Miz Scarlet and the Imposing Imposter

by Sara M. Barton

  “Boynton asked him to handle this thing with the Jordans a couple weeks ago. Kenny’s been trying to track them down.”

  “You’ve got a campus cop hunting for the missing family?” I asked incredulously.

  “Careful, Miz Scarlet. Your snobby side is showing. For your information, Kenny’s handled a lot of serious crimes in his day.”

  “What? Pot smoking at the frat mixer? Who put soap flakes in the fountain on the quad? Who stole the school mascot at the Princeton-Hahvad football game?” I did my best impression of a snooty Ivy Leaguer. Bur didn’t even crack a smile.

  “He’s dealt with more than one murder, several rapes, a shooting on campus, and even a couple of attempts to hack into the university’s computer system.” Bur glared at me. “You’d better treat him with more respect than you show me. He’s doing us a favor by coming here and looking into this. I don’t want you annoying the hell out of him, like you used to do.”

  “I used to annoy the hell out of Kenny?” That struck me like a bolt of lightning. I could feel the electricity go right through me. When my jaw dropped open, I thought it might actually hit the floor.

  “You’re damned right you did. You shot that poor bastard down more times than I care to recall.”

  “I did?” What are the chances I would get struck by lightning a second time? And yet, here it was. I felt the shock go through me again.

  “Didn’t you know the poor guy had a crush on you?”

  “No way!”

  “I wish I could say it wasn’t true, but it is.” My brother glared at me.

  “Why didn’t you ever tell me?” I demanded, suddenly all too aware of my own frustration. Feeling like a complete fool. How many hours had I wasted, wishing Kenny would notice me long enough for us to have a conversation? Looking back, it seemed that every time I opened my mouth, the wrong words popped out. Kenny always seemed to scurry away, like he couldn’t get away from me fast enough. “You should have told me!”

  “Why? So you could torture the guy while you pranced all around in your little miniskirt?”

  “My miniskirt?” What was the idiot talking about? “I had a crush on him, you big jerk! I thought he wasn’t interested!”

  “Well, he was.”

  “Thanks for the heads up, you big jerk!” I admit it. I have a tendency to get a little huffy when I’m annoyed, and the news that my long lost almost-love had had the hots for me almost sent me over the edge. All that teenage angst was lost to the sad reality that the guy had a wife and three kids now. Too little, too late. Damn, too bad. A cruel twist of fate. I wondered what he looked like now. Probably bald and fat, with fangs and a paunch the size of a basketball. That’s what happened to Delbert Cogswell, former forward on the Cheswick Cheetahs basketball team. He went to work in the family bakery business. Over the last fifteen years, they expanded, adding two more stores. Delbert also expanded. Apparently, he like to sample the goods.

  “He’s coming under the guise of being a guest, Scarlet. We can’t let the other guests know we know him.”

  “Why?”

  “Because maybe one of them is involved in the plot.”

  “Huh.” That took a few seconds to sink in. I had to admit it was possible. That might explain that note on the post. But why would anyone be plotting against us? “The Powicks won’t be leaving until after the relative’s funeral, but he can have their room after they go.”

  “Not soon enough. He’s coming tomorrow.” Bur stood there, arms crossed, waiting for me to solve the problem. I gave it some thought. I couldn’t ask Lonnie and Gretchen to leave ahead of schedule. Time to get creative.

  “Well, we could put him in the library,” I decided. Once in awhile, when we had relatives staying with us, we used it as a temporary guest space because it had an attached bathroom with a small shower stall. If we moved the leather sofa over a few feet, there was just enough room to add a Harvard frame, a double mattress set, and the upholstered headboard we stored in the attic. I could clear out the built-in cabinets that flanked the bookshelves for Kenny to use in lieu of a dresser.

  “That might actually be better. He can come and go as he pleases, especially at night.”

  “He’ll be sneaking in and out of the house?”

  “How else is he going to get a look at what’s going on in Wallace’s house?” Bur wanted to know.

