“Come in,” he said.
He closed and locked the door quickly.
“Here.” He handed me the note.
Somewhat breathlessly, I read aloud: “‘One million dollars, unmarked bills, black bag, Liberty Park, six o’clock. Leave under the west bench and get out of there. By yourself or the other two will die.’”
“I texted Cliff with everything. I don’t think there’s any way to intercept text messages, do you?” Jake said.
“I don’t know. What did he say?” I asked as I sat on a stool.
“He told me that he got the text and that I was supposed to wait for further instructions.”
“This is so…” I began.
“Manipulative?” Jake said.
I shook my head. “I was thinking that it’s so much like a movie, except that in movies they call or give proof of life or something like that. How do they even know you got the notes?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they’re not sure I did. Unless they saw me pick them up and read them, they couldn’t really know. That would have been easy to do yesterday, but I was much slyer about this one. I was in the middle of a performance when I noticed something taped on the wall by the front door, but I didn’t act like I’d seen it. I stayed in the front area until everyone cleared out and purposefully kept my eyes away from it. I took the note when no one else was around. Anyone could have put it there.”
“I wonder if Jim’s guy was watching you and saw whoever taped it to the wall.”
Jake shrugged.
“It’s so unsophisticated,” I said. “Whoever is behind this has no real idea what they’re doing, I think. There are too many inconsistencies…too much…incompleteness. I feel like we should be smart enough to figure this out.”
“I can tell you how we’re—well, I’m—not smart. I can’t believe I didn’t set up a surveillance camera or two.”
“See! Why didn’t we or Jim or Cliff think of that?”
We were silent a minute as we both tried to figure out what to do next. I had no idea, except to wait to hear from Cliff.
“Come look, I found something you might like to see. It’ll give us something else to focus on,” Jake said.
Jake’s large archive table was covered in his signature handmade plastic folders and other pieces of loose paper.
“To keep my mind off of all the other stuff, I’ve been looking for anything that mentioned or even hinted about Sally. I found a few things about her and a few more things about the reporter, Edgar O’Brien.”
“I found something, too,” I said, referring to the piece of fabric I’d left in the car, “but you go first.”
“Look, here’s a painting of Sally.” He held up a canvas. “I got this not long ago. People send me stuff all the time. They find things in their attic or wherever and just put them in the mail, no regard for possible fragility. This arrived with no note and no return address, just a postmark from our own post office. You’d think they would have dropped it off instead of mailing it, wouldn’t you? I don’t think the person who sent it knew it was Sally Swarthmore. This is pretty valuable.”
The painting was about the size of an 81⁄2 × 11 sheet of paper. It was of Sally in a gray dress.
“Is she this pretty in person?” Jake asked.
“Yes, she is. She’s lovely and…kind of goofy.”
“Goofy?”
“In a playful way.”
“That doesn’t sound like a killer.”
“I know.” I paused. “I hate to say it, but I’m beginning to want to find that diary almost as much as she does. It’s not that I think it will prove she wasn’t a killer, but I’d like to know if she wrote about what might have led her to do something so awful.”
“I wish I could help you,” Jake said. “I’ve been looking for clues as to what might have happened to it. If it still exists, I expect it might just show up here one day, but that doesn’t do us much good today, does it?”
“No.” I smiled at the picture. My feelings for Sally were distinctly different than my feelings for Jerome, but it was most definitely useless to try not to get attached to the ghosts. I would probably always find them interesting and appealing.
I looked around, half expecting her to show up and compliment the woman in the picture, but she didn’t. Since Jake couldn’t see her, I had no way to know if she’d stopped by earlier.
I set the picture down on the table, much harder than Jake would have liked.
“Betts, hey, that’s valuable, remember?” he said.
“Sorry. I wish you could talk to her yourself. I have a feeling the two of you would hit it off grandly, particularly if you didn’t need a translator.”
“Maybe you seeing the ghosts will somehow rub off on me. I hope so.”
“I do, too.”
“Here, look at this.” Jake handed me a copy of an old edition of the Noose. “It’s Edgar O’Brien’s obituary. Edgar was very interested in Sally.”
The copy wasn’t of a whole newspaper page, but a partial one with a few obituaries next to an ad for corsets.
“Go ahead, read out loud again,” Jake said.
“‘Edgar Robert O’Brien, born September 22, 1840, died December 12, 1905. Mr. O’Brien moved to Broken Rope thirty-five years ago to join the local printed journalistic endeavor, the Noose. As with all new reporters, he started out with the smaller stories and worked his way up to the larger ones. His coup de grace was his intense journalistic investigation into the murder of Mr. and Mrs. Alex Swarthmore, who were bludgeoned to death with an ax one summer morning. Their daughter, Sally, was convicted of the crime and died shortly after incarceration, but Mr. O’Brien went to his grave believing she had been falsely convicted. He spent any hours that weren’t devoted to his family or his job researching and inquiring about Sally Swarthmore. It is said that he did, indeed, figure out who the real killer was. But that secret has gone with him to his grave. Rest in peace, gentle man. You will be missed.’”
I read it again and then looked at Jake. “Why would he keep the killer’s identity a secret?”
