The Chocolate Falcon Fraud (22 page)

The coast guard and the Michigan State Police sent boats to join the search for Oshawna. Their efforts were useless. Her body washed up near Holland five days later.

Except for a bad bruise on her arm, probably made by my crutch, Tess was unharmed by her fall from one deck to the other and her dunking in Lake Michigan. And his swim in the cold, dark waters seemed to invigorate Jeff. He sounded tip-top as he called his parents to report on our escape.

We headed back to Warner Pier, with Joe at the helm of the yacht and one of the Warner Pier Police boat volunteers as crew. Joe wasn't even pretending not to be enjoying his temporary status as “captain” of the beautiful yacht. The phrase “basking in it” comes to mind.

Noel Kayro, of course, had been shifted to the police boat, which had a place to lock him up. I was still feeling queasy and sat in an easy chair in the main salon, ready to jump for a nearby head. Tess was wrapped in a blanket and stretched out on a couch with her head in Jeff's lap.

“It's a miracle you didn't break a leg when you fell onto the swim platform,” I said.

“I managed to land on top of Patsy,” she said. “She finally did me a favor.”

“Patsy? Oshawna's real name is Patsy?”

Tess nodded.

“And how did you know that?” I asked.

“I've known Patsy since my freshman year,” Tess said. “Jeff met her, too. She and I were in the same dorm. Recently she worked for Jeff's dad.”

“Patsy!” I finally got it. “Alicia told me you had a friend in Michigan named Patricia.”

“Not a friend,” Tess said.

“Alicia said you got Patsy a job,” I said.

“I found Patsy when Alicia needed someone in a hurry.”

“But you weren't friends?”

“Patsy and I knew each other, but we were basically enemies. In fact, I've been wondering if this whole thing started because she couldn't stand me. She made a big play for Jeff our sophomore year.”

“She did not!” Jeff said.

“She did, too!” Tess glared at him.

I decided to head off that little tiff. “But you still helped her get a job?”

“Oh, sure. She needed money, and Alicia needed a receptionist.” Tess' eyes got wide. “I wasn't trying to play up to Patsy! It just happened. And I bet she got a lot of information about Jeff and his family by working there. Such as when the boss and his wife would be back from Peru. You know office gossip.”

“But why didn't you tell us who she was earlier?”

“I never saw her until she waylaid me in the ladies' room, Lee. She was able to fool Jeff because he hadn't seen much of her in a couple of years. And she was great at makeup and changing her appearance. I think she deliberately dodged me up here, because I would have known her in any disguise. Then, after we were kidnapped, I didn't say anything because I thought it was smarter to pretend I didn't recognize her.”

Tess sat up and looked at me with tears in her eyes. “I'd hate to think anybody hated me so much that they caused all this trouble—and that people actually died because of our feud.”

“I think Oshawna—or Patsy—was responsible for causing her own and other people's problems. You can't blame yourself.”

Tess looked uncertain. “I don't know.”

“I guess I don't know either. But I feel too rotten to discuss philosophy.” I ran for the head again. And when I came out, Tess and I dropped that subject.

“I wish Hogan was on this boat,” she said. “I've got some questions I hope he can answer.”

“He's probably too busy tonight. What do you want to ask him?”

“Why on earth Captain Jacobs brought that worthless falcon to your house.”

“I'd like to know what you did with it. And why.”

“Oh. I sent it to myself at your house, by UPS.” Tess hung her head. “Sort of like Sam Spade did when he put the falcon in a locker and mailed the key. It seemed like a good idea at the time. But why did the captain even have it?”

“I don't know,” I said. “I wonder if Hogan can explain who was in Dallas.”

“Whom do you mean?”

“Oshawna and Kayro called somebody down there, somebody who was to contact Jeff's folks and pick up the ransom. Who was that?”

“I can take a guess,” Jeff said. “I think it might have been Hal. Hal Hale.”

“But isn't Kayro Hal?”

