Never Kissed Goodnight

by Edie Claire

  "We'll be right down," Leigh said quickly, hanging up.

  ***

  Her aunt's house had rated three police cars and Maura's unmarked, but the crowd was thinning as they arrived. Leigh bounded up the porch steps and met Maura at the door.

  "Was it Mason? Did they catch him?" she asked breathlessly.

  The detective regarded her evenly. "Nobody's caught anybody, Koslow. Whoever it was was gone when the Ross Township police got here." She threw her arm across the door, preventing Leigh from entering. "Sorry—you can’t come in until the photographer is through."

  Warren came up behind them. "There wasn't any violence, was there?" he asked Maura worriedly. "Who reported the break-in?"

  The detective shook her head. "Clean break-in, clean exit. The locals responded to a call from a neighbor saying that an unfamiliar man had forced open the front door of the house. By the time they got here, he was already gone."

  Mrs. Snodgrass. Leigh whirled around and started back down off the porch. "I'm just going a few doors down," she said quickly to Warren, cutting off his forthcoming protest. "I'll be right back."

  As expected, she found Dorothy Snodgrass lounging comfortably on her porch swing, the wrought-iron end table beside her set with a plate of cookies, a china tea pot, and four matching cups—three already used. "Figured I'd have company this morning," she smiled. "How are you doing, young'un? I hope your aunt didn't have nothing messed with."

  "I don't really know yet," Leigh answered nervously.

  "Tea?"

  Leigh nodded heartedly. If there was ever a call for Mrs. Snodgrass' special—this was it. She wasn't driving, and her neurons could use a chill.

  "Oh, not that one, dear," Mrs. Snodgrass said when Leigh picked up the delicate pot to help herself. "That's for the officers. The good stuff's inside." She shuffled into the house with a grin, emerging almost immediately with a Pitt Panthers thermos and an oversized plastic Penguins mug. She filled the latter to the brim, then handed it to her guest and returned to her seat with a plop.

  Leigh thanked her and took a swig, smiling as the warm liquid melted its way down her throat. It was surprisingly sweet, and tasted a little of ginger. There was no telling what was actually in it, and it was probably better she didn't know. She took the M&M cookie Mrs. Snodgrass held out to her and alternated a few bites with a few sips, feeling a little better with each.

  "The man you saw," Leigh began finally, her voice nice and steady again. "Was he middle-aged, medium height, with red hair graying a little?"

  Mrs. Snodgrass eyed her strangely. "Oh, no. He was real tall. Thin as a rail. Mess of black hair on his head. Pacing around nervous-like. I'd never seen him before in my life. Know good and well Lydie wouldn't want him there. That's why I called the police. I tried your mother too, but she was out."

  Leigh took another long swig of tea, hoping it could counteract the surge of adrenaline Mrs. Snodgrass's words had just produced. "How good a look at him did you get?"

  "Pretty good," the older woman said proudly. "He drove by real slow at first—I think he was looking at the house numbers. Then he parked at Lydie's and knocked on the door. When it didn't open, he started walking around just looking it over. Then he went back to the door and started jiggling. Brazen son of a bitch, pardon my French. Didn’t like the looks of him."

  Leigh took a deep breath. She needed it. "Mrs. Snodgrass," she asked unsteadily, "do you know who Mick Jagger is?"

  She snorted. "Doesn't everyone? What's some middle-aged rocker got to do with anything?"

  "I was wondering if the man you saw looked like him at all."

  Mrs. Snodgrass stared at her a moment, then at the Penguins mug, as if wondering whether she'd overdone it. "You think Mick Jagger broke into your aunt's house?" she asked hesitantly.

  Leigh laughed, spewing a mouthful of the glorious tea across her jacket. "Of course not," she chuckled. Then, thinking she was sounding a bit too happy awfully fast, she wiped her mouth and set down the mug. "Of course not. It's just that I thought they might have something in common."

  Mrs. Snodgrass thought a moment, then looked at her. "Oh, I see. Yeah, I guess the guy did have big lips. Skinny face, big lips. Ugly as sin. That what you mean?"