  “Why?” I shook my head in disbelief. “What’s he going to do, hit the guy with a text book? Whack him with a traffic cone?”

  “For your information, Kenny has a permit to carry a weapon and is a licensed private investigator with Mercer Security. Just because the cops at Princeton are unarmed, don’t assume the guy is a total doofus or lacks experience. He was the university liaison to the Princeton Police Department.”

  “Ooh, yeah,” I rolled my eyes. “Princeton’s a real tough city, loaded with organized crime figures, major drug traffickers, and a host of other unscrupulous criminals.”

  “Are you done?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  “You think the guy with the gun just happened to wander onto the grounds one fine day? You think it’s just a coincidence that the Jordans disappeared in the middle of the night? I’m telling you, Scarlet, something fishy is going on.”

  “If you guys are so worried about this, why haven’t you called the cops?” I demanded. “What if something terrible really did happen to that poor family?”

  “Kenny already talked to the cops about this. And the cops said there was nothing they could do without any physical evidence to point to foul play. Besides, we don’t actually know anything bad happened to the Jordans. Maybe they were having family problems. Maybe there’s a perfectly logical explanation for what happened to them.”

  “There’s a guy with a gun in the house, Bur. Does that really seem likely? If you ask me....” I didn’t get far before my older brother cut me off.

  “Well, I didn’t. Now, why don’t you take your derriere back to the inn and get started on the library? Leave the heavy lifting to Kenny and me.”

  “The heavy lifting? Why don’t you....”

  “Ah, ah, ah!” He wagged a warning finger in my direction before he grabbed his keys off the counter and opened the door. “Watch that mouth, Miz Scarlet. Come on. I want to go talk to Mom and Lacey. We need to make sure they don’t give Kenny’s secret away.”

  “Do you honestly think one of the guests is somehow involved?” This time I was serious when I posed the question to my older brother. He gave me an equally serious answer.

  “Well, I think there’s a good possibility. Something happened to the Jordans. Kenny just informed me there’s been no sign of any of the family since they disappeared. They have plenty of money in their bank accounts, their credit cards haven’t been used anywhere, and they never offered a forwarding address for their mail.”

  “Why would anyone want to hurt them?”

  “Kenny thinks it might have something to do with Jim’s history as a hacker. Maybe his past is catching up to him.”

  Chapter Five --

  “But his wife is a reporter. Don’t her colleagues care that she’s gone missing?”

  “According to the station manager, she sent him an email when they first disappeared and said they were taking an extended trip to handle a family emergency. She wasn’t sure when they would be back.”

  “If they had time to let her boss know, how come they didn’t email Boynton?”

  “Maybe they weren’t worried about that. It happens,” he replied nonchalantly.

  “Or someone was worried her colleagues at the news station would start looking into it. Maybe they were trying to prevent that from happening.”

  “Could be. Or maybe Boynton missed the email, accidentally deleted it.”

  “You really believe that, especially after the guy showed up at Wallace’s place with a weapon?” I gave my brother a disappointed look. “It’s pretty clear now that something very unsavory is going on.”

  “Bo
ynton told Kenny the fridge was still filled with food when Willow went in to check on the place three weeks ago, but all the clothing and toys were removed. They left things like the bikes and the outdoor gear.”

  “Why would you only take clothing and toys?” I wondered. “Why not take it all? Or leave it all behind?”

  “Maybe that was all they could carry.”

  “Carry?”

  “Either that or they didn’t have to go far.” Bur suggested.

  “What do you mean they didn’t go far?”

  “I don’t have a clue, Miz Scarlet. Can we get going now?”

  “Sure.” Even as I moved past him, Scrub Oak in my possession for the trip back to the inn, I wondered if it was possible that the Jordans were still around. And if they were, did they have a reason for hiding from us? “Wait!”

  “What?”

  “Maybe you should hold onto the evidence until Kenny gets here.” I held out the bag with the knife and note to him.

  “What am I supposed to do with these?” He looked at me with a considerable amount of skepticism.

