The Plain Jane Mystery Box Set 2

by Traci Tyne Hilton

  Jane felt very much like she had received an F on her first assignment. And she never got Fs.

  “He doesn’t do internet research if he can help it.” Flora rolled her eyes. She sat on the edge of the desk. “Think of Google as your yellow pages, not as a source. I want you to start by finding out if the couple had a marriage license application filed. Go on down to the Multnomah Building and do that in person. You will have some time while you wait in line. While you are waiting, call Maggie Frances, tell her you are working on behalf of the insurance company, which you are, and that you need to set up an appointment to do an interview. If she won’t do it, let her know that her claim relies on the interview. It does. She can’t get the money if she doesn’t talk to us. And…” Flora flipped through the papers. “She’s filing for one hundred thousand dollars. She’ll meet with you.”

  Jane opened her mouth to say yes, but it didn’t come out.

  “You’ll have to find your voice pretty quick, kiddo. A detective needs to listen, but she’s got to ask the questions too.” She shut the folder and handed it over to Jane. “You’ll need this. Do you know how to get there?”

  Jane took a deep breath. “No.”

  Flora laughed. “Then…Google it. I’ve got to run. Rocky and I are in the middle of a big case. And it may have just come to a head. Meet us back here at five, yes?”

  “Of course.”

  Flora left.

  Jane was frozen in her seat.

  Was she supposed to lock up? They hadn’t given her a key.

  She gripped the blue file folder with her very cold hands. Wasn’t she supposed to get hired on as Maggie’s house cleaner and sneak around looking for clues? This didn’t feel a thing like the detective work she was used to.

  While she was trying to figure out what to do about leaving the office unattended, the phone rang. She grabbed it before she could think out what she was supposed to say. “Senior Corps of Retired Investigators, this is Jane.”

  “Jane, huh? Well, fine, ‘Jane’ this is Maggie and if anyone from that office comes to my house even one more time regarding the wedding, I will call the police. Do you understand?” Maggie sounded frantic, scared, and very angry.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t think I do. Could you elaborate?” Jane tapped her index finger on the desk. This was her bride. The one she was supposed to get friendly with and interview. The one that no one from the office had spoken with yet. Except, apparently, someone had.

  “Elaborate? Sure, I can elaborate for you, Jane. Come to my house again, I call the police. You people make me sick. My fiancé is missing. There is an ongoing police investigation into his disappearance. He may be dead somewhere, and what do you all care about? I can’t even tell anymore, that’s what you care about. Nothing. You care about nothing and you make me sick.” She slowed down, but sounded fierce, like an angry cat protecting her kittens.

  “You are scared for your fiancé.”

  “You think?”

  “And you feel like the insurance company is making your pain worse with their questions.”

  “Oh, it’s the insurance company now, is it? Last time it was the credit card company. Well, I’ll tell you what I said last time. If you step one foot onto our private property, you go straight to jail. Do not pass go. Do not collect two hundred dollars. Do you understand that?” Maggie took a loud breath, and hung up.

  Jane stared at the phone.

  If Rocky and Flora were running this show, someone was pretending to be SCoRI on behalf of the credit card company, but who would do that? Jane chewed her bottom lip. Maybe there was a bit of insurance fraud going on, but it sounded like there was something else, maybe even more important as well.

  A soft knock on the door made Jane’s heart leap in her chest.

  The knocker was a tall, thin woman about ten years older than Jane. She pushed her wire rim glasses up her nose. “You must be the Jane that got penciled into my schedule.” She held out her hand. “I’m Miranda. I manage the office here.”

  Jane tried to smile.

  Miranda sat down. “Whoa. What’s wrong?”

  “This phone call I just answered…” Jane lay her hands flat on her lap.

  Miranda frowned. “This is your first day, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Maybe don’t answer the phones for a while yet. That’s what I’m here for.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know anyone else was here.”

  Miranda’s lips were a thin line—a small gesture of disapproval. “Sure. But what happened to shake you up?”

