The Outsmarting of Criminals: A Mystery Introducing Miss Felicity Prim

by Rigolosi, Steven

  “Do you remember her husband’s name?”

  “As I said, Miss Prim, it is my job never to forget a face or a name. It was Benjamin. Benjamin Oleson.”

  Benjamin Oleson? Could this be the secret identity of Benjamin Bannister, graduate student of magical realism at Columbia University?

  “This may be a strange question, Olivia, but did the couple look … content? Happy? Or was there a strain?”

  “Most definitely content, Miss Prim. When you’ve been in this business as long as I have, you know who’s happy and who isn’t.”

  Miss Prim’s head was spinning. First Kit’s revelation, now this.

  “You don’t happen to have a photo of Benjamin Oleson, do you?” Miss Prim asked.

  “Of course not, Miss Prim. I take photos of houses, not of people.” Her tone implied, Because houses matter.

  “I think you may have misunderstood, Olivia. You may have assumed his last name was Oleson because that was the woman’s last name, but I don’t believe they are married. I believe his last name is actually Bannister.”

  “I suppose you may be right, Miss Prim, though I do not usually make mistakes like that. You wouldn’t believe how sensitive people can be.”

  “Oh, dear,” Miss Prim sighed. “If only there was a place we could go to find a photo of him. Then you could confirm his identity so much more easily.”

  “Do you know what he does for a living?”

  “He’s a graduate student at Columbia University.”

  “Let’s see if we can pull him up on the Internet. There’s bound to be a few photos.”

  “The Inner Net?”

  Olivia Abernathy looked at Miss Prim as if to say, Are you mad, woman? But she held her tongue and instead began clacking on her keyboard.

  “Here he is,” Olivia said. “Benjamin Bannister, Ph.D. candidate. Yes, that’s him, all right.”

  “Olivia, would you mind giving me the address of the house you rented to Benjamin and Dol—Benjamin and Nellie? That would not be a breach of professional ethics, would it?”

  “I don’t think so. I mean, you’re not exactly the dangerous type, Miss Prim. Wait a minute—is Nellie the woman you picked up at the Two Oaks train station last night?”

  “It’s a long story, Olivia. But I promise that once I get to the bottom of things, I will return and give you all the details.”

  Olivia Abernathy seemed satisfied with this assurance.

  “The address is 50 Pierced Arrow Lane. Pick up Milford Road off the south side of the square and take it about a mile into the country. Look for a dilapidated red barn—the town really must do something about that—and then make the next right onto Iroquois Road. About half a mile down, you’ll get to Pierced Arrow. Make a left, and it’ll be the last house on your left.”

  29

  Trapped

  There had to be a reasonable explanation, Miss Prim reasoned, throwing the Zap into a lower gear to pass a Hummer that was blocking her way. She hoped with all her being that the explanation would be innocent and harmless, but as she raced through the streets of Greenfield, she felt less and less hopeful. For years she and Dolly had been the best of friends, the closest of confidantes. There was no good reason for Dolly to hide her plans to rent a house in Greenfield or to give Olivia Abernathy a phony name. No, Miss Prim feared that Benjamin was in quite a bit of trouble and that he had somehow pulled Dolly into his difficulties.

  Was Dolly being held against her will? Miss Prim thought the possibility quite likely and applied her foot more forcefully to the Zap’s gas pedal.

  She would proceed with caution and would not get herself into any situation from which she could not extricate herself. But Dolly’s safety was paramount, and Miss Prim would do whatever was necessary to ensure it.

  Pierced Arrow Lane dead-ended at a picturesque field. From her seat in the Zap, Miss Prim looked at the house Dolly and Benjamin had rented. It was a small, charming red farmhouse, probably built in the 1920s or 1930s, its windows adorned with white lace curtains. A barn sat at the end of the driveway, its huge wooden doors tightly closed. A line of pine trees separated the driveway from the adjoining property to the left. The house was neither pristine nor dilapidated. While it did not appear to be lived in, nor did it appear to be deserted or neglected.

  No car sat in the driveway, a fact Miss Prim found heartening. The farmhouse was not walking distance from the Greenfield town square. To live here, one would need a car; and the fact that there was no car in the driveway meant that Dolly’s captor was likely not present.

