See Something, page 15
“I get it,” I said. “The bad guy will know where I am, but so will you.”
“Exactly. Whenever this car moves, someone from the department will be on your tail in an unmarked car. I’m betting we’ll have this guy within a day. We’re checking Emily’s dad’s Jeep too. I won’t be surprised to find one of these babies under it.”
“I can see why these people are interested in Emily,” I said. “She’s actually seen them. She may have witnessed a murder. But why do they care where I am?”
“You were the first person to get to Emily—besides the pigeon lady. And your house is the only place she’s been except for the jail and her parents’ condo. The only other person besides Emily they think could identify them and could connect them to the real estate scam was John Sawtelle.”
“And he’s dead.” Aunt Ibby finished the thought. “Oh dear. This isn’t good at all.”
“Don’t worry, Ms. Russell—I mean Ibby. We’re on it.”
“But I’m not on to anything,” I protested. “Emily never told me anything about her job or exactly what she and Mr. Sawtelle were doing in Salem in the first place.”
He removed a square black device and a roll of electrical tape from the toolbox. “Unlock the doors to the Vette, will you, Lee? I’m going to hard wire this tracker.” He got into the driver’s seat and pushed the seat back. “They know Emily is confined to home most of the time. But you’re easy to keep track of—and they know you have access to Emily.”
“Holy cow.” That old imaginary light bulb went on over my head. “So do the Angels. Betsy even has her phone number. Are they following Betsy and Louisa too? And what about Aunt Ibby?”
“Yes,” my aunt chimed in. “What about us?”
“There’s no indication of that. Hand me that screwdriver, will you, Lee?” He pointed to the toolbox. I gave him the tool he’d indicated. I could tell that he was being extra careful removing the dash. He knows how much I love my car. “I know you both realize this real estate scam is big. Possibly a multi-state operation. The two guys we’re looking for may be pretty far down on the list of players. They’ve probably been told to clean up their mess.”
O’Ryan began to meow.
“All right, dear cat,” Aunt Ibby said. “I know we’re late for happy hour.” She opened the side door. My aunt and O’Ryan spend this special time together most evenings. She with wine, he with homemade chicken broth. “I’ll leave you two to your spy tactics. O’Ryan and I will be at home.”
“This won’t take much longer,” Pete said. “Twenty minutes or so.”
“What about Katie?” I asked. “Whoever put that tracker on here must know she saw him.”
“I sent an officer over to talk to Katie this afternoon. She was really helpful. Can you aim the flashlight for a minute while I strip the wire?”
I focused the light where he’d indicated. “Helpful how?”
“Really good description. Looks like the man Katie saw is the blond guy in Dakota’s pictures, but with dyed black hair and horn-rimmed glasses.”
“I didn’t get a good look at the man driving the Mazda,” I said, “but he could have had black hair.”
“That’s okay. Katie got a fairly close look at him. We had Dakota redo his picture to match Katie’s description. You’ll see the new version on TV and the newspapers by tonight.”
“That was fast.”
“We need to catch these guys fast. We’ve had a couple of calls about the other one—the one with the beard. He’s apparently a real estate agent. The callers each gave a different name for him though.”
“Does either name mean anything?”
“One sure does. It’s Alfred Pridholm.”
“The card in the purse Emily borrowed,” I said. “But she didn’t have my purse when the murder happened. Do you think she deliberately put it there for me to find?”
“Exactly when did you give her the purse, Lee?” Pete pushed the dashboard firmly into place and carefully rubbed the surface with a sanitized wipe.
“It was when she was still Janie. Before she remembered anything,” I said. “But where did the card come from? She didn’t have her own purse until it showed up in the Audi. I gave her jeans and a blouse and underwear.”
“What did she do with her own clothes?”
“She put them down the laundry chute in my bathroom.”
“Do you suppose she emptied the pockets before she did that?” He closed the door to the Vette. “By the way, did you go to the grocery store?”
“I did. We have food. And yes, she probably emptied them. I know I would, whether I’d lost my memory or not.” I could almost see it. “There were pockets in her sweater. I saw her take out a tissue when she was on the common. She probably emptied the pockets and put whatever was there into the purse.”