  Leigh nodded, feeling a sudden, overwhelming uneasiness. There was no point in denying that Lydie's intruder and Mason's would-be assassin were one in the same. He'd found Mason's sister, now he'd found his ex-wife. If Lydie had been home—. Her blood chilled.

  "What's wrong, dear?" Mrs. Snodgrass inquired gently. "Is this man dangerous? And why were you expecting a middle-aged redhead?"

  Leigh swallowed. "The man who broke in could be very dangerous, yes," she admitted. "And I thought—I mean, I was hoping it wasn't him. I was hoping it was Cara's father."

  Mrs. Snodgrass's eyes widened. "Mason Dublin? Oh, no, dear. I'd know him in a minute. This man looked nothing like him. Why is he dangerous? I don't mean to pry, but if there's some psycho prowling round the neighborhood we all need to be on guard, you know."

  "It's kind of a long story," Leigh answered. "But if anyone sees that man again, they should definitely call the police. And they should stay away from him."

  "Will do," Mrs. Snodgrass promised. "Now, I see that my future county council representative is over there watching you like a hawk. Reckon he'd like some tea, too?"

  Leigh rose, feeling a little wobbly. "No, thank you," she answered. "He's my designated driver."

  "Cookie, then?"

  She smiled and took another—peanut butter this time. "Sure. And thanks for keeping an eye on Lydie's place." Mrs. Snodgrass nodded, and Leigh started down her porch steps, having the odd feeling of unfinished business nagging in her mind. She was halfway through the next yard when she stopped and whirled around, jogging back to the porch and taking the steps up two by two.

  "What did you mean about Mason Dublin?" she asked breathlessly. "How would you know him if you saw him? He never lived here. Did you know him when he was still married to Lydie?"

  Mrs. Snodgrass simply sat and looked at her for a moment, then her face registered a certain sheepishness. "I never actually met him," she said quietly. "But I've seen him."

  Leigh's heart pounded. "When? Recently?"

  "No, dear." Mrs. Snodgrass looked distinctly uncomfortable. "I haven't seen him in years. But he used to come around—back when you girls were little."

  Her pounding heart seemed to stop in mid beat. "What?!"

  "Oh, dear," Mrs. Snodgrass buried her face in a napkin. "I'm sorry if I've spilled something I shouldn't have. I knew Lydie didn't want Mason near you kids—I would never have said a word to you, but, well, it's been so long. And you're all grown up now. I didn't think it mattered anymore. Aw, hell—the truth is, I just didn't think. I'm sorry."

  "Don't be sorry," Leigh said quickly. "Are you telling me that—even years after the divorce—Mason used to come around to see Lydie?"

  The older woman shook her head. "I wouldn't say that. I'd say he came to see Cara. He would watch you two play, sometimes. Drove your aunt nuts. Mind you, Lydie never came right out and told anybody he was her ex-husband. She just asked me to let her know if I ever saw him skulking about, which I did. But I never doubted who he was. Cara looks just like him, you know."

  Leigh was numb. How much was alcohol and how much was shock, she wasn't sure. Either way, it was not a good feeling. "Thanks for telling me, Mrs. Snodgrass," she said mechanically. "It's—good to know. I guess."

  She drifted off the porch again and was met at her aunt's yard by a concerned-looking Warren. "Special tea, eh?" he said warily, studying her. "Better stick with me. Mo says we can go in, now."

  Leigh nodded and handed him the cookie. She had thought she knew everything about her aunt's house—and her aunt.

  How wrong she had been.

  ***

  Leigh walked slowly through the living room of the old house, careful not to step on any of the loose papers, books, and writing paraphernalia that had
been dumped from the drawers of her aunt's secretary.

  "The pattern is very similar to what the police found in Trudy Dublin's apartment—minus the violence," Maura explained grimly. "The intruder seemed to be looking for information that Lydie would have written down." She led them into the kitchen and pointed at the now-empty drawer underneath the counter where the telephone sat. "Most likely, Mason Dublin's latest address."

  Leigh stepped forward and sorted through the pile of telephone books, church directories, and half-used note pads that littered the linoleum. "I'm not sure," she said sadly, "but I do think Lydie's address book is gone. It was green. About this big." She held out her hands. "But I could be wrong. She could keep it somewhere else now."

  "Maura," Warren broke in, "Do you think we’re dealing with the shooter?"