  Unless, of course, the car was in the barn.

  Miss Prim turned the Zap around and parked it halfway down the road. This way, anyone looking out of the front windows of 50 Pierced Arrow Lane would not see the car. She grabbed her handbag, slung it over her shoulder, and began briskly walking toward the farmhouse. Oh, how she wished for cover of night, which would have allowed her to remain undetected! But it was broad daylight, and strategies must be adjusted accordingly. She pulled her shoulders back and adjusted her gait to give any onlookers the impression that she was simply a New England matron out for her daily constitutional.

  Remaining alert to her surroundings, Miss Prim used the pine trees lining the driveway for cover as she made her way to the barn. The structure had no windows in the front or along the tree line—Miss Prim began to feel disappointed—but two windows near ground level at the back of the barn allowed her to peer in. She’d expected to find—what? Drug dealers divvying up cash? A flotilla of antique cars? A counterfeiting operation?—but instead she saw an empty barn through sparkling dust motes.

  What should her next move be? The rules of criminal outsmarting required her to scope out the remainder of the property, but skulking took time. Why not just go to the front door, ring the bell, and see what happened? Maybe Dolly would open the door and answer all her questions. Or, perhaps, the front door might be unlocked, and she could enter the house easily.

  She purposefully strode toward the front door, again to convey the impression to passersby, or nosy neighbors, that she was a resident, friend, or invited guest. With a quick stab of her finger, she rang the doorbell. She heard its deep chime resounding through the house, but nobody answered.

  Miss Prim put her ear to the doorjamb to listen for footsteps. But the only thing on the other side of the door was silence.

  But wait—what was that sound? Not whispers, not talking, but—a muffled, prolonged scream? Was someone locked in the recesses of the house? Had the captive heard the doorbell, and was she now screaming to get the visitor’s attention?

  She tried the doorknob. Locked tight.

  Her sense of urgency increased, Miss Prim walked along the driveway, looking for possible points of entry into the house. There was one window, but it was much too high for her to reach, and the side entry door was securely bolted.

  At the rear of the house, a set of wooden steps led to a good-sized outdoor deck. Miss Prim climbed the stairs and looked through the door into the kitchen. Deserted. She tried the doorknob. It wouldn’t budge.

  Miss Prim looked around helplessly at what she would have, under other circumstances, considered a charming outdoor space. Clay flowerpots along one side of the deck were abloom with zinnias and marigolds. A table with a patio umbrella sat in the center of the deck, awaiting guests for a summer barbecue. Even the milk box was charming, a throwback to more innocent times.

  Then it her: what every person intent on criminal trespass remembers, if she has a brain in her head. Rare is the homeowner who does not hide a house key somewhere on the property. She glanced at the barn, but no—that would not be the best hiding place for a spare key. She hadn’t hidden her spare key in the barn on her own property. If she’d been locked out of the cottage at night, she would not have wanted to stumble through the dark yard and into the barn (an archetypally creepy place) to retrieve the key. To avoid such a scenario she’d hidden the key close to Rose Cottage.

  First she search
ed the milk box. Dozens of clothespins, but no key. She looked under the welcome mat in front of the door: earwigs, but no key. She felt around the window frame and was rewarded with small chunks of dry, broken putty, but no key. She got on her knees to look under the picnic table, hoping to find a key taped there, but she found only spiderwebs.

  As she rose to her feet she spied the flowerpots.

  The spare key was not under the first flowerpot, nor under the second or third. It was under the fourth.

  Rejoicing at her luck and/or intelligence, Miss Prim grabbed the key and returned to the door. She slid the key into the lock—it went in marvelously easily—and twisted it. The bolt disengaged with a satisfying click, and within a moment Miss Prim was inside the house.

  The house’s interior was much like its exterior, neither well kept nor neglected. It was really quite impossible, Miss Prim thought, to determine whether anyone was living here. A refrigerator stood to her right. She opened the door to see if it held any food. It did. The light blinked on when she opened the door, so the utilities were live, which meant the house was most likely occupied.

  She paused to listen. Yes, she still heard desperate noises. They emanated from somewhere farther into the house and below her feet. The basement?

