Oliver Twisted (An Ivy Meadows Mystery Book 3) (24 page)

CHA
PTER 64

Restored to Pleasant Company

I met the two lovebirds for a late breakfast the next morning. I’d just sat down at their table with a blood pudding-free breakfast (I was still out of sorts) when my cell rang. I looked at the display.

“My parents,” I said to Bob and Bette. Wait, my parents? They never called. “Oh crap.” I picked up, putting the phone on speakerphone so Uncle Bob could hear too. “Is everything okay?”

“Hello to you too. Everything’s fine
,”
said my dad. “Just wanted to call and let you know that. And to thank you for helping Cody.”

I hadn’t really helped Cody, but a “thank you” from my parents was so rare that I wanted to keep it. “Thank
you
for going down there. Matt said you were the ones who got Cody into Costco.”

“Cody called us from there. They wouldn’t let him in after hours, so we explained the situation and they let him in. So, you’re on a ship?”

Another one for the books. My parents never took an interest in what I was doing. “Yeah. But I think Uncle Bob and I are wrapping up this job.”

“Good,” said my dad. “We’d like to take you to dinner when you get back.”

“Me too,” said Cody’s voice behind him.

“You too,” said my dad. “See you soon, Olive. Love you.”

I stared at the phone.

I hadn’t heard that since…since before Cody’s accident. My throat felt thick.

“Olive-y!” Cody had picked up the phone. “Are you coming home soon? I miss you. And we get to go to the Old Spaghetti Factory when you get here. When are you coming?”

“In just a few days.” We’d arrive in Honolulu today, cruise the islands, and then fly home.

“Good. I love you. Hey, did you want to talk to Olive-y?” he said to someone there.

“I love you too,” I said before I realized Cody was off the line. It didn’t matter. What did matter was the way my heart warmed at the thought of him.

Val and Madalina never had this, never felt this rush of love. Yeah, my parents had been horrible to me since the accident, but they had also given me Cody. And to be fair, they’d given us a good childhood. I hadn’t realized how good until now. I suddenly wanted to be off the ship and back in Phoenix right away, to see my beautiful brother and maybe hear “I love you” from my dad again.

“Ivy?” It was Matt. “I’ve been worried about you.”

“You have?”

“Last time we talked, you said something about a murder. And you haven’t been answering your calls.”

“Bad cell connection.” I’d tell him about getting overdosed, catching a thief, and clonking a killer later.

“Okay. Glad you’re all right. Enjoy Hawaii.”

“You don’t sound like you mean that.”

“I am very glad you’re all right.”

“About Hawaii, I mean.”

“Busted. I’d rather have you back here.”

“I’ll let you know as soon as I’m in town. It’ll be good to be home. See you soon.” I hung up to find Uncle Bob and Bette sharing a smile. “What?” I said.

“That guy on the phone,” said Bette. “Sounds like a real nice guy.”

“One of the best,” said Uncle Bob.

My cell bleeped: a text from Jonas. Reception had stayed surprisingly good, probably because we were nearing port in Hawaii. “Need to talk to Val about our future plans. Meet me at the brig in an hour?”

“Sure.” Needed to squelch that whole our-future-plans thing. “See you guys later,” I said to Bob and Bette. “I need to freshen up before I meet Jonas at the brig.”

“I’ll probably see you down there,” said Bette. “I want to talk to Madalina.” Bette was going to release Madalina’s story in a few days
and
she was putting together a defense fund for her. I guess Uncle Bob was a pretty good judge of character after all.

“Brig,” he said. “Did you know that’s not just an onboard jail? It’s also a type of two-masted ship.”

“Did you know,” said Bette, “that our ship’s brig, the Marshalsea Prison, was named after the debtor’s prison in
Little Dorrit
?”

“Which was based on the one that Dickens’s family was sent to,” said Uncle Bob. They grinned at each other. A match made in heaven.

I went back to my cabin. I’d only slept about five hours, so my idea of freshening up included closing my eyes for a few minutes. But as soon as I opened the door, I knew that wasn’t going to happen. Ada filled the cabin, both literally (her clothes were everywhere) and figuratively (her anger bounced off the walls).

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Like you don’t know. They’re putting me off in Honolulu.” She balled up a dress and stuffed it into a suitcase. “Oliver can get away with anything, but I play one—maybe two—harmless pranks, and that’s it. Good riddance, Ada.”

“Harmless pranks?”

“Come on. You know that knot would’ve never come untied. It was just meant to slip.”

“The silk knot.”

