Grab & Go (Mayfield Cozy Mystery Book 2) Page 15

  I wondered if Skip knew how closely the FBI was hounding him. Was the pawn shop visit caught on camera a slip-up or intentional? At this point, I wouldn’t put anything past him.

  I had no way to warn him. I wasn’t sure I wanted to even if I could. It might be safer for him to be arrested. Was he being forced into this evasive action? Maybe he was an unwilling participant in the whole scheme.

  Actually, that last idea was the one thing I could not convince myself of. Skip was a planner. He’d know what he was doing.

  I ran a finger along the edge of his Polaroid, wishing I could read what he was thinking behind that squint into the lens.

  Who’d taken the picture? I gasped and leaned closer. There was a long, narrow shadow across the dead grass. The bend of the silhouette’s cocked elbow — held at a right angle to his, or her, body as he, or she, peered through the viewfinder — covered the bare toes on Skip’s right foot.

  All it meant was that the picture was taken either shortly after sunrise or before sunset, when the sun was low and shadows were most distorted. But it was a person. Skip was not alone.

  Kidnapper or friend?

  I’d have to give Matt the picture. Maybe it held clues I couldn’t discern.

  CHAPTER 20

  The next day, Christmas Eve, was a tightly scheduled affair, thanks to Clarice. She’d entered our tasks in a spreadsheet and printed a master copy for the kitchen table and pocket copies for each of her conscripts — Emmie, Eli, Dill, Thomas, Bodie, Jermaine, Rico and me. We each had a column outlining the jobs we were to do and the time windows in which they were to be completed.

  I took one glance at the list and snorted. Clarice was an ambitious woman. But I knew what she was after — a Christmas to remember for the boys.

  No one complained.

  In fact, a buzz of giddiness and anticipation ran through every kid I came in contact with. The boys who hadn’t been assigned to mansion duty popped in and tagged around the big rooms, gawking at the preparations. Walt had to run several sorties, trying to corral them and herd them out to attend to their respective chores elsewhere on the property.

  Clarice had laid down the law — no shortcuts. Which meant pressed tablecloths; candles waiting to be lit in the massive candelabra spaced down the length of the long tables in the main hall; a pile of newspaper, kindling and neatly chopped firewood laid on the hearth.

  I scoured the mansion’s storerooms, uncovering a redundant wealth of stoneware serving dishes, plastic bussing tubs, and rolling tray delivery carts from her days as a nursing home. Everything on a grand scale, as it should be.

  Excited chatter, laughter, young voices echoed from room to room. Emmie’s eyes were bright as she counted out piles of dinner plates, salad plates, dessert plates, silverware, water glasses, mugs from the loads I delivered to the kitchen — making sure we’d have enough place settings for the feast. I was learning that she fared best when given a job to do, but safely tucked out of the main flow of traffic. She liked to watch her new world from the sidelines, probably still trying to figure out how she fit in.

  There were only a few glitches. The most persistent glitch was Dwayne. He punctuated our progress like an annoying case of the hiccups. He seemed to be more excited about the activities than all the kids combined. I wondered how many decades he’d gone without a family to celebrate with. He kept diverting Eli, sending the boy on errands to retrieve items from his odd assortment of belongings that Walt had relocated to the mansion’s basement before tearing down Dwayne’s shack and hauling it off.

  I was pretty sure Walt and several of the older boys had located the still and were starting the disassembly process. Once, I caught a glimpse of Bertha bouncing past the kitchen window with her bed piled high with miscellaneous metal tanks, vats, and tubing — a weird, cyclopean mishmash of parts. I hoped the boys weren’t learning too much about the chemistry and mechanics involved in moonshining — a hands-on science lesson that wasn’t a required part of their high school curriculum.

  After a late supper and settling his charges in for the night — which must have been a difficult task, considering how long it took him — Walt hauled a freshly cut tree in through the mansion’s big double front doors and bolted it into a stand in the banquet hall.

  I’d found several boxes of 1950s-era tattered decorations shoved under a staircase in the basement. They were just gaudy enough to be perfect and cheesy at the same time. Then Clarice and I hauled in our stash of gifts and piled them deep around the tree.

