Authors: Mary Jane Maffini
At least three minutes passed before Alvin swanned back in and started the joke from the beginning as I bit my tongue. The burglar in this particular joke was pretty snotty, nothing like Bunny.
“Hang on,” I said, as a feeling of dread swept over me. The hair on the back of my neck prickled. “Where did this joke come from? The internet?”
Alvin shook his head. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a bit too busy lately to waste my time looking for jokes on the computer.”
“Tell me it’s from a joke book.”
“If I don’t have time to look up jokes on the net, what would make you think I would go get a joke book? So let me ask you a question, Camilla. Where have we been getting our jokes lately?”
“Oh, no.”
“Well, yeah. Except it’s a bit different from the others. It’s not a question and answer sort of a joke and...”
“It’s a burglar, Alvin. What part of that is unclear to you?”
Alvin pouted. I ignored him and reached for the receiver which was naturally nowhere near the phone. Instead of hunting for it, I whipped out my cell and pecked out the number of Bunny’s number. Pick up, I thought, pick up pick up. Bunny, Bunny, Bunny, where are you?
I snapped it closed and tried again. And again. Was he out? Was he avoiding calls? Was he somewhere with blocked reception? My heart thundered. Or was he already dead? That joke ended with a Rottweiler called Hey-soose, which was very bad news for the burglar. Not remotely funny in my opinion, but I asked myself how could that translate into danger for Bunny? What was the joke connection?
“Dogs, Alvin. How could they kill you?”
“What?”
“In the joke, the burglar is about to meet Jesus, pronounced Hey-soose, like the Spanish pronunciation. Only Hey-soose turns out to be a Rottweiler. Okay, dog dangers, fast.” I snapped my fingers.
Alvin said, “Greyhound bus. Remember that other old joke, just the dog, man. Just the dog.”
Would Bunny take a Greyhound bus? How could he be enticed onto one? I flicked open the cellphone and tried again with no more success. “I can’t reach him to tell him to be careful. I need to get Tonya’s number. She’ll know how to locate him. She has a hairdressing business called, I think, The Cutting Remarque. “Where did you put the phone book, now, Alvin? It was right here last night.”
Alvin, pale-faced, produced the phone book, instantly, for once. My fingers actually shook when the phone was answered at the shop. I said, “Tonya please.” Then, “It’s an emergency, can you please get her to the phone.” Followed by, “It’s personal, it’s not Destiny, but it is urgent. Her client can wait one short minute, trust me.” Finally, after a bit more stonewalling by the receptionist, I snapped, “Why don’t you leave it up to Tonya to see if she’ll come to the phone? Hold the receiver for her if you’re so damned worried she’ll get colour on it.”
Alvin stared at me. I chewed on my lower lip as I waited to see if Tonya would respond.
“Hello?” she said, fear in her voice.
“Tonya. I need to know if Bunny’s out of town. I have to talk to him. Did he take a bus?”
“Who is this?”
“Sorry, it’s Camilla MacPhee. You know me. I was at your place the other night. I really need to reach him.”
“Did you try at home? He’s there with Destiny.”
“He didn’t answer.”
“Maybe they’re in the backyard. Sometimes Destiny has a morning nap. He might turn the phone off not to wake her up.”
“Is there another number where I could reach him?”
She hesitated.
I said, “If he has a cellphone, I really have to get that number.”
“He doesn’t want me to give it out.”
“Tonya, that doesn’t apply to me.”
A pause. “I can’t give it to you. I’m not going to.”
“Fine. Can you call him and tell him to contact me right away on my cell. He has the number. I need to talk to him urgently.”
Tonya’s voice had developed a little shake. “What is going on? I’m going to go home right now.”
There was no point in dragging her into it. One more person who could be in danger. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to alarm you. He has my number. Please, just ask him to call me, that’s all.”
As she hung up, I said to Alvin. “We have to get to Bunny’s place, now. You’d better come with me in case.”
“In case what?” Alvin said.
“I don’t know. In case of something awful.”
Gussie perked up.
I said, “No, not you, Gussie. We have enough dog trouble.”
You’re supposed to be a first-rate lawyer! If I give you $5000,
will you answer two questions for me?
-Sure thing. What’s the second question?
