Lisa Lutz Spellman Series E-Book Box Set: The Spellman Files, Curse of the Spellmans, Revenge of the Spellmans, The Spellmans Strike Again (57 page)

1100 hrs
¹

Morty ordered decaf coffee with his pastrami sandwich. I noted that the coffee-sandwich combo was perhaps one of the great symbols of our generational differences. I can think of few things more unappetizing. Then Morty did what he usually did after being served a cup of coffee; he burned his tongue on the brew and then put an ice cube in his beverage. He then started talking and forgot about his decaf.

“You mentioned on the phone yesterday that you had a favor to ask.”

“I was wondering if you could give me your son’s phone number.”

“I thought you said he was too old for you.”

“He is. But I need to ask him about a prescription I found in my Dad’s glove compartment.”

Morty wrote down the number, ate a couple messy bites of his sandwich, and then tasted his coffee. In the interim the beverage had dipped into the lukewarm range and Morty, as usual, called the waitress over.

“Can you heat this up, dear?” he asked with a wink.

The waitress, Gayle, aware of Morty’s beverage MO, hid her annoyance behind a fake smile, took the coffee behind the counter, and stuck it in the microwave.

“You are so predictable,” I said to Morty.

“You like lukewarm coffee?”

“Forget it.”

“Forgotten.”

The waitress brought back Morty’s beverage and like déjà vu, Morty sipped the beverage, winced in pain, said “Too hot,” stuck an ice cube into the brew, talked some more about a recent bridge game, drank two sips of the coffee, and asked the waitress to heat it up again.

Monday, April 24
1245 hrs

“You exaggerate,” Morty said, commenting on my retelling of his coffee temperature obsession.

“Every time,”
I replied.

“Bah,” Morty said, waving his hand dismissively. “Can we move on?”

“Sure.”

“So, did you talk to my son about your Dad’s prescription?”

“Yes. The prescriptions were for Lisinopril, Zocor, and Coreg. Your son said that those were the standard regimen for coronary heart disease. I explained my father’s recent lifestyle changes and your son surmised that my dad was aggressively trying to avoid heart surgery.”

“Your mother didn’t know a thing?”

“Had no idea. She knew he had a bit of a cholesterol problem, but that’s it. She thought he had just decided to take care of his health. I mean, he hid the extent of his healthy activities. If he could go to the gym unbeknownst to her, or eat a vegetarian meal without her knowledge, he would. Because she would have known something more serious was up if she witnessed the extent of the turnaround.”

“So what did you do?”

Once again, I get ahead of myself. The case of my dad had priority, but I must admit the case of John Brown was far more intriguing.

Monday, March 20
1830 hrs

Despite my constant vigil on Subject’s residence, John Brown and his vehicle were not observed for three days following the St. Patrick’s Day debacle. Without Subject to guide me in some direction, there was no place my investigation could go besides back to its point of origin. Since I had been made at the Excelsior residence as a book club wannabe with bad directions, I could not return for further information without raising a red flag. And so I turned to the only person I knew who was capable and willing to aid in my inquiry.

“What’s my cover?” Rae asked.

I stuck the listening device in my ear and watched from my car—parked approximately half a football field away—as my sister knocked on the door to 1341 San Jose Avenue.

The transcript reads as follows:

MR. DAVIS
: Can I help you?

RAE
: Hi, my name is Mary Anne Carmichael. Is Mrs. Davis home?

MR. DAVIS
: No. Can I ask what this is regarding?

RAE
: I’m a Girl Scout and I sold her some cookies a few weeks back. I wanted to deliver them and receive payment.

MR. DAVIS
: You’re not wearing a uniform.

RAE
: We don’t wear the uniform anymore. We’re like nuns that way.

MR. DAVIS
: She’s not here. I don’t know if I have any cash on me.

RAE
: Do you know when she’ll be back?

MR. DAVIS
: No.

RAE
: You don’t know when your wife will be back?

MR. DAVIS
: No.

RAE
: I’m sorry. My parents got divorced. It’s hard on everyone.

MR. DAVIS
: We’re not getting divorced.

