

  Michelle laughed and I felt my heart sink. She wasn’t taking this seriously. Then to my surprise she said, “They’re good.”

  I wasn’t sure I’d heard her correctly. “Excuse me?” I said.

  “I’ve been looking for Mr. Logan for the past couple of days. He’s a difficult man to track down. How did they find him?”

  The knot in my stomach unclenched and I leaned back in my chair. “Old-fashioned, senior word of mouth. It’s faster than the information superhighway.”

  “I’m assuming you’ll be there tomorrow afternoon,” Michelle said.

  “I will,” I said. “Maybe I could buy you a cup of coffee.”

  “Coffee’s on me,” she said. “I don’t suppose there’s any way to convince the rest of them to stay home, is there?”

  It was my turn to laugh. “Only if you intend to use handcuffs.”

  “I was afraid you’d say that.” She exhaled softly. “Please, use whatever influence you have with them. No grandstanding, no theatrics.”

  “I’m not sure how much influence I have,” I said. “They all changed my diapers and they’re not afraid to point that out, but I’ll do what I can.”

  We set up a time to meet at Glenn’s and I hung up.

  “I’m going to close up early,” I said to Mac at lunchtime the next day.

  “Then maybe I’ll come with you, if that’s okay,” he said.

  “Please.”

  I’d been awake half the night, having second, third and fourth thoughts about this whole enterprise. Mr. P. could be walking into a meeting with two murderers. They could be armed. Backed into a corner, they could take hostages.

  “Rose is as wired as a five-year-old on Christmas Eve,” I said. “I caught her looking up how to make a citizen’s arrest when Mr. P. was upstairs changing.” I slid a hand back over my hair. “And short of duct-taping her to a chair, there’s no way she’s going to stay out of this. I promised Michelle I’d try to rein them in, but I think they’re more likely to listen to reason if the voice of reason is yours, not mine.”

  “They’ve been pretty restrained so far,” Mac pointed out.