  Most of the gifts were practical because that’s what the boys most needed — jeans, heavy winter coats, boots, my knit hats. I hoped they wouldn’t be disappointed. But Walt had helped us select a couple books for each boy based on their interests too. Clarice had allowed one concession to unhealthiness — an online order from an old-fashioned candy source.

  Walt and I sat on the floor with the box between us and a stack of paper bags that needed filling. Charleston Chews, Whoppers, Mallo Cups, Slo Pokes, Valomilks — a wealth of riches. We were going to have a bunch of kids with their tongues stuck to the roofs of their mouths tomorrow, but it would be worth it.

  “You ever had one of these?” Walt tossed a Chick-O-Stick into my lap. “Best ever.”

  “Close second.” I handed him a packet of Lemonheads.

  Walt shook his head. “Makes me feel old.”

  “Speak for yourself.” My hands moved mechanically, dealing Moon Pies into the row of open bags.

  We’d been so busy, but I’d also been putting this off. I glanced at him, his head bent over the sorting, his copper-colored hair glowing in the dim light. “Has Thomas talked to you?”

  Walt’s head popped up, and I got a full dose of those piercing blue eyes. A crease appeared between his brows. “Yeah. He said Dwayne mumbled about scavenging — there when he was trapped in the creek before he lost consciousness. I gathered he was working on Christmas gifts, and wasn’t as foolhardy as I accused him of being.”

  Walt picked at the edge of a Tootsie Roll wrapper. “But it was too late. I’d already condemned the still and his living in that shack. I couldn’t go back on my word in front of the boys. But Dwayne—” His eyes narrowed, stared into me, and worry pinched his face. “I’ve taken away his independence, Nora. I never should have done that. His dignity, his self-respect—”

  I laid a hand on Walt’s arm. “But you asked him to be responsible — for people other than himself — for the first time in a very long time. You did give him the choice to leave. I think he’s risen to your challenge. He was happy today, if a nuisance.” I tried to smile reassurance into Walt.

  But then it was my turn to flinch away. “I meant something else, though, about Thomas. He didn’t mention a late-night prowl?”

  Walt shook his head.

  I bit my lip and admitted to myself that I’d been hoping Thomas would spill the secret so I wouldn’t have to. I was a coward. Walt was waiting now, scowling slightly — too late to escape his scrutiny, and the truth.

  I took a deep breath. “I involved him in an illegal activity. It absolutely wasn’t his fault, and I want to take the blame for all of it. But his skills were invaluable.”

  Was that a trace of a smirk across Walt’s face? His shoulders relaxed, and he resumed dropping candy into bags. “Hotwiring, lock picking, or odds-making?” he asked.

  “Breaking, but no entering — at least not by Thomas,” I whispered.

  Walt rocked back on his heels, his elbows resting on his knees, his voice weary, “He got special dispensation from a very lenient judge to be here. Another infraction, and I won’t be able to keep him out of juvie.” Walt squinted at me from under his brows. “Will anyone be pressing charges?”

  “I think the — uh, target — of our — I mean my — activity isn’t fully aware of it yet. Besides, he has a lot of other things on his mind right now.”

  “This have something to do with the map of Mayfield you borrowed?” Walt pushed the words past a tightness i
n his throat.

  I nodded. The crime had certainly been premeditated on my part.

  Walt didn’t speak for a long minute. He concentrated on crimping the folded top of a bag, forming neat, precise creases. His fingertips were callused, but the nails were clean. Strong, capable, silent, and I’d disappointed him.

  Finally, his eyes returned to my face, probing. “I know you’re in a difficult situation, Nora, but I wish you’d—” He licked his bottom lip, took a deep breath. He was trying to decide how to phrase it — the hard thing that was coming. My stomach knotted.

  “Can’t you trust me?” he murmured.

  My jaw dropped. “I do. Absolutely. But if I tell you everything, you’d be complicit. For the boys’ sake and yours, I can’t.”

  Walt nodded once — short, curt — and rose to his feet in a smooth movement. “Well, then, merry Christmas, Nora.” He strode out through the double front doors which clattered closed behind him.

  oOo

  I awoke feeling as though I’d been pressed into the mattress by a giant plank piled high with river rock. My body was sluggish from lack of sleep, but there was a greater permeating heaviness from my conversation with Walt.