O
ne minute later, Alvin shot out of the garage in the Acura. I leapt into the passenger seat, and we careened down Third Avenue, heading for Barrhaven. I used the time to keep trying to reach Bunny.
No answer.
I had tried twenty times by the time we screeched to a halt in front of Bunny and Tonya’s tidy townhouse on Parkview Circle. I jumped out while Alvin kept the car running. I rang the bell and pounded on the metal front door for emphasis.
Nothing.
I glanced around. Something was different. What?
“Alvin, what do you see that’s changed here?”
“Well, the pink tricycle’s gone.”
“Right. Maybe they went for a—”
An apple-cheeked young woman emerged from the house across the street. She was pushing a baby stroller the size of a subcompact car. She paused by a leafy maple tree and looked up. I dashed across the street.
“Rotten squirrels,” she said. “They’re always plotting to get my birdfeeder.”
“That’s a shame,” I said. “I’m looking for my friend, your neighbour across the street. I need to get some papers to him quickly and I’m late. Any idea where he and his little girl would go with the tricycle?”
She smiled trustingly. “Bunny and Destiny will probably be at the park. It’s not far. Just go back to the corner and hang a quick right then a left. You can’t miss it.”
A lovely person, so far not acquainted with the evil ways of the world. I really should have told her not to give that kind of information to a total stranger.
Alvin had heard and moved the Acura closer. I hopped back in the car, and we peeled rubber getting to the park. “I hope to hell,” I said, “that it’s not a dog park. Can’t you go any faster?”
“Not without getting airborne,” he grumped.
Bunny was pushing Destiny on the swings when we panted up to him.
“Hey! What is it, Camilla?” he said.
“Push, Daddy!”
Bunny pushed.
“I need to talk, privately,” I said.
“Daddeeee, push!”
Bunny gave the swing a mighty shove and Destiny squealed as the swing soared high.
“Take over, Alvin, and keep an eye out for dogs,” I ordered. “Bunny, come here.”
Bunny followed me. “What?”
“Why don’t you answer your phone? What is the matter with you? I’ve been trying to reach you.”
“Lots of people try and reach me, but you know I’m trying to leave my old life behind and be a family man. People say they just want to talk, just need a favour, just going to take a minute and the next thing you know you’re—”
“Okay, don’t tell me that. I don’t need to know about anything illegal, and I take your point about moving on. But we got another joke. Did you get it?”
“No. Oh, maybe Tonya took it.”
I kicked myself for not grilling Tonya about this. I should have known.
“I got a burglar joke.”
“What?”
“Push me higher, Daddy!”
I spoke clearly and distinctly. “I received a burglar joke.”
Bunny turned the colour of old library paste, more grey than white. “But they’ve all been lawyer jokes. Why would you get a burglar joke?”
“I don’t know, Bunny. I don’t really know what this is all about, but I think you are going to have to be careful.”
“I am careful. I’m a stay-at-home dad. We go to the park, we read Dr. Seuss, we colour in little books. I put in a few hours a week at the framing shop. How can I be more careful than that?”
“I don’t know. Is this a dog park?”
Bunny stared at me.
“Daddeeeee!”
“A dog park? Why?”
At the edge of the park, a man in a baseball cap was just arriving with a large frolicking mixed-breed. “So that probably means yes,” I said. “We have to get out of here.”
Bunny grabbed Destiny from the swing, setting off a series of howls that drowned out our conversation for several minutes.
“Get in the car,” I yelled and popped the tricycle in the back seat. “We’ll get you home and try to figure out what to do.”
Destiny screamed the entire time. Bunny did his best to cuddle her and croon soothingly.
As we pulled into the driveway, I said, “Destiny!”
She stopped shrieking and stared at me, her huge eyes even larger than before.
“When I was a little girl…”
Destiny’s stare turned to a frown. Perhaps she didn’t believe I’d ever been a little girl. Maybe she was worried that little girls could turn out like me. I didn’t let her expression stop me. I repeated, “When I was a little girl my sisters used to make me a tent with the dining room table, and if I was very quiet, they used to let me eat my lunch there.”
Mostly so they could have quality time with their boyfriends, but never mind. I’d loved the magic world the blankets created the instant they were tossed over a table. I kept talking as we scurried toward the house.
“Do you want to make a tent?” I said to Destiny.
“I am so jealous,” Alvin said.