Jeff shook his head. “No, he isn't. At least he's not the Hal I worked with at the museum. I don't know who this Kayro guy is.”

There were other questions, but at that point Joe gave a loud whistle from the bridge, and we all looked at him. “Lighthouse ho!” he said. “If I've aimed this thing right, we're coming up on the Warner River. Prepare for a joyful homecoming.”

Joyful was right, at least for me. As any sufferer from motion sickness can testify, as soon as you stop moving, you're okay. The smooth ride up the river settled my innards, and walking across the gangway at the marina completed the cure. I didn't kiss the ground, but I sure was tempted.

Hogan promised to meet everyone for brunch the next morning and answer any questions he could. “I don't have all the answers yet,” he said. “I'm guessing at a lot of it.”

The next morning we gathered in the private room at the Sidewalk Café, one of Joe's stepfather's restaurants. After indulging in omelets, pancakes, bacon, and other goodies, all of us stared at Hogan, ready to hear the story.

They had identified the participants as Patsy Parker, whose pseudonym was Oshawna Bridges; Hal Hale, who had volunteered with Jeff at the Dallas museum, and Linwood Yardley, who at noir events went by Noel Kayro.

In a phone call Grossman had told Hogan that Yardley was a sort of manager for his yacht. He was not a licensed captain, but made sure that the vessel had a proper crew, ordered supplies, and took care of other details for Grossman. He had sailed on the yacht often, Grossman said, and was perfectly capable of taking her on short trips.

His full-time job, Grossman said, was as a professional researcher. Jeff had been perfectly right about Grossman. He didn't know squat about noir, because he didn't do his own research. He just parroted what Yardley told him.

“Research apparently doesn't pay much,” Hogan said to us. “Grossman hired him to work on the yacht part-time because he looked so much like that actor Peter Lorre. His job included assisting Grossman at conventions where he was speaking.”

Patsy, Hal, and Kayro met at a film noir convention in San Antonio, perhaps drawn by Hal's and Kayro's resemblance to each other, as well as to Peter Lorre. Patsy was earning a little extra money at the event by doing makeup for fans who wanted to look like Hammett characters.

It was Patsy who mentioned a fellow noir fan in Dallas who came from a wealthy family and who, or so she thought, would be easy to entice with a con job. Hogan was tactful enough not to use the word “innocent” in front of Jeff. No twenty-two-year-old guy likes to be accused of being innocent.

Hal and Yardley liked the idea. A plot was born.

Bur Jeff was, after all, a history major, and the three plotters had underestimated his ability as a researcher. He scoffed at their initial attempt at a con job, the Mary Astor pendant. Unwilling to abandon their plan, Patsy, Kayro, and Hal considered
kidnapping him. At this point Patsy revealed that she was one of several cousins who had inherited a cabin deep in the woods of Michigan. A cabin not currently occupied.

The perfect place to keep a kidnap victim.

Patsy also kept track of Jeff's parents through office gossip. If they were out of the country, for example, Jeff would not be able to ask for money to buy falcon items. But they had to be back in time to pay his ransom.

But the plotters had to come up with something that would attract Jeff to Michigan. And they'd have to convince him he should keep his trip secret. Scanning the Internet, Hal discovered our Warner Pier Film Festival. He was relieved to learn Jeff was interested in going. Kayro urged Grossman, his boss, to offer a big prize for information on a third Maltese Falcon. Apparently Grossman really believed Kayro's story of a possible third falcon.

At the same time, Hal and Kayro began corresponding with Jeff, pretending to represent the fictional “Falcone Memorabilia.” Jeff kept quiet about the possibility of a third falcon, mainly because he doubted it existed. But if it did, he wanted to profit from it himself.

Then the conspirators made a big mistake. They assumed that Jeff was in Dallas and would meekly stay there until they invited him to visit Falcone's in Michigan. They thought it would take at least three days for him to drive to Michigan and then he'd need directions to their remote location.

