by Tina Anne
“What?” I mouthed to him.
He walked over and sat beside me. He held my hands in his. “They almost got you. Somebody really wants you dead,” he said. “They didn’t even reseal the box. They must have thought you’d never notice.”
“Or, they’re getting desperate,” I thought.
Frankie returned with my laptop. I started it up. Meanwhile Frankie had just discovered Willie. He picked her up and put her on his lap. She lay there purring as he stroked her soft fur.
“Who is this?” Frankie asked.
I let Marlowe explain Willie and her presence in my home.
“Poor baby,” Frankie said. “Well, don’t worry Willie, you’re safe now. Uncle Frankie will take care of you.”
I looked at Frankie in surprise. I’d never heard him talk like that. Not even to his nephews. Not even when they were new born.
“What?” he said when he saw me. “I’m an animal lover.”
I placed my laptop on my lap with a document open. I knew I could type faster than I could write by hand. I typed, “So, what are we going to do? How do we stop the maniac?”
“Not we,” Marlowe said. “You are done. I will solve this. You endangered yourself enough.”
“Really, Mom. Let Marlowe and the police do it or the killer may try again.”
“They just did,” I typed. “And Marlowe was standing right here.”
“Wait, what did I miss?” Frankie said.
Marlowe told him about the flowers and the chocolates.
“Oh, that’s why you needed the last names,” Frankie said. “I thought Marlowe gave you the flowers and the chocolate.” He got the list of names and started typing them in to his phone. “I’m letting Pete know what we’re doing and asking him to research the names for us. He’ll text or e-mail anything he finds.”
There was a knock at the door. Marlowe got up to answer it. I recognized the German accent. It was the forensics guy, Matt. Marlowe let him in and escorted him to where the chocolates were. Matt put the box of chocolates in an evidence bag.
“I’ll take this back to the lab. I’ll call du when I learn something, Chief. Don’t worry ich understand how important this is to du,” Matt said with his German accent. He looked at me, smiled and said, “Schön dich wieder zu sehen.”
“Schön, dich zu sehen. Schade, dass es unter diesen Umständen.”
“Gute Nacht, Frau.”
“Gute Nacht, Matt.”
Then he left just as fast as he had come. Marlowe was looking at me kind of funny again.
“It was just a friendly greeting,” I told Marlowe.
I heard a siren start outside. That meant Matt was going to hurry. I felt better knowing that.
Marlowe sat down beside me again.
“What do we do now?” Frankie asked.
“You two do nothing,” Marlowe said. “Let the professionals handle this. We’ll get him.”
“No offense, Marlowe, but you know what, without Mom and I you may never have caught the last guy who murdered someone in this town.”
“That may be true,” Marlowe said, “but at the same time there had not been one murder in this town from the time I arrived until the time you two got here.”
“That’s our fault?” I typed.
“No, but it is a rather odd coincidence”, Marlowe said.
I laid my head back on the couch and closed my eyes. I was tired. I was stressed.
“Look,” I heard Marlowe say, “She needs to rest. I will work from here tonight. You go home. Text me, call me, or e-mail me with anything you may find. We’ll worry about who investigates this tomorrow. And I only say that because I feel I have no choice.”
“You’re right. Thank you Marlowe.” I felt a kiss on my forehead. “Good night, Mom. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I heard Frankie get up and then I heard the door open and close.
“Well, young lady, let’s get you to bed,” Marlowe said.
I had no idea what time it was nor did I care. Bed sounded wonderful. I felt Marlowe take both of my hands and I opened my eyes.
“Stand up and I’ll help you to your bedroom.”
I stood up and let him escort me.
“I’ll carry you over the threshold another day,” he said.
When we entered the bedroom I sat on the bed. I sat there and pointed at things as Marlowe asked where they were. He finally got the right drawer and got out a fresh pair of pajamas for me. He stepped out of the bedroom as I changed. I had no idea how I was supposed to tell him I was ready so I threw a pillow at the door.
“I guess that’s my signal,” he said opening the door.
He stood nearby as I brushed my teeth and my hair. He then helped me in to bed, even going so far as to turn down the sheets and then covering me up once I got in to bed. He was about to shut the door and leave when I made the “uh-uh” noise. He stopped and looked at me.
“It’s ok, I’ll be right out here,” he said.
I shook my head no. I didn’t want him to leave me. I wanted to feel his presence in the room.
“No? Where do you want me to be?” he asked.
I pointed to the chair beside the bed.
“Ok, if it will make you feel better I’ll sit there. Hold on, I’ll be right back.”
He came back in with his laptop and his phone. He also set several items on my already crowded night stand.
“Just one question,” he said, “how are you going to sleep if I work in here?”
I pulled two things out of the drawer in my night stand. One was a sleeping mask and the other was the book I was currently reading.
“Ok, but if you put that on, how are you going to read the book?”
I gave him what I hoped was a “you idiot” look.
“I’m just kidding. You read, I’ll work.”
I sat up in the bed and opened my book. Willie had climbed up on the bed with me. She curled up on the pillow next to mine and went to sleep.