“Like maybe a package of tissues or a stick of gum or a business card.”
“Sure. Things like that.”
“So she put the card into the purse before she got her memory back.” We left the garage and I locked the door. He jiggled the knob. “Allegedly,” he added as we walked toward the house.
“Allegedly what?”
“Allegedly got her memory back.”
“You’re still doubting her story, aren’t you?” I felt a little flash of red-haired temper. “Pete, she’s obviously telling the truth.”
“I just follow the evidence, Lee. That’s my job. The business card is evidence.”
I repressed a sigh. “Okay. I guess so. I understand.” I stopped beside Aunt Ibby’s garden and glanced over the fence. “I wonder if we could make a butterfly garden here.” I was starting to get really good at subject-changing.
“I’m sure my sister would be glad to help,” he said. “Your aunt would probably like it. The plants are pretty. Marie says it attracts hummingbirds too.”
“I’ll talk to her about it,” I said. O’Ryan strolled toward us. “How do you feel about butterflies, O’Ryan?”
“Meh,” he said, which I took to mean he didn’t care one way or the other and we followed him into the house. Aunt Ibby didn’t express much interest in the butterflies either. She was much more concerned with my double-bugged car. “I don’t like the idea of someone following you, Maralee. I mean, even if Pete and the other police know where you are, that doesn’t mean they can get to you soon enough to protect you from who-knows-what.”
“We’ll be close by, Ibby,” Pete promised. “Wherever the Vette goes, one of us will be right around the corner. I promise.”
His words brought a slight smile. “You promise?”
“Of course. You don’t think for one minute I’ll ever let anything bad happen to her, do you?” He reached for my hand.
“I know that,” she said. “Maralee has been my child since she was a baby. I worry.”
I wanted to hug them both. In that moment I felt truly loved. “I’ll be fine,” I told them. “They’ll have those two guys by tomorrow.”
“Wouldn’t be a bit surprised,” Pete said. “Meanwhile we’re looking over the tapes from that outdated old security camera on the WICH-TV building. If that Mazda was within camera range, we might get the license plate number.”
“It’s possible, I guess.” I wasn’t too hopeful about the possibility. Pete was right about the age and condition of the security system—clearly not one of Mr. Doan’s top priorities.
“We’ll find him.” Pete’s cop voice was edgy. Stern. I believed him. So I changed subjects again.
“I did a little grocery shopping,” I said. “Pete’s going to brave my cooking tonight.”
“I’m sure it’ll be delicious,” my aunt said, with conviction.
“I’m sure it will,” Pete said, with hope.
CHAPTER 26
While Pete moved the Buick into the garage, I gathered together the items I’d bought for an Italian dinner—angel-hair pasta, ajar of Ragu, a frozen package of mixed vegetables (onions and red and green bell peppers), a bag of salad mix, a fresh loaf of Italian bread, and a frozen Sara Lee strawberry cheesecake. I already had grated Parmesan cheese, Italian dressing, dipping oil for the bread, and a bottle of red wine. A meal not much like Pete’s Grandma used to make, but I figured the general effect would be okay.
While I dumped the salad into a pretty bowl, Pete prepared the spaghetti al dente. (It’s al dente, Pete’s grandma had claimed, when a strand sticks when it’s tossed at a wall.) The sauce with seasonings bubbled nicely while the bread warmed and the cheesecake thawed.
The general effect, if I do say so myself, was excellent. Pete declared that everything was delicious, and I decided that this domestic diva thing wasn’t so difficult after all. I made a mental note to buy a copy of Wanda’s cookbook when it was ready.
As we relaxed with after-dinner coffee and cheesecake, I told Pete about Scott and Jim’s cushy boat tour assignment. “They call it a Murder Mystery Tour. It’ll be the feature on the late news, I suppose.”
“Let’s watch it. You never got an assignment like that, did you?”
“Tell me about it.” I chased the last crumb of cheesecake around my plate. “I’ll be interested to see what Scott does with it—besides give the tour some free advertising.”
