Sunny Side Up (Lake Erie Mysteries Book 1) (10 page)

“Come on, Francie, we’ve got to get going. We’ll be in touch soon, Ruby. Take care!”

June was back beside me and awfully anxious to leave.

“What the heck was that all about? Where did you disappear to?”

June kept looking over her shoulder as she nearly dragged me away from the yard where Ruby still stood, bandana askew, rug still in hand. June was agitated. She explained to me that, as usual, she was feeling antsy, so she had headed around to the back of the house to see if there was anything she could do to help. She came upon Roger Burns in the back yard, deep in conversation with a man she didn’t recognize. Before she had the chance to call out a greeting, she overheard the words “fire, money, and merchandise.”

“I kept to the shadows until the shady-looking man mumbled something to Roger and left on foot by way of the alley on the side of the house. Then I made my way back. Francie, something’s going on, and it’s not good. I think Roger might be in trouble.”

I took one last look back at Ruby as I tripped along beside June. Roger was standing next to her, and they were deep into a heated exchange. Just then, Ruby pointed her finger right at me and shook her head. For a nanosecond, our eyes met. Then she turned away, and she and Roger headed toward their house and out of view. The stranger June spoke of was nowhere to be seen.

“Francie, I think the best thing we can do to help Ruby and probably Hamm is to follow the man who was talking to Roger right away and see where he goes. It looks like he is involved in something, and it doesn’t look good.”

Hamm’s words kept running through my mind. “Don’t go poking around into other people’s business. Promise me.” And then there was the detective’s admonishment. “Keep as far away from the situation as possible.” I couldn’t help myself. My friends were in trouble so I ignored both of these reasonable voices and went with June’s spidey-sense.

“Okay, June, I’m with you on this one, but if we’re going to follow this guy, we’ll need transportation. I guess we could rent a couple bikes from the kiosk in town. Did you see what kind of car he was driving?”

“He was on foot, but he was fast. He went north.”

When we got to the rental kiosk, as luck would have it, there was no one manning the rental station, so we did the next best thing, improvise. I fished a magic marker and a blank postcard from my trip to Idaho three years ago out of my bag. I scrawled a quick IOU on the card and held it in front of our honest, smiling faces to snap a selfie with my smart phone. Next, I friended the rental company on Facebook and uploaded the IOU picture to its business page. Feeling very responsible, we selected a tandem bicycle and hopped on (because “borrowing” only one bike was definitely better than riding off with two) and pedaled in the direction that June saw the man heading.

We caught a glimpse of the stranger as we headed to the north side of the island. He was now driving a golf cart, which he must have had parked somewhere down the road from Ruby’s. It was easy to keep him in sight because whenever the sun peaked out from behind a dismal cloud, it glinted on the dime-sized diamond in his left ear and magnified the shine coming from his slick, black ponytail. Trying to look like incognito holiday tourists, we pedaled behind him at a respectable distance. We weren’t worried about losing him since the road we were on basically was a big circle ringing the island. We rode past the island cemetery, Glacial Grooves, and the state park. As we neared an abandoned fishing dock and dilapidated warehouse located in a sparsely populated stretch of land, we began to wonder if perhaps we were wasting our time on this guy, barking up the wrong tree.

The man in the golf cart finally came to a stop next to a white-panel van parked beside the old warehouse, far back from the road. We parked the tandem bike in a stand of trees that kept us well out of sight but allowed us a pretty good view of the mystery man. He was wearing a black leather jacket and black boots. His wrap-around black sunglasses completed his creeper/biker/criminal outfit. While we stood watching the scene, June told me once more what she witnessed behind Ruby’s house. I still couldn’t wrap my mind around what I was hearing.

“Do you think Roger is really involved in any of this? Who is this guy? And what was Roger doing talking to him? Are you sure you heard the guy say ‘fire?’”

The guy in black stopped beside the golf cart and looked from left to right. I held my breath when he turned his head right in our direction. I was seriously regretting my decision to wear my orange blouse with the glittery flowers across the chest. It was one of my summer favorites and complimented my tan walking shorts perfectly, but right now I felt like a glow-in-the-dark target. June, on the other hand, looked like she had dressed just for this occasion. The man in black finally went back to whatever it was he was doing. Just to be on the safe side, I pulled my emergency sweater out of my bag and wrapped myself in its beige comfort. June jabbed me in the ribs just as I was knotting the sweater’s belt around my waist.