“Usually, she shares my pillow,” Marlowe said sounding a little jealous. “Of course, I have a single bed.”
I smiled at the tiny sleeping cat. Then I turned my attention to my book. I felt oddly comfortable. Almost like Marlowe and Willie belonged in this room with me. Maybe, in time, they would be here every night. Just maybe.
Chapter 17: My Happy Place
The next morning when I woke up Marlowe was not sitting in the chair. Willie, however, was laying there in his place. I looked at her and said good morning. She didn’t react of course, but I liked talking to her just the same. I was much better and could even talk at a normal tone. Wow, was that exciting.
I decided to take a shower before I did anything else. While getting showered I did some throat exercises that I used to do when my parents had me take singing lessons as a kid. After I was showered and dressed I went in to my living room. Frankie was sitting at my table using his lap top. I said good morning to him and got out my favorite box of cereal. It took a moment, but he finally looked up at me in surprise.
“Mom, you can talk again,” he said looking at me open mouthed.
“Close your mouth, son, you’ll catch flies,” I said to him as I sat down across from him.
“That’s disgusting,” he said closing his mouth.
“Yea, but when my Dad said it to us we sure closed our mouths quickly and tightly.”
“So,” Frankie said, “Marlowe left during the night. I think he had a lead of some sort. I told him we’d keep Willie with us for the day.”
As if on cue, Willie came out of the bedroom stretching and yawning. She looked at the two of us and made her decision. She climbed on to Frankie’s lap and curled up.
“I guess she likes you best,” I said to Frankie in a mock jealous tone.
“What’s not to like,” Frankie said as he looked down at Willie.
“So, Mom, Matt the forensics guy found out that the chocolates were poisoned.”
“Great,” I said feeling a little less hungry.
; “Not, all of them, but more than half. They had been injected with rat poison. So, you could have eaten several and felt no effect.”
“A tried and true method of killing someone” I said. “At least they use it a lot in the old mystery books. I owe Marlowe for discovering that.”
“You owe Marlowe for more than you’ll ever realize, I think,” Frankie said.
I just looked at him. I knew he was talking about the feelings Marlowe and I had for each other, but I didn’t want to discuss it right now. So, I just stared at him.
“Ok, you don’t want to talk about it with your son, I get it. You can talk to Pete later; he’s kind of like a girl friend.”
I just looked at him, shook my head, and laughed.
“For you, I meant,” he said.
You know, he was right. I probably could talk to Pete about it. I finally had a girl friend that I could talk to. Boy friend? How about just friend?
Frankie then showed me what he and Pete had learned during the night. They had narrowed down the list of suspects to the top three. They were: Nigel, Melanie, and Bob. The rest could be eliminated because they were not in the park when Pete and I were attacked. In addition, they were in the park working when Al was killed. Frankie had checked with Frank and found out that much.
The three people that were still on the list all had past experiences with the victim, they were all in the park when we were attacked, and they were all not in the park when Al was killed. The bad part was I liked all of them. I had to face it; I liked everyone who worked at the park. Maybe that was one of my weaknesses. I trusted everyone and thought everyone was nice. Especially if they worked for me.
“That’s great,” I said, “but how do we narrow the list down to one?”
“Well, as far as Nigel is concerned: Al ran a story and ruined Nigel’s father’s life. Claimed the man was a child molester, but never had any proof or witnesses.”
“I remember that. I knew Nigel’s dad. He was a great man.”
“He lived in England until Nigel was a teenager,” Frankie pointed out. “He only came to the US for business.”
“Yes, and I was occasionally involved in that business,” I said to him. I wasn’t telling him that I had been to the UK and met Nigel’s father there.
“An-y-way,” Frankie said, “Nigel’s knife was found in Al’s body. Nigel was strong enough to put the body in the lot where it was found.”
“Not to mention, Nigel was the one who set up my disastrous interview with Al. Maybe he was afraid that he would lose his job because of it.”
“Good point, Mom.”
Frankie wrote what I had said in the notebook.
“But could that be a motive for attacking you?” Frankie asked.
“I’m not sure. But the attack could have been used to take the blame off of him. Could have been a diversion,” I said honestly.
Frankie wrote “Diversion” in the notebook.
“Ok, Melanie. She was Al’s ex-girlfriend. Last night Pete found out that she once worked as an exotic dancer. Lots of girls pay their way through college that way. She was one of them.”
“And what, he threatened to expose her and ruin her life?”
“Maybe. I mean, would we want a former stripper in such a high position at the park?”
“I want to say yes. But if it caused us bad publicity I don’t know what we’d do,” I said honestly.
“But, that’s it for her. We can’t find one other motive. I mean, we promoted her. We pay her well. Why would she attack you and Pete?”
“No clue there either. Except again, maybe it was to make us look at someone else. But Frankie, you’re forgetting about the parking sticker.”
“What parking sticker?”
“The one from the security camera footage. It belonged to Melanie. Therefore it was her car that Al entered the night he was killed. Didn’t I tell you?”
“You did not. It’s ok, though you had a lot going on these last few days. I’ll add that to the list.”
“Finally there’s Bob.”
“Bob?” I asked.