  For a moment, the urge to rebel rose in my chest, a craving to shove all the worries off and be free. I hadn’t asked for any of this.

  But it was a fleeting fantasy. I’d already wrestled with this desire, more than once, and knew my answer. Arguments learned by rote brought me back. Too many people I loved hung in the balance.

  But I felt a new degree of raw solitariness now. I needed Walt on my side. I craved his approval. But I was asking too much. He and I were operating on opposite ends of the right-and-wrong line. Too much distance between us.

  I had a sickening feeling the separation was only going to widen, and not just with Walt. I was plunging away — away from all I knew and into the murky realm where my husband’s mirage wavered, tantalizing, deceptive, just out of reach.

  I swung my feet over the edge of the bed and ran a hand through my tangled hair. I practiced smiling until I could feel the change, the wrinkles at the corners of my eyelids, the muscles bunching in my cheeks. This might just be the best Christmas most of the boys and Emmie had ever experienced, and I meant to keep it that way. But they had the well-honed emotional barometers of abandoned children, and they’d pick up on my inner turmoil in a flash if I wasn’t perfect at faking it.

  It helped that Dwayne was humming — loudly enough that I recognized “Deck the Halls” — when I walked by his closed bedroom door. Along with thumps and bed creaks and paper crinkling. I had the sneaking suspicion the crotchety old coot was wrapping gifts. He gave me the first chuckle of my day.

  A phone call pulled me away from my hurried breakfast of cornflakes and coffee. I slipped outside to the cracked concrete patio for a little privacy. “I was so worried,” I whispered. “I tried calling you yesterday.”

  “I know, darling. I got your messages — all four of them,” Loretta whispered back. “It’s just that, well, Marco was so insistent. I had my hands full. I finally had to pretend I had a hay fever attack to get away.”

  “It’s December,” I said. “There’s no grass pollen in December.”

  Loretta giggled. “It’s a good thing Marco’s not too bright, then, isn’t it? Darling, he just doesn’t have the smarts to be an FBI agent — if you catch my meaning — no amount of good looks will make up for an empty head.” She sighed. “Unfortunately.”

  Being dumb didn’t eliminate the possibility that he might be a member of the mob, though — unfortunately. “What’d he talk about, while you two were—”

  “Nothing,” Loretta interrupted. “Absolutely no shenanigans. Even though he certainly gave it his best effort. I’ll have you know I followed your orders to a T.”

  I grinned into the phone. “Loretta, you’re the best. But what did he say?”

  “Actually, he was a big whiner. Spoiled rich kid. I think Mommy and Daddy socked him away here because they didn’t want to deal with him anymore. Entitled up the wazoo. I got his parents’ names. He seemed to think I should know who they are.”

  I darted back into the kitchen for a paper towel and a pen. Clarice, still swaddled in her voluminous purple robe and slippers, scowled at me over the rim of her coffee mug.

  Back on the freezing patio, I took rapid notes as Loretta ticked off all the bits of information I’d asked for plus more I hadn’t thought to ask for. Her memory and lucidity were amazing.

  “What are you doing today?” I asked.

  “That’s a multiple choice answer. I have a massage scheduled in an hour; then I’ll probably have to take a nap to recover from that; a meal of Tofurkey and wilted spinach salad with cranberry meringue pie for dessert — it’ll taste better than it sounds, really — a football marathon on the big screen in the rec room; and possibly a sing-along this evening. They keep us busy so we don’t have the chance to even think about tippling.”

  “What about Marco? Will he bother you?”

  Loretta giggled. “I doubt it.”

  I wadded up the paper towel and stuffed it in my pocket. “I’m not buying it.”

  Peals of laughter came down the line. “Seriously, Nora, do you have any more assignments for me? This was so much fun.”

  “What happened to Marco?” I growled.