“See, even with the weird writing, that’s kind of interesting, huh? I don’t know, Betts, maybe the killer was still alive and he was afraid for his life or his family’s lives.”
“I wonder if the secret is in his notes somewhere.”
“You might figure it out.”
I looked back at the piece of paper and realized there was a photo next to the obituary; at first glance, I’d thought it was part of the corset ad.
“Is this a picture of Edgar?” I asked as I pointed.
“Yes, I think so. I’ve seen a couple other pictures of him, and I’m pretty sure he had lots of hair and a furry face where his spectacles seemed to hide.” Jake laughed.
“And he wore a derby hat…” I said.
“Betts?”
I pulled the piece of paper up to my nose and sniffed, but it didn’t smell like anything but paper. I’d smelled ink before, though. I’d toured the Noose’s small but impressive printing press when I was a kid. I remembered that in elementary school, some of my work papers smelled strongly of it, as though they’d just come off a printer. But I hadn’t really smelled it in years, well, until the last day or so.
“Ink. That’s what I’ve been smelling. Ink, like a newspaper uses.”
“What do you mean, Betts?”
“Jake, we have another ghost,” I said as I pulled out my cell phone and called Gram.
Chapter 18
“Betts, I’ve never met Edgar O’Brien, and I’ve never smelled ink in association with a ghost before,” Gram said.
“When’s the last time a new ghost, one who was new to you at least, visited?”
“I haven’t met anyone new in at least a few decades.”
“Do the ghosts’ bodies have to be buried in our cemetery?”
“No, but as far as I know, they have to be buried in Broken Rope. I hope that’s our boundary. I’d hate to think we could run into others outs
ide of town. I never have and I’d rather not.”
“Look for a ghost with a furry face, lots of hair—oh, and one of those derby hats.”
Gram sighed. “I’ll let you know if I see him.”
“She doesn’t know him,” I said to Jake after I finished the call. “I smelled him behind your place and at the Monroe House. I saw him there, too. He peeked around the back of the house and seemed to signal me to come around and join him.”
Jake surveyed the items on the large table, glanced at the note allegedly from the killer/kidnapper, and then looked at me. “I guess we need to get in that house. Maybe Sally’s right. Maybe the diary is hidden in there,” Jake said unconvincingly.
“Maybe, but it seems so unlikely, doesn’t it?”
“You’ve expressed lots of doubt throughout this whole ordeal, Betts. If nothing else, if your—our—lives over the last couple months have taught us anything, it’s that maybe we should begin to accept that those things we once thought were impossible could be possible, or even probable.”
Jake’s phone dinged.
“It’s Cliff,” he said, checking his cell phone screen and beginning to scroll. “Long message. Okay, he wants to know if I’d be okay placing a black bag in the spot that the kidnapper requested. He says I’ll be watched and he’ll get me a bulletproof vest.”
I swallowed hard. I couldn’t believe the police actually wanted Jake to do what the note asked, or at least place the bag. I knew it wouldn’t contain a million dollars, not in real money, at least.
“That doesn’t sound…” I began.
“What else are they going to do? This”—he picked up the note again—“seems poorly planned out and ridiculous, but what if they mean what they say? What if I don’t do what they ask or at least make it look like I’m obeying? Of course, I’ll do it.” He started typing into his phone.
“Think about it, Jake.” I put my hand on his arm.
“What choice do I have? As you said, this person or these people are unsophisticated to the point that they think someone could round up a million dollars cash in a day. It doesn’t work that way. Most people who watch movies know that, for hell’s sake. They won’t hurt me. I’ll plant the bag, get out of there, and then the police can grab them. We can get this over with.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“No, you won’t.”
“If you don’t let me, I’ll sneak.”
“Stop.”
“I will.”
Jake sighed. “He won’t be happy, but I’ll tell Cliff we’ll need two bulletproof vests.”
I didn’t know what gyrations the police were going through outside Jake’s building, but about thirty minutes later and an hour before we were to drop off the money, there was a knock on the back door.
Cliff and I had been arguing via phone calls and our own set of text messages about me going with Jake.
He, of course, thought it was a bad idea. I disagreed. He almost had me when he said that he thought me being there might put Jake in harm’s way, but I didn’t bite.
A knock on the back door changed everything, though. Cliff came into the room carrying a vest, a black bag, and some clothes for Jake. But he had only the one vest.
“Then I’ll go without one,” I said.
“No, you won’t,” Cliff replied emphatically.
I’d been angry at Cliff more than once during our previous relationship, but this was the first real anger I’d felt toward him as a grown–up. I wanted to say How dare you! Or, What makes you think I’ll do what you want me to do? Instead, I just said, “Yes, I will.”
“No, you won’t, because Jim has asked me to take you to him. You are being questioned for credit card theft.”
“Excuse me?”
“It seems a Mrs. Cece Montgomery claims you admitted to seeing the contents of her purse scattered on a bus seat.”
“Yes.”
“She also claims that she found her purse intact that day, apparently except for two missing credit cards that she didn’t think to look for until you told her what you saw.”
“So she thinks I admitted to her that I stole them. Boy, I must be a genius.”