“Look, Francie! What is he doing? We need to find out what’s going on over there.”

The man was unloading cardboard boxes from the van and carrying them into the old warehouse.

I bent down and retrieved my cell from the pile of leaves it had landed in when I was looking for my sweater. It gave me an idea. I waited for the man to come out of the warehouse, and as he stepped toward the van, I located my phone’s camera app and zoomed in on the man’s face. I saw the jagged scar running from his right ear down across his throat and disappearing beneath his T-shirt collar. The phone was shaking in my hands as I made sure the flash option was turned off and snapped pictures of the man, the van, and the warehouse. Somehow all of this must be connected to the fire and the mysterious victim discovered in Ruby’s attic.

June pulled her own phone out of the cargo pocket on her right thigh. She was much more poised under pressure than I was, and she began systematically photographing the scene as if it was just part of a feature story she was working on.

We watched silently as he carried six more boxes into the abandoned warehouse. When he was finished, he drove the golf cart behind the building and covered it with a tarp. After one more surveying glance of the area, he got into the panel van and headed back toward town.

I stared at my phone for a long moment. Once again, I felt an overwhelming need to talk to Hamm. What the heck was I doing hiding behind trees taking pictures of a creepy stranger? I hit the speed dial button for my husband’s cell phone and waited. I was told by an annoying computer voice to “Please enjoy the Verizon ringtone while my party was being reached.” I did not enjoy the music and my party was not reached.

“Where are you, dammit?” Screaming at my phone brought no response from it.

June gently pried the phone from my hand and looked at the number on the screen. “What’s the matter, Francie? Didn’t Hamm call you when he got home? I bet he just got busy. I’m sure everything is fine.”

I wiped my hand across my face and tried to ignore my growing sense of uneasiness. “You’re right, of course, June. Thanks for keeping me sane. Let’s go find out what this goon is up to before he hurts someone else.”

We secured our purses cross-body, checked to make sure our shoes were tied, even though I was wearing flip flops and June’s combat-style running shoes fastened with Velcro, and locked our hands in a death grip usually reserved for midnight viewings of horror movies. When we were sure we were the only ones in the vicinity other than the squirrels, we snaked our way cautiously between the sparse saplings lining the edge of the woods. Finally, we crept out from the trees and stood out in the open in front of the building. The place was old. Where it was metal, it was corroded by rust, and the sections that were wood showed only a few shadows of its original, sunny-yellow paint. If the building was a person, it would definitely be a zombie. The high windows around the structure’s perimeter looked like empty eye sockets and prevented us, or anyone for that matter, from seeing inside.

June was jumping up and down under one of the windows. “We really need to get inside. Those boxes must be important to somebody.”

“Are you crazy? That’s breaking and entering! What if we get caught? I don’t want to spend my retirement years wearing an orange jumpsuit and showering with strangers.”

“Who’s going to catch us? It’s not like there are nosy neighbors with binoculars keeping watch over the place, which is exactly why someone would choose it to hide illegal activities. If no one has stopped us by now, I think we’re safe. Besides, if there happens to be a slightly open door or a broken window, we wouldn’t technically be breaking, just entering.”

I rolled my eyes at the back of June’s head as she disappeared around the back of the building. “That makes me feel so much better.”

I grudgingly decided I might as well follow her. We’d come this far and I did want to see what was inside the old building. Maybe there was a service entry or some other way in. We were in luck, or not, depending on whose opinion you considered. Sure enough, there was a garage door in the back that was set sturdily and level in its frame, looking incongruous in the middle of the leaning, tired wall. It was obvious that care had been taken recently to add a secure entrance to the dilapidated structure. There was a gap under the door on the left side created by the unmatched angles that was just barely wide enough for a nosey snoop or two to shimmy through.