  Loretta responded with a meek, childlike voice. “The hay fever excuse didn’t last very long, and he was mooning outside my door, being a pest. One of the few things they do allow here are sedatives and sleeping pills. You have to jump through about ten flaming hoops to get the doctor to sign off on them, one pill at a time. But I’ve developed quite a collection since I haven’t been taking mine for a while now, so I shared them with Marco, in our late-night wheat grass-mango-avocado-protein smoothie. You see, they have this snack bar where the sweet little barista makes up whatever drink you want, provided it’s green and non-alcoholic, of course. Marco never knew what hit him. I swear I made sure he got back to his room, but they found him this morning, spread-eagle on the squash court, drooling. You know, some of those pills carry warnings about sleepwalking.” Loretta tittered again.

  “How many pills did you mix in his drink?”

  “He’s such a big man,” she sighed.

  Okay, maybe not as lucid as I’d thought. “Merry Christmas, Loretta.”

  “You too, darling. Call me anytime.”

  I quickly left another message for Matt. I supposed that there are common Italian surnames, similar to the Smiths and Joneses in the world. But what were the odds that Marco would share a last name with one of the Numeros on Skip’s list? I just hoped Loretta’s assessment that the cocky young man was also a dimwit was correct. And that he’d sleep long enough for the FBI to roust out of their holiday lethargy and check him out.

  Tarq surprised us all by arriving before we finished washing the breakfast dishes. He dumped a large bag of cracked hazelnuts on the kitchen table as his holiday offering. He’d cleaned up — his khakis baggy but pressed, a long-sleeved button-down blue shirt and argyle vest under his leather jacket, scuffed loafers. And he shoved his hands down into his pants pockets, clearly uncomfortable. I wondered how long it had been since he’d socialized.

  And suddenly, unexpectedly, my eyes welled up. I blinked the tears back quickly, hoping he wouldn’t notice — because I’d caught a whiff, and Tarq smelled just like my dad. Ivory soap and cloves and rubbing alcohol and something else — something I’d never been able to identify — but they both had it.

  Clarice hadn’t said a word in greeting, and I knew she was struck mute by the fact that she was still in her robe. You have to be on a very short list of special people to be allowed to see her in her robe. Tarq was not an approved member of the club, and Clarice was seething silently while splashing suds all over the counter. She and I had both assumed we’d have at least a couple hours and several mugs of coffee before the hubbub began.

  I touched Tarq’s elbow. “We’re
just heading out.” I glanced down into Emmie’s eager face, resplendent with milk mustache. “A little girl I know decided the animals should celebrate Christmas too. Want to join us?”

  Tarq grunted and shuffled to hold open the door.

  Eli appeared out of nowhere and trudged along with us. He grabbed one of the handles of Emmie’s goodie-laden basket so that it swung between them. Our boots crunched on the frosty ground.

  I tucked my arm through Tarq’s and surreptitiously sniffed him again. “I’m glad you came. Des said you got Lee Gomes all riled up.”

  Tarq started to chuckle, but it turned into a rough cough that made him bend at the waist and press his hands into the tops of his knees. I stood awkwardly beside him, waiting for it to pass, my hand on his shoulder.

  “When’s your next doctor’s appointment?” I asked.

  “Don’t see as it’s any of your business.” Tarq wiped spittle off his bottom lip with the back of his hand.

  “I’m incurably nosy.” I slid my arm through his again as we resumed walking.

  Tarq patted my hand, the one that was curled around his faded bicep, and then left his hand over mine. His fingers were soft and warm. “That you are, girlie,” he rasped.

  I peeked at the side of his face out of the corner of my eye and got the impression he was actually pleased by my character defect.

  “I’m taking the meds,” he added, still looking straight ahead. “I want to see this thing through.”

  What could I say? I just squeezed his arm tighter.

  A couple of the boys had trapped Wilbur and Orville, the resident pot-bellied pigs, in an ingenious contraption baited with marshmallows and honey smeared on leftover baked potatoes. They caught a whole family of raccoons and one possum first, but eventually the pigs were reeled in. Now the porcine twins kept the billy goat, otherwise known as the Terminator, company in pens built inside the most structurally sound end of the old calving shed for the winter. We all told ourselves it was for their own good, even though they had turned even more grumpy from being cooped up, safe and dry.