“Duh. And stupid old Harley would never have even sprained her wrist if she’d used good technique.” Ada grabbed a duffle bag and swung it up to my top bunk, missing my head by inches.

“Alrighty then. Good luck,” I said, backing out of the cabin. “Guess I’ll head down to the crew bar.” I closed the door just before Ada’s suitcase hit it.

I did go to the bar, just because I could, but had a cup of coffee at the counter. I’d just stirred some sugar into my cup when a hand placed a Russian nesting doll in front of me. I turned to see David. “For you,” he said. I unscrewed the yellow doll until I found a scrap of paper wrapped around the tiniest doll. It read, “Nice work.”

“Thanks. So the first doll was from you?”

Madalina had told me the other two nesting dolls were from her. She got the idea when she went to my dressing room to leave me a “back off” note and saw the first doll. “I come up with doll with no head by myself,” she’d said with misplaced pride “Scary, yes?”

David sat down on a barstool. “Yeah, it was me. I wanted to encourage you to find out what happened to Harley. I really liked her—she was one of my best friends onboard—but things changed when she started going out with Val. He didn’t kill her?”

“No,” I said. “Sudden Unexplained Death in Epilepsy,”

David was quiet for a moment. “Val didn’t seem like a killer, but from watching him, I was pretty sure he was in on the theft ring. I didn’t have any proof though. It seemed like you were getting close to the truth, so I sent the nesting doll as a sort of clue.”

“That I was on the right track with the Russian thing.”

“Yeah. I had no idea it would be so dangerous. I’m glad you’re okay.”

“Just part of the job,” I said in a tough guy voice.

“About that. I’m confused. Are you an actor or a detective?”

“Both,” I said. “I’m both.”

CHAP
TER 65

How Things Come About!

A little while later, I made my way to the bowels of the ship and the onboard jail. I really hoped Jonas hadn’t put too much stock in any kind of future with me. Sure, he was sweet, good-looking, and now incredibly rich, but he just wasn’t for me.

I slowly pushed open the door of the Marshalsea Prison. Jonas talked quietly with Val, who stood behind the iron bars of a Victorian-looking jail cell.

A similar scene played out a few yards away, where Bette huddled outside Madalina’s cell.

“Ivy!” said Jonas and Val, almost in unison as I walked toward them.

“Perfect timing.” Jonas put an arm around my shoulder, while Val looked longingly at us throughout the barred wall that separated the free from the imprisoned. “I have something to say that concerns you both. Ivy, you know how I’ve been talking to you about our future?”

“Actually, I wanted to ask you about—”

“I mean, since you helped me get Theo’s money, it’s only fair that—”

“
I
helped you get Theo’s money?”

“You certainly did. That kiss on deck during the captain’s dinner? It was just what I needed to convince Theo I’d been cured of my ‘moral weakness.’”

“Gluhh,” I said, not because I was disappointed that Jonas was gay—au contraire—but because, once again I was wrong about someone.

“Oh, Ivy.” Jonas squeezed my shoulders. “You never thought I was interested in you, did you? Romantically, I mean? I just assumed you knew.”

Oliver’s mom burst into the room, towing her little rat by the arm. “I want you to lock him up,” she said to the security guy (thankfully not Brick this time). “He just broke the straw on the camel’s back.”

“It’s about time,” I said to her. “That Dramamine overdose could have been serious, you know.” A big waterlogged spider crept out of the corner of my mind. I swept it away with a shake of my head.

“Drama-banana-meene,” Oliver said.

“That’s not Dickens,” I pointed out.

“We’re not here because of that,” said Oliver’s mother, who again wore horizontal stripes. This knit top was black and white. She looked like an overfed zebra.

“Maybe it’s because of all the stuff he stole?” I said. “Or the vandalism?”

The security guard looked back and forth between the two of us, waiting.

“That was all in preparation for his role.” His mother stood up straight.

“My poisoning too?” I said.

“Dickens’s characters poisoned people,” said Oliver.

“None of that. It’s this.” She grabbed a magazine from her bag and flung it to the floor.
Inches
. Timothy’s porn magazine. The one where we’d hidden the “whiteboard.”

“Lock him up.” She pushed Oliver toward the security office. “I’m sure it’s illegal for young children to possess pornography. And while you’re at it, I think you should arrest whoever gave this to my son.”

“Yes. Arrest Fagin,” said Oliver. “He’s a criminal.”

I grabbed the little bugger by the arm and wrangled him to a corner. “I won’t press charges for the Dramamine overdose if you’re straight with me about one thing,” I whispered fiercely.