RAE
: Then why don’t you know where your wife is?

MR. DAVIS
: Because she’s missing.

RAE
: Have you contacted the police?

MR. DAVIS
: Of course.

RAE
: How long has she been missing?

MR. DAVIS
: About two weeks.

RAE
: Is there any evidence of foul play?

I appreciated the thoroughness of Rae’s interview, but she was taking it too far. I dialed her cell phone.

RAE
: Excuse me. [answers her cell] This is Mary Anne.

ISABEL
: Your cover was Girl Scout, not Inspector Poirot. Get out now.

RAE
: [into phone] Yes, Mom. Yes, Mom. I heard you the first time. Good-bye. [to

Mr. Davis] I’m sorry to hear what’s happened to you. I hope things work out. You can have the cookies for free. Sorry to take up your time.
[End of tape.]

“Those cookies were like four years old,” I said to Rae as we headed back to the house.

“I know. That’s why I gave them to him.”

“How did he look?”

“He looked concerned. He looked like he hadn’t been sleeping. From what I could see of the interior of the house, it was a complete mess.”

My mind was racing in different directions. I tried not to connect Subject’s meeting with Mrs. Davis and her sudden disappearance, but it was impossible to shake that association. Once again I was brought back to the same conclusion: I had to get into that locked office.

When Rae and I returned home, we checked our e-mail, hoping for an ETA on Mom and Dad’s arrival the next day, but there was nothing from either of them. There was, however, a message from Petra.

Not buying a word of Petra’s communication, I promptly e-mailed her back.

PART-III

Wednesday, March 22 0900 hours

Rae and I prepared for our parents’ next-day return by giving the house one final going-over. Under normal circumstances Rae and I would have trashed the place once again, but Henry’s presence there had modified our usual behavior. He even forced Rae to clean out her closet. My sister and I only needed to tackle the stack of dirty dishes that had accumulated since Henry’s departure, which was significant considering how little time had passed. As we scraped the food off the plates and loaded them into the dishwasher, I realized that tonight would be the last time I could investigate (a.k.a. break into) Subject’s residence without the watchful eye of the parental unit. There was no telling when they’d plan their next disappearance.

I noticed that in Subject’s absence he had forgotten to close the window in his mystery room. In fact, it was the first time I had seen that window wide open. I saw it as an omen, an opportunity I could not waste. I waited until nightfall, put my cell phone on vibrate, and stuck it in my back pocket. I ran downstairs to Rae, who was making one final farewell (until next weekend) batch of Rice Krispies Treats.
¹
I dimmed the lights in the living room and guided my sister to the window.

“I don’t think he’s coming back tonight, but if Subject pulls into his driveway, you call my cell. Don’t move from this spot until I tell you to.”

“What are you going to do?” Rae asked suspiciously.

“Don’t worry about it; just call my cell if Subject comes home.”

I ran upstairs to David’s old bedroom, pushed the east-facing window all the way open, took out the ladder that had failed me the last time, and stretched it across the six-foot divide between Subject’s residence and the Spellman home.

The weight of the extended ladder, before it reached Subject’s windowsill, almost toppled me over. But I threw my weight onto the end and managed to stretch the ladder out the final two feet to reach Subject’s office window, bridging the gap between the residences. By now I hoped the darkness outside would obscure my escapade.

I was conscious that my intended act was a felony, but my conviction in my quest outweighed whatever moral ambiguity remained. Simply, it was okay to break the law if it meant exposing Subject for whatever act he was guilty of.

I’m not afraid of heights, nor am I a thrill seeker (at least not in the bungie-jumping school of thrill seeking) but I was respectfully frightened as I crawled across the ladder that rested some fifteen feet above ground. My passage took no more than forty seconds as the metal rungs dug deep into my shins and knees. Only sheer adrenaline masked the pain that began to surface as I reached Subject’s windowsill. I dove into the office head-first and collapsed on the floor, grabbing my legs in pain.