  Following her ears, Miss Prim tiptoed into a hallway. The wooden floors were creaky, but she felt sure that she and the captive were quite alone. The air was much too dead for someone to be watching her from close by.

  Along the hallway she encountered a substantial door locked with a heavy padlock. A door to the cellar?

  She knocked on the door. “Dolly? Dolly, can you hear me? It is I, Miss Prim.”

  Miss Prim heard a sob. “Oh, Miss Prim! How did you find me? You’ve got to get me out of here.”

  “I shall, dearest. There’s a padlock on this door. I must find a way to get it open.”

  “Hurry, Miss Prim. Please.”

  Miss Prim examined the padlock. It was large, heavy, and intimidating. Perhaps steroid-crazed bodybuilders might be able to crush it with their bare hands, but she lacked the necessary brute strength.

  How convenient it would be if she could find a spare key to the padlock. But would a captor really leave the key to his captive’s cage accessible to anyone who decided to snoop through the house? This was one of those situations where criminals were inconsistent, Miss Prim thought. On the one hand, criminals were highly intelligent and would never do something so stupid as to leave a key in plain sight. On the other hand, criminals were also human and could be expected to slip up eventually. On balance, Miss Prim decided that searching the house for a key was a good idea, mostly because there was no other way she could defeat that heavy lock.

  She returned to the kitchen and began opening the cupboards. She gave a small yelp of joy when she found a key rack attached to the inside of the door to the broom closet. Five keys dangled from the rack. She gathered them quickly and returned to the basement door.

  None of the keys worked.

  She returned to the kitchen and began going through the cabinetry. A drawer filled with cutlery; a drawer filled with plastic bags; a drawer filled with dishrags and towels. A junk drawer filled with ladles, plastic spoons, and tools: a screwdriver, a wrench, a hammer.

  Eyeing the screwdriver, Miss Prim flashed back to the 1970s. At that time, Doctor Poe had stored pharmaceuticals in a cabinet in one of his examination rooms. When certain patients discovered its contents, that cabinet had experienced a rash of thefts. Doctor Poe had solved the problem by purchasing a latch, screwing it into the cabinet doors, and then padlocking the doors through the hasp. The system had worked marvelously until the office manager (Miss Prim’s precursor) lost the key. Everyone had wrung their hands helplessly, until Doctor Poe found a solution to save the day. He’d retrieved a screwdriver, unscrewed both sides of the latch, and removed it from the door, thus triumphing over the padlock.

  Miss Prim grabbed the screwdriver and returned to the door that kept Dolly a prisoner. Working slowly and cautiously, Miss Prim began unscrewing the screws from the latch. One—two—three—four—five—six—seven—eight. All the screws were removed, and the latch with its intimidating padlock lay on the floor.

  Miss Prim unlocked the lock on the doorknob and swung the door open. Contrary to her expectations, the basement was not dark; several light bulbs shone from below. She began walking down the stairs tentatively.

  “Dolly?”

  “Over here, Miss Prim.”

  Dolly, looking pale and frightened, sat on the basement floor, her wrists and ankles bound with rope.

  “Oh, Dolly,” Miss Prim cried, “are you all right?”

  “I’m OK, Miss Prim. We have to get out of here.”

  Miss Prim began working at the knotted ropes.

  “Wait,” Dolly said. “What was that?”

  “What was what?” Miss Prim had been working the ropes so frantically she hadn’t paid attention to anything else.

  “That,” Dolly whispered.

  Miss Prim listened as the basement door was slammed shut and the door lock was engaged with a sickening click.

  *

  Miss Prim rushed up the stairs. Yes, the door was sealed tight. She returned to Dolly and continued working the ropes.

  “What are we going to do, Miss Prim? Now we’re both locked down here.”

  “This is completely my fault,” Miss Prim said, enraged with herself for not having foreseen this twist in the plot. “I thought the house was empty. I should have been more careful.”

  “He went out a few hours ago, Miss Prim. I guess he’s back now.” Miss Prim thought she had never heard Dolly sound so bitter.

  “Are you hurt, dearest?” Miss Prim asked, as the ropes binding Dolly’s ankles came loose.

  “I’m OK. I don’t think he wants to hurt me. He’s just using me to get to Benjamin. How did you find me?”