  “This case,” Jane held out the folder. “I’m starting it now. It sounded like no one else was working on it, but the lady I’m supposed to interview just called and chewed me out. Said we had to stop coming to the house and bothering her.”

  “But no one from this office has been there yet.” Miranda frowned.

  “Exactly.” Jane opened the folder and read through the page of notes on top. “I’m not sure what to do.”

  “What are your instructions?”

  “I need to look into the wedding license.”

  “Then do that. I’ll call Flora and tell her about the phone call.” Miranda stood up, her eye on the phone. She seemed a little put out, like Jane was stepping in her territory.

  “Sorry…about the call.”

  Miranda shrugged. “Sounds like you learned your lesson.”

  She laughed, a little horse-like, but Jane rolled with it. She was the new girl, after all. Not everyone was going to like her.

  The drive to the Multnomah Building was simple enough. Long, with the accident on the highway, but she found her way there without getting lost. The line wasn’t as bad as she had expected either. And the result of her first moment as a real detective was kind of exciting.

  On the one hand, the bride and groom had gotten a marriage license, so their wedding and the insurance policy that went along with it looked legit. On the other hand, they had filed it—that is to say, they had actually gotten married. So…the insurance claim was a fraud. How could they get money for a wedding that didn’t take place if they had had a wedding? Jane grinned at the clerk. A good day’s detecting. Easy, fast, and fruitful for the client.

  Jane ordered the copy of the marriage license and went back to Rocky and Flora’s office with most of her old confidence restored.

  Flora had been dead-on with her time estimate, and Jane found herself back at the SCoRI office at exactly five o’clock. Miranda took Jane back to Flora’s office. “Hey Jane. Flora asked that you wait here. She’s tied up right now, but especially keen to talk about that call you took.”

  Jane took a seat in a threadbare avocado colored velvet chair. “Did she have any ideas what could have been behind it?”

  “None that she told me. Unfortunately it came just as she and Rocky were hot on something else.” Miranda glanced at her watch. “Which reminds me, I have work to do. I don’t know what to tell you about the wait. Just that it is necessary and it won’t be arbitrarily long.” She slipped out of the office with a shake of the head.

  Jane pressed her hands against her knees. Stakes were high, but no need to fear. No real need, anyway. Nothing she had done had prompted the call from Maggie. She couldn’t have predicted it, or prevented it.

  The phone rang and Jane jumped. It rang three more times. Jane couldn’t take the suspense, so she reached for it, but a light went on next to line one. She retracted her hand and sat down again.

  Without knowing anything at all about the bride who had filed the claim, or her fiancé, Jane had no place to get a firm hold on who would be pretending to be SCoRI investigators.

  A minute ticked by on the wall clock. Jane pulled out her phone to check her email, but there was nothing new.

  She stared at the folder on Flora’s desk. It wouldn’t hurt to Google the primaries while she waited.

  An hour had passed without Jane realizing it. It had taken less than a minute to tie Maggie to her online persona, a video g
ame designer who went by MotherofBridezilla, and once she had, there was more than plenty to read.

  MotherofBridezilla had designed the popular indie game Revenge of Bridezilla. RoB was first-person-shooter style, but more hair-pulling and face-scratching than actual shooting. For an indie game, it had been kind of a big deal. So much so that even Jane had downloaded a copy and had a fun night scratching and hair-pulling her way through the world’s worst wedding with Gemma. As for the game itself, the graphics had been jerky and there was a real lack of artistry in the style, but it had been fun, free, and quickly forgotten.

  So the online vitriol the programmer was getting came as a surprise.

  Jane was knee deep in a Voice of the Programmer forum dedicated to hunting down MotherofBridezilla, stealing her identity, and destroying her credit—one of the least terrifying of similar threads—when Flora and Rocky returned.

  Jane bit her lip and held out her phone. She was on to something, and really hoped they would be as excited as she was.