While Pete and I lingered over coffee, O’Ryan had already declared bedtime by climbing up onto my bed, turning around three times, and plunking himself down facing the TV. We took the hint. While I straightened up the kitchen and loaded the dishwasher, Pete headed for the shower. He was still in the bathroom when I’d finished my after-dinner chores, so I grabbed white satin pajamas and went downstairs to my second-floor childhood bedroom to use the facilities there.
Aunt Ibby’s housekeeper takes charge of keeping everything spic-and-span on the first two floors of the house. I saw that the winter bedspread and draperies had been replaced with lighter, more colorful summery patterns, and I smiled when I spotted my old Ranger Rob and Katie the Clown dolls on the window seat. Aunt Ibby’s special touch, I knew. She’d brought them down from the attic because the real-life pair were now in my grown-up world. I crossed the room and picked up the Katie doll. She looked as good as new. So did Rob. I figured they’d probably had a trip to the dry cleaners along with Emily’s pink sweater. I sure do love you, Aunt Ibby.
Pete was already in bed with O’Ryan, and the TV was on, tuned to Nightly News with Buck Covington, when I came back upstairs. Snuggling in between man and cat, I watched handsome Buck as he did his usual flawless job of reading the national news from the teleprompter. When he broke for a My Pillow ad, I told Pete about the dolls. “They look just like they did when I was a kid,” I said. “Katie’s clown suit and her orange yarn hair and Rob’s little checked shirt and blue jeans—even Katie’s clown shoes and Rob’s boots look the same.”
“They must be collectors’ items by now,” Pete said. “I’ll bet you could do an interesting field report about them. You could interview one of the antiques dealers on that Shopping Salem show.”
“You know, that’s not a bad idea—even though I really don’t want to be a reporter anymore. Hey look, there’s the teaser for Scott’s segment.”
The thirty-second teaser began with a slow-rolling drone’s view of Collins Cove Beach, which made it look much more desolate and lonely than it actually is, followed by clips from the video of Scott in front of the no-trespassing signs at the Conant preserve, winding up with a montage of shots of the charred hull of the ruined Starcraft Islander. The accompanying audio promised “a close-up view of an ongoing investigation into murder from WICH-TV’s field reporter, Scott Palmer. Stay tuned.”
We stayed tuned. As promised, Buck Covington wound up the newscast, with Scott on hand in person to do commentary. The video began with a shot of the sleek, eighty-foot party boat at the Pickering Wharf, where a crowd of people were lined up for seats on the Murder Mystery Tour. Old Jim had panned his camera along the line of customers. I’d learned from working with Jim that when he pauses the camera during a standard shot like that—it means he’s spotted something worth noting. He paused for a fraction of a second too long on one of those patrons.
“Did you see that?” I sat straight up, dislodging O’Ryan, and pointed to the screen.
“The Viking-looking guy with the red beard and the aviator mirrored sunglasses?” Pete was already out of bed and reaching for his phone. “I sure did.”
“The kindly high school English teacher, now with a dyed beard,” I said, remembering my impression from the drawing. Even with the beard and glasses, he still looked like my old teacher. “Why would he do something so obvious? It doesn’t make sense. I wonder if Scott caught it.” I grabbed my own phone from the charger on the bedside table. “Gotta call Marty and get still shots of him.”
“The classic case of returning to the scene of the crime,” Pete said. “Happens more often than you’d think.” He shook his head. “But this one gave him a view of the crime locale, a shot of the body dump site, and a look at where they tried to destroy key evidence. A scene-of-the-crime trifecta. Hard to resist, I guess.”
I knew Marty would be on hand at the station. She’d be doing River’s show in a few minutes. While the phone rang I returned my attention to the TV, where Scott described the scene he’d shot at the Conant preserve after I’d given him the tip about police presence there. He followed with the Collins Cove piece and a pretty look at Little Misery Island. Old Jim was playing it straight. No more lingering shots, even at the windup pictures of the charred cabin cruiser. If Scott had noticed that one of the wanted perps was aboard the party boat, he didn’t mention it.