“Press charges?” Oliver’s face puckered in perturbation. It would have been cute if he wasn’t such a snot.

“Even though you’re a minor, and even if you didn’t mean your prank to go as far as it did, it’s still assault, and enough to send you to juvie.” I sounded sure even though I had no idea.

“Okay. What one thing?”

“Is Timothy a thief? Did he really teach you how to steal?”

A smarmy smile spread across Oliver’s face. “I never said that.”

“Yes, you did. When we were talking on deck, right after—”

“I said
Fagin
taught me to steal. Can’t you tell when an actor’s in character?”

I pushed him back toward the jailer. “Lock him up.”

Oliver whined. “But you said—”

“I lied. They do that in Dickens.”

The security guy pursed his lips. I winked at him and he looked to Oliver’s mom, who nodded.

“Good thing we’ve got one place left.” He led Oliver to a cell. “You can come get him in an hour, ma’am,” he said quietly to Oliver’s mom.

“I’m not sure I will.” She swept out of the brig.

“Wait, what?” Oliver’s face turned red as the jailer locked him behind bars. The entire jail erupted in a cheer.

I turned back to Val and Jonas. “Boy, that felt good.”

“Yes, very nice. Can we talk about our future?” said Val. “I want to know I have one.”

“Right,” said Jonas. “Now that I have Theo’s money, I can produce my play.”

“
Oliver! At Sea!
?” I said.

“Lord, no. Haven’t I told you about it?” Jonas said. “I could have sworn I did.”

I shook my head.

“For the last year, I’ve been working on a farce-slash-murder-mystery called, wait for it…” Jonas held his hands with a flourish. “
Grave Expectations
.”

“Wow,” I said.

“I know. I think it’ll be big.” Jonas twiddled his fingers in excitement. “And there are perfect roles for you both. Val would play Pep, and Ivy, you’d be Esmella.”

Maybe I could talk him out of that later.

“I had planned to workshop the show in L.A., but…” Jonas turned to Val. “I suspect the judge will go easy on you, but you’ll probably serve some time. And I know how hard prison is, especially on creative types.”

Val hung his head.

“
But
,” Jonas bounced on his toes, “you’ve heard about Shakespeare Behind Bars? I’m going to mount
Grave Expectations
in prison. Starring you, of course.” Val’s mouth dropped open. “It’ll give you something to hang onto while you’re inside,” he said to Val. “It’ll look great to the parole board, and who knows, maybe you’ll even be famous by the time you get out.”

“Why?” Val backed up, like a child who was afraid to take a present for fear it’d be yanked away. “Why you do this for me?”

Jonas stopped bouncing. “I understand you better than you know. I didn’t know my father. My mother was stoned for most of my childhood. I haven’t heard from her in years. The only other family I had was my stepfather, and you saw how he was. After everything I’ve gone through with my relations, I decided that my friends are my family. ‘Family not only need to consist of merely those whom we share blood, but also for those whom we’d give blood.’”

“It’s Dickens,” Oliver whispered from his cell.

Val pressed his lips together, his Adam’s apple working.

Jonas wrapped his hands around the bars that separated Val from him. “Sound good, brother?”

Val swallowed. “Yes. Okey-dokey.” He smiled. “Brother.”

Later, I waved to Jonas as he zipped away on the back of a Harley, his arms around the big bearish guy in front of him. “My Hawaii husband,” Jonas had said. “I don’t dally onboard, but I do have a man in every port.”

I wove through the chattering tourists and joined Timothy, Bob, and Bette at a table under a thatched umbrella. I listened to them debate the best way to get sand out of your shorts. I sipped a cold slushy Blue Hawaiian, complete with a slice of fresh pineapple and a pink cocktail umbrella. I breathed in the warm humid air, perfumed with salt spray and flowers and a whiff of coconut tanning lotion. I watched happy bronzed people run across the white sand and splash in the surf. It was truly a tropical paradise. And it was all wrong.

After two deaths and sending two people I liked to jail, I wasn’t in the mood for sand and surf and drinks with little umbrellas. “I want to go home.”

“You’re kidding, right?” said Timothy. “The islands are the best part of the cruise.”

“Nah. I don’t really like cruising. All that water.” I felt like I’d worked through my phobia, but still, dry land felt wonderful. “We’re done here, right?” I asked Uncle Bob. “Job-wise?”

“Yeah. And there’ll be a nice bonus waiting for us.”

“Great. Then I want to go see my family.” I smiled at Bette, leaned down and kissed Timothy on his hairy cheek, then bussed my uncle on the top of the head. “Besides you guys, I mean.”