  Flora held up her hand. “Hold that thought. I need to wrap up this case first.” Flora took a seat at her desk and rolled her chair back and forth. She pulled a pen from the “I heart corgis” mug next to her phone and scratched some hieroglyphics on a wall calendar. Then she pulled a small tape recorder from her purse and laid it on the desk top. “Miranda?” she called.

  “Yeah?” Miranda answered on her way to the door.

  “Can you type up my notes? I want to move on to the insurance case with Jane.”

  Miranda wrinkled her nose at Jane. It was so fast, Jane couldn’t have sworn to it, but it looked like disgust. With her? With typing? She wasn’t sure. “Of course.” She picked up the recorder and left.

  “Don’t be too impressed.” Flora rolled her eyes. “She stopped trying to do it manually years ago. She uses a voice to text program.” She exhaled slowly, then cracked her knuckles. “Now, let’s start in on the Frances’ insurance-fraud case. What did you discover?”

  Jane held out the phone so Flora could read it. “The bride is in a lot of hot water with the Voice of the Programmers vigilantes. They want to completely destroy her. I’m still not exactly sure what she did besides being a female in a male dominated field. The pages and pages of content that pop up when searching for her, or her online persona, have all been created in the last twelve hours, and are focused on how to punish her, rather than what they want to punish her for. There’s more than that, I’m sure, but the fresh stuff has flooded the searches.”

  Flora frowned, her thin eyebrows drawn together over her big, blue eyes. “Slow down. What did you discover at the courthouse about her marriage license? Had they filed for one?”

  “Oh! Yes. I’m sorry. They did file one, and actually got married last week. So the insurance thing probably is fraud.” The real story was online, and about the phone call Maggie had made to SCoRI. This insurance business couldn’t possibly be as interesting or important as what she had just learned.

  Flora shook her head. “I admire your natural discernment, and you may be right, but a civil wedding doesn’t preclude an insurable formal ceremony and party. So, in reality, she may have a legal claim.”

  Jane glanced at her phone. “I wonder if the online threats had anything to do with it. Her real name, address, phone number…even her social security number have been plastered all over the internet with invitations to attack and harass her. Maybe that was too much for her fiancé—er—husband.”

  “Someone could have scared him off.” Flora tapped her index finger on her desk. “That phone call you took, what exactly did she say?”

  Jane repeated the call. “Sorry it wasn’t word for word, but it was pretty close.”

  “You’ll want to work on that. Memory is important in this business. Now, you are sure she specifically said she wanted Senior Corps of Retire Investigators to leave her alone? With all of the online bullying she has been facing, why would she pick us specifically?”

  “Maybe she is calling through a list. A cease and desist for everyone who has been harassing her.”

  “But why would one of those online hooligans pretend to be us? We’re not nationally known. We’re hardly a blip on the online radar.” Flora shrugged off her leather jacket and let it fall behind her on the chair. “I don’t know if the SCoRI impersonators have anything to do with the insurance claim, but I feel a bit of a personal responsibility to address the issue.”

  Jane grinned. This was what she wanted to hear. The SCoRI impersonators had to be tied to the online attack, which meant she could definitely pursue her line of interest. “One of her online harassers could easily be local.”

  “True. And if so, then she may be in some actual danger.”

  “Which means the missing fiancé could be in actual danger as well.”

  Flora sucked in a breath. “Fortunately the police will be handling that end of things. We only have two obligations right now. The first is to the insurance agency. We need to find out if the groom actually went missing, or if this is a stunt the bride and groom cooked up. The second obligation is to ourselves and for our own reputation. If these things overlap in the investigation, so be it.”

  “What would you like me to do next?”

  “I think this poor girl needs our sympathy, and that can best be communicated with a nice cup of coffee. Run down to Bean Me Ups. Deliver it with our sympathy, and do your best to get invited in. You are a nice, nonthreatening kid. Give her the official sympathy of the Senior Investigators, and see what you can learn.” She pulled out an envelope marked “Petty Cash” and handed Jane a twenty. “Might as well get some donuts while you’re at it.” She checked her watch again. “Shoot. It’s too late for coffee tonight. Head her way tomorrow morning, around nine, and report back to me by noon, sharp.”