Once inside the forbidden room, I realized that I had forgotten a flashlight. I decided to risk turning on the overhead. The room consisted of an L-shaped desk with a computer atop the main part and two printers and a laminating machine along the side. One of the color printers looked like it could be used for making phony identification cards, although nothing evidencing that fact was in sight. I turned on the computer and as I waited for it to boot up, I tried the drawers on all the file cabinets. Locked. For the next ten minutes I picked the lock on the file cabinet closest to the desk. An envelope with a small stack of fifty-dollar bills, which I estimated to total five hundred
¹
dollars, and two credit cards in Subject’s “name” were inside. The bottom drawer of the file cabinet was filled with personal bills and invoices for his landscaping company. There was nothing out of the ordinary. There was also no reason why this room should be locked twenty-four hours a day.

I turned to the computer and looked for files, but Subject appeared to have used a program that wipes away all the files after each use. There had to be a backup hard drive that he worked off of. I assumed he kept the hard drive in one of the other locked cabinets, and so I started working on the locks.

Approximately fifteen minutes after I entered the office, my cell phone buzzed.

“What?”

“Get out now,” Rae said on the other end of the line.

“He’s back?” I asked, as my heart started pounding violently inside my chest.

“Hurry,” she said, and hung up the phone.

I scanned the room for evidence of my entry. I turned off the computer, straightened the contents of the file cabinet drawer, and pressed the lock with my thumb. I hadn’t anticipated a room so prepared against a potential breach. The computer was erased, the file drawers locked, the waste basket empty. I realized as I was heading for the window that my fingerprints were everywhere. I pulled the sleeve of my shirt over my hand and did a fast wipe, hoping to at least smudge all my prints.

Then I climbed out of the window and crawled back onto the ladder and across the makeshift bridge. The dismount of my circus act was a clumsy head-first collapse into David’s old room. I was just about to fix my attention on the withdrawal of the ladder when I noticed Henry Stone sitting on the bed, looking positively furious, and Rae by his side, looking downright guilty.

First things first: Get rid of the evidence—other than the direct witnesses. I struggled to pull the ladder back into the room. Henry got up to help me once I yanked the ladder off Subject’s windowsill and began losing control against the seesawing weight. He pushed me aside, pulled the ladder into the room, closed the bedroom window, and pulled the blinds.

He stared at me for an awkwardly long time.

“Rae, could you leave me alone with Isabel?”

“No, you snitch. You stay right there,” I said. Rae must have called him the second I defenestrated myself.

“Don’t call her a snitch,” Henry snapped.

I turned to my sister. “Where’s your loyalty?” I asked. “To Henry or me?”

Rae stared at her feet. “It looked dangerous, really dangerous.”

“Leave her alone,” Stone demanded. “Rae, give me a minute.”

Rae exited the room, knowing that my retribution would come one way or another. Stone sat down on the bed and took his time formulating his verbal barrage.

“I’m a police inspector and I just witnessed a felony. What am I supposed to do?”

“He’s guilty of something, and when I find out what that is, you’ll thank me.”

“Can you stop?” he asked. It was much more a sincere question than a directive.

“I don’t think so,” I replied, feeling my eyes start to water, my grip on everything slipping. It wasn’t a question of my will or my discipline or my understanding of the law. I
couldn’t
stop. I knew I wouldn’t feel right unless I had the answer. Nothing else mattered besides knowing what John Brown was guilty of.

“Could you be wrong about him, Isabel?”

“Maybe,” I replied. “I’ve misread evidence before. But I know what someone looks like when they’re hiding something. He’s hiding something really big.”

Stone appeared helpless, sensing that my resolve was something even I couldn’t control. He got to his feet and headed for the door.

“This is no way to live,” he said.

“No kidding.”

Stone was about to say something else, but he simply shook his head and left.

That night Rae and I ate pizza for dinner and Rice Krispies Treats for dessert. Then we stuffed the pizza boxes into the recycling bin behind the corner store to hide the evidence.

I couldn’t bring myself to observe Subject’s residence any more that night, knowing that if I witnessed any unusual behavior I would not be responsible for my own actions. Well, I would be—technically—but it wouldn’t feel that way.