“She’s filed a complaint. Jim wants to talk to you more than arrest you. There might be some connection to everything else that’s going on. So, you’re not going with Jake. You’re going with me, willingly and without handcuffs, unless you want to be difficult.”
“Can’t I go with Jake and then come to the jail?”
“No, not according to Jim. In fact, he wants to talk to you before Jake goes, if possible.”
Cliff the police officer was a new incarnation of the boy I’d loved in high school. The rekindling of a relationship after more than ten years is at once a familiar and surprising task. We knew each other, knew some of our most private secrets, but the Cliff I’d known was good at math and three-dimensional drawing. He was creative and smart and was going to be an architect. This Cliff was still smart and creative, but the dark circles under his eyes and the serious tone of his voice didn’t fit with the young ambitious high school boy I remembered. Clearly he was still ambitious but in such a different way that at moments I felt like asking him what he’d done with the old Cliff. The answer was simple, though. The old Cliff was in reality the young Cliff. He’d spent at least a part of the years since our high school romance growing up. He looked at me now with those grown–up eyes that told me he had real and strong feelings for me but wasn’t in the mood to put up with any crap.
“Go talk to Jim, Betts,” Jake said as he wrangled on the vest. “Besides, if Cliff escorts you across the street, you can use the front door. It’ll look like he had a reason other than preparing me for ‘the drop’ to be here.”
Cliff and Jake coordinated Jake’s departure time. Cliff assured Jake that he was well-covered and his safety was their first priority.
Cliff didn’t handcuff me or even hold my arm as we zigzagged around and through tourists. Jake had canceled his last performance of the day, and a few people were milling outside his building muttering that they were disappointed they wouldn’t get to hear his poem.
When we reached the jail, Cliff pulled out a ring full of keys. Other than at night during the off-season, I’d never seen these doors locked before.
“What’s that about?” I asked.
“Too many curious tourists. We can’t let them in right now.”
“What if someone needs help?” I asked as I walked inside.
“We’ve got people outside,” Cliff said as he closed the door and locked it again behind us.
The inside of the jail looked foreign and unfamiliar. I was used to seeing Jim, Cliff, and maybe one other officer at their appealingly messy desks. The two back cells were usually empty, and the cuckoo clock on the wall could be heard every fifteen minutes, but it would be difficult to hear any cuckoo noise at this point. The entire place had been transformed. In addition to the two desks, three tables were now set up in the small space. I did a quick head count and was surprised to find a total of nine people present, all of them either on a computer or on a phone or in serious conversation with one another.
“Cliff?”
“There’s been a murder, and there are still two people missing, Betts. We called in some reinforcements.”
Any thoughts I might have had about Jim missing something pertinent to the case were immediately erased. He was more than on top of things.
“Coffee?” Cliff asked as he guided me to a chair beside Jim’s desk.
“No thanks, I’m good.”
“I’m leaving, Betts. I’m going to help the guys who are already at the park. Jim will talk to you when he can, but it looks like he’s in the middle of something. Stay put.”
Jim and another man were looking at something on one of the extra tables. Jim had his cell phone to his ear, but he was talking to the man next to him, not whoever was on the other end of the call.
I grabbed Cliff’s arm. “Be careful.” I’d known this
entire situation was serious, but the ramped–up police staff had suddenly given me a clearer picture. Yes, maybe the criminals were unsophisticated, but they’d still kidnapped and killed. This was bad.
“I’ll stay with him.” Sally had suddenly appeared behind him. “I was just at Jake’s, and I figured out what he was up to and where you were. I can watch the whole thing. I’ll come back and tell you what I know as soon as I know it for sure.”
“Always,” Cliff said.
“Thank you,” I said as I looked at Sally. Cliff didn’t notice because he was back out the door only a few seconds later, Sally right behind him.
“Betts,” Jim said as he sat in his desk chair and signaled the person he was with to sit in another one, “this is a friend. He’s a police officer in South Carolina. He’s traveling through town and not here in any official capacity, but I’ve asked him to look at what we have with a fresh pair of eyes. You okay with him listening?”
The man was probably in his early forties, handsome in that I’m–in–great-shape way. His hair was brown and kind of curly, and his bright blue eyes emanated a sense of authority that made me think he must be extremely intense.
“Sure,” I said.
“Sam, this is Isabelle Winston; we call her Betts. Betts, this is Sam Brion.”
We both nodded.
“We got a call from Cece Montgomery…excuse me, I’ve got to take this.” Jim looked at his cell phone, stood, and walked away as he put the phone to his ear.
“Where in South Carolina are you from?” I asked Sam.
“I’m originally from Chicago, but now I live in Monson, South Carolina. You heard of it?”
“No. I’ve been to Myrtle Beach, but that’s about it for South Carolina. The beach was beautiful.”
Sam nodded. His eyes were interesting in that they reminded me a little of mood rings—they seemed to change shades slightly with his tone. Right now, he seemed friendly, but I sensed he wasn’t always.
“It is a beautiful state. Monson’s pretty small, but it’s a great place to live—lots of open space, fresh air, farm country, amazing fruits and vegetables.”
If Mashed Potatoes Could Dance Page 16