  Jane gripped the bill, the thrill of the chase tracing up and down her arms. Online bullying? Missing fiancé? This was much, much better than scrubbing toilets.

  Chapter 2

  Jane had expected a more dramatic scene at Maggie Frances’ house. Two dark sedans with tinted windows were parked a house away. There was always a chance they were unmarked police there to protect her, but…probably not.

  The door was answered on the first ring and a pale brunette with big glasses opened it a crack. She looked Jane up and down, then undid the chain and pulled her in.

  The coffee sloshed against Jane’s wrist.

  “Maggie?” Jane attempted a concerned smile.

  This way.” The girl led Jane down a hall covered in family pictures and to a small bedroom with an elaborate computer set up and a stationary bike.

  “My name is Jane. I’m with the Senior Corps of Retired Investigators.”

  “Brenna.” Brenna took a desk chair and rolled up to one of the computers. She pressed her fist against her chin and stared at the screen.

  “Where’s Maggie?” Jane asked.

  Brenna shook her head. “Just a sec.” She scrolled through a page of posts on what Jane recognized as the VoP message boards, then rolled her chair to face Jane. “What are you here for?” Brenna pulled her full lips into a tight knot.

  Jane set her coffee and donuts on a file cabinet. “Maggie called yesterday to ask us not to bother her.” She cleared her throat. “And we hadn’t called her at all yet, so we kind of looked her up to see what was going on.” She indicated the breakfast with the tilt of her head. “This was our way of showing sympathy to her.”

  “I don’t buy it.”

  “I really am sorry. I can’t imagine what she must feel like right now.”

  “No, I’m sure you can’t.” Brenna turned back to the computer, refreshed her screen and read more.

  “What about Kyle? Has anyone heard from him yet?”

  Brenna didn’t acknowledge the question.

  Jane sipped her coffee and sat on the edge of a carefully made bed. “What about Kyle’s family? Has Maggie been talking to them? Do they know anything?”

  Brenna turned again
and passed Jane an empty water glass.

  Jane held it away from her. Was Brenna some kind of mental patient?

  “What did you say your name was?”

  “Jane Adler. I’m with the Senior Corps of Retired Investigators.”

  Brenna typed on a little box next to her keyboard and a sticker label with Jane’s name and association printed out. Brenna took the cup back, gingerly, with a tissue, and stuck the sticker on it. She set the cup on a small shelf with two others. “Fingerprint science is way more exact than DNA.”

  Jane exhaled slowly. Definitely a mental patient. She stood up. “Is there any way I can get in touch with Maggie?”

  Brenna stood up, scowling. “No. Take your coffee and your donuts and leave. And don’t come back, and don’t call. We are in the middle of filing for a whole litany of restraining orders, and you are now on the top of the list. She called you yesterday, and you came anyway.”

  Brenna took two steps closer. She was small, but wiry strength could be deceiving.

  Jane stood up and grabbed the donuts and coffee, spilling more on her shirt sleeve as she did so.

  Brenna didn’t say anything further, but kept closing in on her until Jane found herself in the hall, hustling to the door.

  When she got to her car she noted it was exactly 9:08. So she had most of three hours before she was expected back at the office.

  How was she going to get in touch with Maggie Frances if coffee and donuts had failed to pave the way?

  She pulled her car around the corner and parked. Neither of the cars with tinted windows followed her.

  The odds that Maggie had gone to her day job were slim, but Jane checked the case file for the information anyway. If the direct method wouldn’t work, she’d have to do some real snooping.

  According to the information Maggie had provided the insurance company, she worked at a place called Nonessential Trivia, down in the Pearl District. Jane popped the address into her phone and headed into town.