Actually Jeff had already left for Michigan, thinking he'd see Joe, Aunt Nettie, Hogan, and me before the film festival began.

And by quizzing the Dorinda postmaster he figured out how to reach Falcone's on his own initiative, then simply got in
his car and drove out there. He arrived days before Patsy and Kayro were ready to imprison him.

When he approached the cabin in the woods, no one was there but Patsy. And she couldn't get to her gun.

Patsy, in her Oshawna persona, could not convince Jeff he should stay around long enough for Kayro to help her imprison him.

As Jeff drove off, she followed him out to Lake Shore Drive. At a deserted spot less than a mile from our house, she forced his car off the road. Jeff's head hit the windshield, but he managed to hide in the bushes, then reach our house. Confused by his injury, he climbed into the attic and passed out.

Meanwhile, Patsy and Kayro moved Jeff's car miles away from the scene of his crash and tried to hide it in heavy woods.

Again the conspirators thought they would have to give up the plot to kidnap Jeff. They thought he was probably dead.

Patsy and Kayro searched desperately for Jeff. Joe and I came across them at the Holiday Inn Express, where Kayro was checking in. He overheard me telling the manager that Jeff had been in an accident and was hospitalized. Meanwhile Patsy, disguised as Wilmer, tried to get into Jeff's room. Apparently she was noisy about it; the woman across the hall complained, to us and to the front desk.

Patsy also tried to find Jeff in the hospital, but because Jeff had been admitted as “J. R. Ewing,” rather than under his own name, she couldn't find him.

Then the yacht's captain, Jacobs, blundered onto the plot. Or that was what Hogan believed. “He figured out something was wrong,” he said. “Maybe he eavesdropped. Or maybe it was the bolt on the outside of the stateroom door. That pretty much indicated someone was going to be locked inside.”

Jeff spoke. “I've never understood why he took that silly fake falcon.”

“You forget that everybody doesn't know as much about the
Maltese Falcon
as you do, Jeff. Jacobs just signed on for the trip. He may have thought the falcon was real. The question is, why did he think he should take it to Joe?”

Joe nodded. “All I can think is that I may have made some comment about the police chief being a relative. That's pretty far-fetched, but it's all I've come up with. Anyway, I guess it's definite that Oshawna—Patsy—shot him. We didn't hear the shot, so he must have walked quite a way before he reached our house.”

I tried not to think about that. Poor guy.

When Jeff had finally come out in public, he had a bodyguard, making it hard for the kidnappers to approach him. Improvising, Patsy and Kayro kidnapped Tess, taking me along because I stumbled onto the scene.

Just as it became clear that Tess and I were missing, Patsy walked through the theater's lobby and left Jeff a note. “Come along with me, or Tess and Lee are dead.”

Jeff didn't hesitate. He was brave, but maybe not too smart. He waited until Bodyguard Bob went into a stall in the men's room, then jammed the door shut and split. But he wasn't completely stupid. He had taken Tess' bug from his car that morning. For his kidnapping, he put the thing in his pocket with his cell phone. Even when the crooks took the cell phone away from him, they missed the bug.

“It took me a little while to catch on,” Hogan said, “but we were able to follow the signal. We knew where he was pretty soon.”

The coast guard used their radar to help locate
La Paloma
in the right area, and Hogan and his crew, with backup from the Michigan State Police, headed out in the Warner Pier Police boat, a vessel they own primarily for more ordinary boating emergencies.

Hogan smiled. “Thanks to the kidnapped people turning on the kidnappers . . .”

“And Lee hitting Oshawna with her crutch!” Tess said.

“And Jeff chewing his ropes off!” I said.

“And Tess bulldogging Kayro!” Jeff said.

“Anyway,” Hogan said, “I'm not a praying man, I'm afraid, but we all ought to be down on our knees.”

There was a long moment of silence. And I think quite a few prayers were flying upward.