“Yea, the engineering guy.”
“Yes, I remember.”
“It turns out that he was a chief engineer at an amusement park up north. The park was cutting funds left and right. Not all safety procedures were being followed as they should have been. Five people were killed when a roller coaster came off the tracks and flew through the air.”
“Oh, my God.” My hand flew to my mouth.
“Yea, more than that were badly injured. Al ran the story; you can imagine how that went. The park made Bob the scapegoat and fired him. Not totally his fault.”
“So he comes to Neuspech and starts a new life. Then we come to Neuspech and demote him,” I said.
“I’d call that reason to attack you and Pete, Mom.”
“I suppose so. But, what I don’t understand is why anyone would try to kill me. And then try again with the chocolates. Especially with Marlowe here.”
“Well, they couldn’t have known that Marlowe was here ahead of time. And if you are camouflaged in a group of people you don’t want to be the one who chickens out at the sight of a police car.”
“You’re right,” I said. “So it was either our head of PR. Our head of events. Or our former head of engineering. Who, by the way would still have access to all the rides and buildings,” I reminded Frankie.
“Nothing we can do about that right now. Besides, it may not be him.”
“Ok, but Bob would be most likely to be able to disconnect the fire alarms and sprinklers, right?”
“Sorry, Mom. Nigel and Melanie have both been included in a training class on how the fire alarm system works. From what I’ve seen of the training, it’s not a far jump to figure out how to shut them off. I’d bet even I could do it.”
Let’s discontinue that training, I thought. Why the hell would you teach that to people anyway?
“So,” I said, “it all falls down to the cologne.”
“What cologne?” Frankie said.
“Who ever attacked Pete and I wore expensive, nice smelling cologne.”
“Men’s or women’s?”
“That’s the problem, I don’t know. I do know I smelled it again last night.”
“Great, so all we have to do is break in to their homes and steal their cologne,” Frankie said with a sigh.
We both leaned on our elbows and thought. There had to be a way to figure out who the killer was. There just had to be. I mean, I was leaning toward Bob, but I could have been wrong.
We were interrupted by the sound of Frankie’s phone ringing. Pete was calling him. Frankie needed to go upstairs to help Pete with something. Before he left he handed me a smart phone. I just looked at him.
“I’ll teach you how to use it later,” he said. “In the mean time I already placed all of your numbers in to it. Play with it while I’m gone. I should be back in about a half hour or so.”
He kissed the top of my head and headed toward the door. He stopped half way out and said, “I’m glad you weren’t hurt too bad, Mom.” He smiled at me and left.
I looked at the phone and then just set it down. I didn’t want to deal with it right now. In fact, the only thing I wanted to do right now was go to work. I wanted to see my park again. I wanted to smell the scents of popcorn and smoked turkey legs as they wafted through the air. I wanted to hear the sound of the coaster on the tracks and the happy screams of the people who were riding it. I wanted to feel that feeling of belonging and happiness that I got whenever I entered my park.
That was it. I didn’t care what anyone said, I was going to work. I put on some nicer clothes and went out the back stairs. I knew I was sneaking out. I knew Marlowe, Frank, and Frankie would probably give me hell for doing it, but I also knew what I needed to do to feel happy. Besides, the killer wouldn’t try again so soon. Surely by now they had to know that I didn’t eat the chocolates.
As I walked through the administrative building ever
yone I passed greeted me with a smile. This was normal. We were a pretty happy bunch. But today they were telling me how glad they were that I was ok. I felt at home here. I was surrounded by friends. No, even better, I was surrounded by my adopted family.
As I walked past Nigel’s office I stopped in to say hello. I sniffed as I walked in his office. I could smell his cologne. I was pretty sure it wasn’t the one.
“Oh, Misty, I just want you to know I did not poison the chocolates. I could never do such a thing to a fellow human being,” was how he greeted me.
“I believe you, Nigel,” I said to him. “But how did you know about the chocolates?”
“Chief Campion came by today. He talked to several of us.”
I knew he would. See, the killer had to know I was still ok. And that Marlowe was investigating. They wouldn’t try again today. Nobody was that dumb.
Nigel and I talked about the questions that Marlowe had asked and what Nigel’s answers were. Nigel didn’t seem to have any idea where the chocolates came from. The flowers, he said, were Bob’s idea. I thanked Nigel for the information and continued down the hall.
On the way I passed Melanie’s office. She was in. This was surprising because she had been doing overnight shifts. I tried to sniff the air in her office. All I could smell was the fresh bouquet of flowers that was on her desk.
“I had a conference call,” she explained. “Then I got caught up in e-mails and such. You know how it is. I’m heading home shortly to get some sleep. Gotta be back tonight. We premier the party tomorrow night.”
I had forgotten that the Christmas festival was going to start tomorrow. Wow, time had flown lately.
“Tomorrow night is just for staff and their families,” she reminded me.
“That’s right. So, we have managers working, right?”
“Yes and some other people volunteered because they don’t celebrate or they just need the money. Offering overtime didn’t hurt,” she winked at me. “I’ll even be working at one of the food stands. It should be a lot of fun.”