  Miss Prim told her about finding Olivia Abernathy’s business card, about her interview with Greenfield’s premier real-estate agent, about locating the hidden key under the flowerpot and releasing the padlock by using a trick Doctor Poe had taught her.

  “I’m impressed, Miss Prim,” Dolly said with awe. “You really are cut out for your new profession.”

  “Perhaps, but that’s the last thing on my mind right now. Dolly, why ever did you rent this house and give a phony name to Olivia?”

  “He made me do it, Miss Prim. I didn’t have a choice.”

  “Who is ‘he’?”

  “It’s such a long story. His name is Everett Mansour. He’s in the graduate program with Benjamin. It all started with a book.”

  “Go on,” Miss Prim said, working at the ropes binding Dolly’s wrists.

  “One day, Benjamin and Everett stopped in a used bookstore on the Upper West Side to kill some time. The way Benjamin tells the story, he and Everett began on opposite sides of the room and found their way to the middle at the same time. They were looking through a pile of dusty old books and they both reached for the same book at the same time. That’s where the problem started. Benjamin says he got the book first, but Everett says he had his hands on it and Benjamin grabbed it from him. Anyway, Benjamin started paging through it. He couldn’t believe his eyes. The bookstore owner had no idea and sold it to him for five dollars.”

  “What was it, Dolly?”

  “Miss Prim, you won’t believe this. It’s one of the original copies of Songs of Innocence, printed by William Blake himself in 1789, with all of his original artwork. Benjamin felt pretty sure it was authentic, but he brought it to one of his professors to get his opinion and asked him to keep it a secret. The professor said yes, without a doubt it’s an original. Benjamin was overjoyed, but then the professor started gossiping and Everett found out. Everett thought Benjamin stole the book out from under him, and he started making threats. The book’s worth a lot of money, Miss Prim. It’s hard to make a living at magical realism, and Everett realized how much he could make by selling it. He c
onfronted Benjamin and demanded that they sell the book and split the money, but Benjamin wanted to keep it. He said he’d found it and paid for it and it was his.”

  “How did Everett get you and Benjamin to rent a house up here?”

  “Benjamin? No, it was Everett who wanted to rent the house. I was posing as Everett’s wife when I met that awful real-estate agent.”

  The ropes gave and Dolly’s hands were free. “But, Dolly, Olivia Abernathy pulled up a photo of Benjamin on her computer. She said that he was the man you’d rented the house with.”

  “That’s totally untrue, Miss Prim. It was Everett, not Benjamin. From what I can figure out, Everett broke into Benjamin’s apartment to find the book, but Benjamin had already hidden it somewhere else. So Everett waited for me outside Doctor Poe’s office and he told me if I didn’t help him and keep my mouth shut, he’d make sure Benjamin was hurt really badly … or worse. So I did what he told me to do. He wanted me to rent this house with him, so I did. And now I know what he’s planning. He’s holding me hostage until Benjamin gives him the book. Then he’ll let me go. At least, that’s what he says.”

  “But why rent a house in Greenfield, of all places, Dolly?”

  “I can’t figure that one out, Miss Prim. And I’ve had a lot of time to think about it, being tied up in this basement.”

  “I don’t understand why Olivia Abernathy should have lied to me about this,” Miss Prim said, puzzled and frustrated.

  “I have to assume that Everett bribed her, Miss Prim. You know real-estate people. They’ll do anything for money.”

  Miss Prim could not dispute the veracity of this assertion, though she supposed she understood the motivation. A real-estate agent must live in the very best neighborhood to have professional credibility, and living in the best neighborhoods costs a pretty penny.

  “Did he kidnap you from the cottage?” Miss Prim asked.

  “In a way yes, but in a way no. I left voluntarily. Everett waited until you were asleep and then he showed up at the cottage. He told me Benjamin was at the house and wanted to speak with me. He very specifically told me to take my purse with me, which I thought was strange. I told him I didn’t have a purse, but he didn’t believe me, and I was scared so I took yours. I think he believed I was holding a key to a safety deposit box, or something like that, for Benjamin. As soon as he got me down here, he opened your bag and shook everything out. When he didn’t find what he wanted, he just left everything on the floor.”