I asked, “Are you allowed to do that?” I felt fairly certain that with Tonya as a mother, she wasn’t.
“It’s a special treat,” Bunny said. “Just for today. Don’t tell Mommy.”
Destiny sniffed. “Tomorrow too?”
Bunny said, “All right. Tomorrow too. And the next day, because you were a very good girl and came right home.”
A good girl? There was still more proof that I’d never make much of a parent, although I was proud of remembering the tent trick.
The child bought into this idea. “Destiny is a very good girl.”
Destiny took Bunny’s hand as we walked into the house. I returned the tricycle to its regular parking spot in the walkway. The front door hadn’t even been locked. What had Bunny the burglar been thinking? I secured the door behind us and tapped my toe until he was ready to talk. Bunny busied himself using a blanket to make the tent. He said, “I never thought of that. What a great idea.”
I knew that Bunny’s childhood had not included playtime, parks or reading with a stay-at-home parent. And apparently no tents using dining room tables. But then he’d done more parenting for his alcoholic mother than he’d ever received. There was something comforting about seeing that this pattern was changing with Destiny. If Bunny could stay alive, that is.
“Okay,” I said in a low voice when he finally joined us. “We’re going to get you out of here without anyone knowing. I need a plan. And it would help if you would be straight with me about who might be behind all this.”
Bunny shook his head frantically. “I have no idea who’s behind it. But anyway, we can’t leave here. We’ll be safe if we stay in the house.”
I hated to burst his balloon, but I said, “Remember Rollie? Roxanne? Judge Cardarelle? And now Anstruther. They thought they were safe too. If it’s Brugel, he’s capable of anything. You should know that. He’s obviously engaged accomplices who appear to be trustworthy.”
Bunny said, “But…”
“We need to let the police know you’re involved, Bunny. We can’t take any more chances.”
“No police! No. They’ll take Destiny away. What are you doing, Camilla? I trusted you and—”
Alvin said, “They won’t take her away, Bunny.”
I bit my lip. I wasn’t so sure. If the wrong cop showed up, then connected with CAS, and if Bunny seemed to be involved with a crime and not a fit parent, who knew what could happen, at least in the short term.
“Fine,” I said. “Pull yourself together. Leave it with me. I know who to call.”
Elaine picked up the phone on the tenth ring. “I can’t talk to you now, Camilla. I’m having my carpets cleaned.”
“It’s incredibly urgent.”
“Call me back. I can’t hear you anyway over the sound of the machinery. It’s like being in a tornado.”
That was true enough, because even over the phone line the racket from the carpet cleaning procedure was clearly audible.
“Bunny’s in danger,” I shouted.
“What?”
“Bunny’s in—” I was counting on the fact that Elaine loved Bunny as much as I did.
“Actually I heard you. My eardrum is still suffering from it. What kind of danger?”
“You’re not going to believe this.” I moved into the living room to be more private, although I was almost shouting.
“Try me. Wait a minute,” I heard her bellowing in the background. “Joe, can you turn off the equipment for a minute. I have an emergency call here.”
It took a while to fill her in on the background of the new and obscure but creepy threat to Bunny. His fear that Destiny would be taken away from him if the cops got involved.
“You’re right, that is unbelievable, Camilla. Why would anyone do such a thing? It sounds like a straight-to-DVD movie.”
“I know how weird it seems.”
“Even so, I think you should tell Leonard.”
“Leonard’s aware. But not about Bunny. I don’t want to draw attention to him. You know how hard he’s trying to go straight. And there’s Destiny, remember.”
“Of course, I remember,” Elaine said with what sounded like a flash of irritation. “But really, Leonard would appreciate that. He wouldn’t put that little family at risk. He’s very kind-hearted.”
I stifled a snort. Kind-hearted Leonard, my fat fanny. I’d heard his remarks when we saw Bunny in the courthouse. Never mind, love is blind. And Elaine is stubborn by anyone’s standards.
“Leonard’s not the only problem. The police just aren’t taking it seriously at all. Maybe because of the jokes. Who can blame them? Lots of the guys in Major Crimes had a real hate on for Thorsten, seeing as he’d sunk so many of their cases.”
“I don’t know what you think I can do,” Elaine said grumpily, “with wet carpets and all that. Anyway, the whole thing sounds totally paranoid and otherwise crazy too. Have you been mixing medications, Camilla?”