  “Put them somewhere safe, somewhere no one will find them. Just in case,” I decided, “this thing turns into something big.”

  Bur studied my face for a long moment before he snatched the bag from my hand, crossed the floor into his kitchen, grabbed the margarine container and tossed them both into his freezer compartment. “There. Who’s going to look behind the Breyers for the evidence? Happy now?”

  “Sort of.” I still felt a little jittery. Whatever was going on up at Wallace’s house, it wasn’t good. I could only hope Kenny was up to the task. Even my old feelings of excitement at seeing my high school crush were tempered by my concern for the Jordan family.

  Jere called me at six, wanting to know if I could join him for a drink later in the evening.

  “Please, Scarlet. I really need to talk to you about something important.”

  “Can’t it wait?” The man had a knack for bad timing. My mind was on Kenny’s arrival tomorrow. The last thing I felt like doing tonight was listening to Jere talk about himself. I didn’t have it in me to pretend that he was the guy who made my head spin or my knees go weak. All I wanted to do was get lost in the fantasy that Kenny would waltz through that door and confess that he had never gotten over me, even if he would forever remain faithful to his wife.

  “I know it’s short notice, Scarlet, but I have something important to share with you.”

  “But....” He cut me off as I started to protest and Jere persevered until I reluctantly agreed to meet him at the pub. I consoled myself with the promise that once I got this over with, I could clear my calendar and concentrate on the one that got away. The trouble with dating the runner-up is he’s never fascinating enough to steal your heart and eventually it’s almost impossible to stay in the life raft with him.

  When Jeremiah Wellstone finished teaching his night classes, we sometimes took in a movie or went out to dinner, although lately our dates seemed fewer and far between. He had never been an exciting conversationalist, given the fact he was your basic computer nerd who used to be the high school media guy. But ever since he landed the job as head of computer science and social media at Turner Community College a year ago, he’d gotten to be an even stuffier know-it-all. All that was missing were leather patches on his tweed sports jacket and a Peterson pipe with a pouch of aromatic tobacco in his pocket. The wannabe Professor Higgins began lecturing me every time we got together in lofty terms about the state of higher education today, like I was his Eliza Do-Little. Lots of blah-blah-blah instead of the usual blah-blah.

  I had known him for almost a decade, but we’d only been dating off and on for the last year. For most of that time, he had pursued me with an ardor that totally baffled me. It wasn’t like we had all that much in common, other than we both hung out with the education crowd in town. Jere just picked up the scent of rejection and just couldn’t let it go. Somewhere, back a few eons ago, shortly after hitting the big four-oh, it seemed like men stopped making more than passes at me. Was it the fact that I lived with my folks? Had I surrendered my soul when I became my mother’s caregiver, somehow dumbing myself down? Did I just settle, take the easy road to romance? Or was it because after Ned dragged me through the mud and drop-kicked me across the football field, all for the sport of it, I just wanted an uncomplicated man? That’s certainly what I got with Jere. He hung in there in the scrum, and after a while, his were the only invitations.

  Right from the start, I knew it wasn’t a relationship that would ever challenge my heart. Maybe that’s what I was looking for, the chance to go through the motions of romance without the risk. My heart was numb, and I wasn’t interested in being revived, not after Ned. But now...things changed for me. Why I was suddenly so disenchanted with Jere, more so than usual? Was it just me? Or was it Kenny coming back into my life? Married or not, he was a painful reminder of how far I wandered from my hopes and dreams and into the arms of a man I didn’t even respect. Part of a pattern.

  “I guess it’s time to fish or cut bait,” I said aloud, even as Huck raised his head from his napping position on the floor by the radiator, wondering if this conversation involved him in any way. He was a typical male in many ways, and his main interests involved food and sports. Was I going to feed him or could he go out to play? He used to have a third preoccupation, but the vet did a few snips and that became a faint memory for the little stud.

  Lately, I found myself voicing my opinions to no one, muttering under my breath, or sometimes even as if just speaking to a friend. I tried to keep it to a minimum unless the dogs were around, and then I would pretend that I was talking to them.