  She threw them both a heavy look and nodded. "'Fraid so. The neighbor's description matches Frances's. Probably came looking either for Mason Dublin or for info about where to find him. That means he didn't catch up with Mason after the shooting, if anyone cares, but it also means he isn't giving up easy. What I'm concerned about," the detective continued grimly, "is how he knew to come here."

  Leigh didn't think her blood could get any colder, but she was wrong. First this man had tracked down Mason's sister, then his ex-wife. It was foolish to assume that Mason's daughter—or any other relative—was out of his reach. She swallowed anxiously. Had he hurt Trudy because she wouldn't give out information about her brother's whereabouts? Or, she thought with a shiver, was he just trying to send Mason a message?

  "There's something else you should see," Maura said soberly, stepping into the dining room and motioning for them to follow. "Jagger-Lips left a calling card."

  Leigh moved anxiously through the doorframe, and her eyes went immediately to the large oval mirror that hung over the buffet, its once shiny surface now marred with scrawls from a black permanent marker.

  Mason—Funny Money line in 36—or they all lose.

  Leigh stared at the jagged script, her heart beating fast. She turned back to Maura and shook her head. "It doesn't make any sense to me."

  "It's likely a code to set up either a delivery or a meeting," Maura explained. "The shooter's trying to make contact with Mason without tipping off the police, and he's betting that Lydie can get in touch with him—or vice versa."

  "Funny Money as in counterfeiting, I suppose," Warren said thoughtfully, "And 'in 36' could mean in 36 hours—or days. But what does the 'line' mean?"

  He looked at Maura, and she shook her head. "No idea, yet. But we're working on it."

  "Or they all lose," Leigh repeated grimly. "That's the threat to make Mason show himself." She took a deep breath. "I don't think I want to know who loses what."

  "Take it easy, Koslow," Maura said quietly. "We're getting closer. Mason dropped some valuable information in your last conversation, and we've been piecing some things together. That bar he worked at in Alabama—it's a little dive called the Brindle Blur, located right outside a big dog track. Seems it's a famous watering hole for ex-cons. Mason started working there not long after he got out of the Federal Pen on the counterfeiting charge, and that's where he'd been up until about six months ago. Didn't cause any trouble—record's clean. But I fed the blackmailer's names he gave you—and the sketch of the one who did the kidnapping—to the local police down there. They have a description of our shooter too, since there's a good chance that's where he met up with Mason." Her voice lifted confidently. "Odds are they'll know something."

  "Mason could tell us all that himself," Warren growled, "if he had the guts to come forward."

  "He tried to keep the gunman from finding his family," Leigh heard herself saying. "He warned me that we shouldn't have anything to do with him." She was defending him, and she didn't know why. This was his fault, after all—all of it.

  "Oh, dear Lord," a soprano voice drawled. The threesome moved quickly to the living room, where Frances had just come through the doorway, wringing her hands. "Who on earth made this mess? Is everyone all right?"

  Lydie Dublin pushed around her identical twin, her face pale. Leigh's Aunt Bess, her modified beehive sagging down to more of a robin's nest, was right behind her. Randall Koslow brought up the rear. "Your message said there had been a break-in," Lydie said breathlessly, addressing Maura. "Was anyone hurt?"

  "No," Maura answered quickly. "No one was here. The intruder just emptied a few drawers; there was no significant property damage. As far as what's missing, you'll have to tell us." She glanced up at Frances and Randall. "Have you filled these ladies in on the situation?"

  Randall nodded. "As well as we could. Did Mason do this?"

  The phone rang, and Lydie jumped as if she'd been stung. She walked into the kitchen and picked up. Two seconds after she'd said hello, her voice rose to a shriek. "Where have I been? What business is that of yours? Did you mess up my house?" she railed accusingly. The living room's occupants followed her en masse. "Somebody's been going through my things!" she continued indignantly. "Of course I don't know! I've been on the other side of the world." There was a long pause while Lydie listened with a frown on her face, her fingers nervously twisting the phone cord. "You do whatever you have to do," she said finally, her voice deathly grim. "If anybody gets hurt—" She stopped and looked at the receiver, then slammed it down. Her body sank onto a straight-backed kitchen chair, and her eyes closed.