Before I could stop her, June was down on the ground doing a crab walk right under the door. When her entire body had disappeared into the creepy building, I was left standing on the outside, frozen in place. I really didn’t think this was a great idea. Seconds later, June’s arm appeared under the door, jerking wildly and gesturing. I assumed she was telling me to follow her inside. So now I figured I had two options. I either continued standing out in the open, alone and scared half to death, or I go inside and be scared half to death with June. I decided on the latter. Rather than contorting my body into the form of a crab as June had done, I got down on my hands and knees in front of the door. The rough gravel poked and scraped at my palms and exposed knees as I flattened myself and wriggled under the door.

Once inside the building, I straightened up, brushed the dust off my clothes, and picked some small stones out of my hands while I tried to get my bearings. The space was musty-smelling and damp. Dust mites danced and floated through the meager rays of sunlight that were able to make their way past the grimy windows. It was too dark to see much of anything, but I began imagining spiders, rats, and other creepy critters scavenging about. Instinctively, I rummaged in my purse for my phone. How did people survive without phone apps in the frontier days? I used my flashlight app to shine a thin beam of light over the floor and up the walls. The interior of the warehouse was half the size of a football field. All around the room, boxes like the ones the mystery man had been delivering were stacked eight to ten high. The towers of boxes were covered haphazardly with ragged, dirty tarps. Along the wall to the left of the garage door stood a row of boxes that didn’t have any others stacked on top. These must be the boxes we just witnessed the man in black unloading from the van.

“This is crazy, June. We need to get out of here. Let’s go call Detective Morgan so he can get a warrant or something and come check this out himself.”

“There’s no time. On an island this small, whoever owns this warehouse would catch wind of a warrant being issued and have plenty of time to clear out before the police ever got here. Besides, we don’t even know what’s in the boxes. We would have to tell Morgan what he was looking for before he could request a search warrant.”

I guess she had a point. It wasn’t a crime to store boxes in a warehouse, even if you did look like a city-slicker career criminal. There was no turning back now. Like it or not, we were in this asses to elbows. June walked toward the box closest to the door, and I approached one two spaces down. I worked at the shipping tape with the tip of my nail file and got the top opened without much problem. What I discovered in front of me was both exciting and disturbing.

Inside the box were designer handbags and scarves I could only dream about affording. I lifted out a beautiful, green leather Coach tote with a chain-link handle and tried it on for fit over my arm. I only wished there was a mirror in the place so I could admire the chic way it hugged my figure. I imagined strolling down the street collecting compliments on my fabulous fashion sense. As I was on my third or fourth turn, I noticed the signature tag on the handle was not quite right. The metallic tone seemed a little too brassy. I stopped and took a closer look. The purse was indeed leather, but upon closer inspection, I noticed the materials were just slightly less than designer quality. This was by far the best designer knock-off I had ever seen. It was impressive, and I’m sure most people would never know. I was not, however, most people when it came to knowing my accessories, especially Coach handbags.

Just then, June looked up from the box she was inspecting wearing a pair of Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses with large white plastic frames and black lenses. “These look killer with my outfit, don’t you think?”

“June, these purses and scarves are all knock-offs!”

“Huh? Are you sure?” She took the glasses off her face and carefully checked the hinges and markings inside the frames.

“Well I’ll be darned. You’re right. I didn’t notice. They’re really good knock-offs, but they are most definitely fake. They’re still really cute, though, don’t you think?”

Her box also contained sterling silver “Tiffany” necklaces and earrings, along with an assortment of other recognizable designer labels. I thought back to all the times I had admired some of these very accessories on the shelves of Ruby’s Treasure Chest. My heart sank with the realization of what this meant.

“June, do you think Ruby knows about this? I can’t imagine her ever trying to pass off fake merchandise as name brand.”

“Well, somebody knows something, that’s for sure. This stuff looks really good, but someone was bound to notice eventually. I really don’t think any of this has actually been on her shelves, do you?”

I didn’t know what to think. “I suppose you could sneak a piece in with the real stuff here and there and fool a lot of people. But why? And look at all this stuff! If all of these boxes are full of these things, where is it all going? More than one buyer would have to be involved to move all this merchandise.”

Before we had time to speculate any further, June held up her hand in a sign to be quiet. “Sshh! Did you hear something? I thought I heard a car door.”

“June, he’s back,” I whispered. We held our breath and listened to the squeak of the old door hinges at the front entrance. “Quick, let’s get out of here!”