Marty answered on the second ring. “What’s up, Moon?”
“I need some still frames from Scott’s shoot on the party boat,” I said. “Can you grab me some, of the guy with a red beard and mirrored sunglasses, and send them to me ASAP? It’s kind of important.”
“No problem. I’ll get to it right after Tarot Time. You going back to reporting or something?”
“Or something,” I said.
Naturally we were both wide awake by then. Pete’s phone call took longer than mine had. I overheard him ordering a check of the Pickering Wharf security cameras and any onboard cameras the party boat might have, along with records of reservations booked with credit cards.
“Shall we see what River has going on?” I asked when he’d come back to bed. “Maybe the movie is a good one.”
“Might as well,” he said. “You know who else must have recognized Red Beard if he watches the news? Dakota Berman. He’d spot that face in a New York minute.”
“So would Emily Hemenway,” I said. “If she was watching.”
River’s scary movie du jour was the 1968 hit Rosemary’s Baby. Always worth watching again. I managed to stay awake right up to the part where the creepy neighbors invite the young couple to dinner. River had just begun a reading, and with O’Ryan snoring gently beside me and Pete already sound asleep, I decided to join them in dreamland and clicked the TV off.
So much for dreamland. I was back in that soggy mist left over from the last scary movie I’d watched on River’s show. Still in wet flannel pajamas and bare feet, this time I was in a butterfly garden. At least there were lots of butterflies fluttering in and out of the mist. Again I heard someone shout “Run.” I ran. I looked back. The red-bearded man was gaining on me. I tripped over a bucketful of water. Picking it up, I poured water on the advancing man. Of course, like the witch in The Wizard of Oz, he melted—nothing left but aviator glasses and one tasseled shoe.
Once again, O’Ryan came to the rescue, waking me by gently tap-tapping on my nose. “Thank you, darling cat,” I whispered, hugging him. Had this been an important, symbolic, prophetic dream? Or should I just avoid eating cheesecake late at night?
CHAPTER 27
It was one of those nightmares that lingers until morning.
The smell of coffee brewing and the sound of country music told me that Pete was up. I made the bed and selected jeans, shirt, and shoes, dashed for the bathroom, and prepared myself for the day. Pete, of course, was already dressed, groomed, and gorgeous.
More or less put together, I hurried back to the kitchen, put on one of Aunt Ibby’s aprons, and selected the makings of breakfast for Pete and me. My ten items had included orange juice, bacon, eggs, and English muffins. We already had a fresh jar of Aunt Ibby’s homemade strawberry jam. Classic and easy breakfast. Pete poured coffee and fried bacon. I scrambled eggs and manned the toaster. While the last muffin browned nicely, I took a hurried peek at my laptop. Had Marty sent the pictures?
She had. “Pete, look at this. It’s him, all right. I’ll forward these to you.”
He looked over my shoulder. “No doubt about it. He’s playing a dangerous game. Wonder if he’s overconfident or just stupid.”
“Probably a little of each,” I said.
“If you’re not going to use the pictures of Red Beard yourself, are you forwarding them to the news department?” Pete spread a generous blob of jam onto the hot muffin. “Or are you going to give them to Scott Palmer? Or maybe Howard Templeton?”
“We can’t be the only people who recognized him. The station has probably already had dozens of calls. The police station too.” I thought about his question. “Anyway, it was Scott’s shoot. I’ll send them to him without comment. He’ll figure it out.” So that’s what I did—before I could talk myself out of it. I wondered why Old Jim hadn’t tipped him off before last night’s late news. I remembered though, he’d never tipped me off to that lingering camera trick. He’d always let me figure it out for myself. Scott’s return text was swift. “Thanks, Moon. Don’t know how I missed it.”
“We’ll let Emily know about the new disguise,” Pete said. “Not that she’s apt to be out anywhere without a police escort, but just in case.”
“In case they might find a way to get to her?” I wondered aloud. “They’re getting awfully bold. One of them watching me from a bright red Mazda and the other one deliberately letting himself appear on TV.”