  Tonight was the night. It was now or never. Time to let go of the sure thing I was sure I didn’t want. How would Jere take it when I cut that cord? I tried to picture him heartbroken, but I just couldn’t. Truth be told, I didn’t really believe he’d miss me much. Somewhere along the way, I realized I was just a seat filler, someone to talk at, not to talk with, and the realization made me both sad and relieved. A part of me still knew I had wasted these last several months with Jere, but I needed time and space to fill that gaping hole where my heart used to be before Ned ripped it out with his bare hands, still beating, and dissected it without the benefit of anesthesia. I had never thought I could ever feel that much for another human being before, so imagine my shock to find out only too late that I loved Ned right down to the core of my being. It was agony to go on without him, and the fact that I had a duty to take care of my mother was probably the only thing that kept me from going off the deep end of life. I threw all my energy into making her life as pleasant as possible and I told myself that Ned’s loss was someone else’s gain. As much as I believed it then, I knew now it wasn’t Jere who should benefit.

  “Maybe I don’t want a man,” I confided to Huck. “I want to come and go as I please, without answering to anyone.”

  Leave it to the tiny terrier to whimper in response. He just wasn’t buying what I was selling. Who was I kidding? I wasn’t buying it either. It hurt to admit I wanted a man. I wanted strong arms to hold me and a bearded cheek against mine. I reached down and scooped up the eager pup.

  “How come I can’t find a guy like you?” Burying my nose in the nape of his neck, I nuzzled Huckleberry. “What do you think, time for a walk?”

  What would I do differently without Jere in my life? How would I fill the hours once the relationship was severed? It wouldn’t be hard -- my passions were calling to me. I wanted some adventure. I wanted to explore the world, broaden my horizons, take some chances. Most of all, I wanted real love. I didn’t just want a boyfriend to hang out with -- it wasn’t enough. I was hungry, hungry for real feelings. Maybe it was that I was turning fifty soon, but I wanted to feel love in every inch of my body, from my head to my toes. Had I left it too late?

  “What do you think, Huck?” The little Yorkie sat at my feet, looking up at me with those brown eyes. That furry
head cocked this way and that way as I talked, as if he were trying to decide. Oh, Lordy. I was going to be one of those wacky women who bent her pooch’s ear with all her misery over men. Poor Huck would probably wind up in a rhinestone-encrusted satin jacket with “Killer” embroidered on the back, the canine version of Liberace, all because I couldn’t find the right man to share my life.

  I thought long and hard about all this as I worked in the kitchen, putting the finishing touches on dinner. It haunted me like onion stink. Was it too late? Had life already passed me by?

  “I hate to bother you,” said a woman’s voice from the doorway. It was Gretchen.

  “What can I do for you?” I asked, wiping my hands on the chef’s towel tucked into my apron band. I stirred the ginger glaze for the carrots, glancing up at her as I turned down the heat. She seemed apologetic and slightly anxious.

  “We were about to leave for the calling hours and I realized I don’t know where I’m going.”

  Gretchen needed driving directions, so I led her into the library, where I punched the address she gave me up on the ancient Mac. When the map loaded, I showed her the street view for the Downey Funeral Home. I stood behind Gretchen as she sat at the desk, and as I did, my eyes wandered to her open purse. Purple leather, black satin lining, lots of silver bling. It was short and squat, sitting flat and wide, like a hungry mouth. Part of me felt guilty peeking inside, given my moral stand on guest privacy, but part of me thought about how much I could lose if I didn’t make sure the inn was protected from harm. A crocodile-patterned wallet, a green plastic brush, a leopard-print makeup bag, and a pearl-encrusted Smartphone case. Normal things for a woman to stash in a bag. No visible slingshot. No metal ammunition. A Hershey’s candy bar. With or without almonds? I wondered briefly if that even mattered. It’s not like you can kill someone with a candy bar, unless there are almonds and the victim has a nut allergy.