  Maura quickly grabbed for the phone and dialed star 69.

  "That was Mason, wasn't it?" Frances asked softly.

  Lydie nodded, her eyes still closed.

  "He knows who did this?"

  She nodded again.

  "Did he give you a name?" Maura asked, her ear still to the phone.

  "As a matter of fact, he did," Lydie said blandly, opening her eyes. "He said that all this was happening because a man named Torr wanted something from him, and that he would have to go and get it, but that once it was delivered, we should all be out of danger." She shook her head with disbelief.

  Frances scowled. "That man…" she muttered.

  "No answer," Maura announced, hanging up the receiver. "Probably a pay phone." She jotted something in her notebook and began to explain the situation to Lydie and Bess. She hadn’t gotten far before Frances shrieked again.

  "Oh, heavens!" she wailed from the dining room. "What does this mean?"

  As the others filed in to look at the mirror, Leigh stood and stared at them through a numb sort of fog. He used to come around, Mrs. Snodgrass had said. She and Cara had been led to believe that no one had heard from Mason since the day he had left—now thirty years before. And yet her Aunt Lydie had just picked up her phone on a Tuesday morning to find her ex-husband at the other end of it.

  And neither she nor Frances had seemed surprised.

  Chapter 18

  If anything could get a person's mind off their family being stalked by a madman with Mick Jagger lips, Leigh thought to herself, it was poll-hopping on election day. Suddenly desperate to get some space from her mother and aunts, she had insisted Warren take her along on his rounds to the district polls. He would have preferred to leave her under lock and key, but she had convinced him that bobbing and weaving through a plethora of very public locations was a reasonably safe alternative.

  As he shook hands and schmoozed his way flawlessly through the day, Leigh stood beside him, Nancy Reagan style, trying to make her broad, plastic smile seem sincere.

  It was an uphill battle. No amount of distraction could stop her from wondering whether Cara had found out about the break-in yet, or whether Lydie had decided to tell her anything else about Mason's actions in the last thirty years. As for the latter, she doubted it. No one realized Leigh knew about Mason's clandestine visits to see his daughter, so why confess to Cara now? Lydie would have enough grief facing up to why she'd lied about how he left in the first place.

  They were on their way to Warren's next-to-the-last stop when his cell phone rang, and Leigh pi
cked up anxiously. "It's Maura," she reported. "She wonders if we can drop by the county detectives' office." Warren nodded, and within a few minutes they were seated on uncomfortable chairs by the detective's cluttered desk, sipping bad coffee.

  "Did you find out who this Torr guy is?" Leigh asked anxiously.

  "'Fraid not," Maura answered. "The name and description didn't ring a bell with any of the PDs in Alabama, and a nickname isn't enough to go on for the national databases. But we did come up with something on the kidnapper."

  Leigh leaned forward.

  "The PD in Tallassee, Alabama think our man is William P. Gordon, a small-time crook they run in periodically. He's 62, divorced twice. Priors are gambling, bookmaking, mail fraud. Nothing violent. He's been living in a mobile home outside Tallassee for the past twelve years—spends most of his time at the dog track."

  "So did they pick him up?" Leigh asked. Maura looked at her heavily, and she braced for bad news. "Don't tell me they don't know where he is," she said anxiously.

  "Oh, they know where he is," she assured. "As of noon today, he's in the Tallapoosa County morgue."

  Leigh sat for a moment without saying anything, and Maura went on. "They went out to his place to question him, and found him roughed up bad. He died on the way to the hospital."

  Roughed up. Just like Trudy Dublin, she thought miserably. "You think it was the same person who's after Mason?" she asked with alarm.

  "Could be," Maura answered. "Or… it could have been Mason."

  Leigh jerked up her head, surprised. "No, it couldn't," she said firmly. "Mason isn't violent. And that guy was his friend—sort of."

  Maura stared back at her incredulously. "Just yesterday, you told Mason that Gordon had tried to blackmail his son-in-law and kidnap his grandson—not to mention frame him for it. And he told you not to worry, that he would 'take care' of him. Remember all that?"

  "He just meant he'd make sure Gordon left us alone," Leigh said confidently. "I know he wouldn't hurt anybody."