The Hammett Hex

by Victoria Abbott

  Too many pieces that looked the same, too many ends that wouldn’t fit together, so many bits that didn’t add up to a coherent picture. With luck, we’d keep adding small insignificant bits until something began to make sense.

  At Gram’s suggestion, Zoya went sniffing off to hunt for the possibly mythical pistol. I wandered around the house, checking out the many photos on the walls, on dressers and in the bookcase full of photo albums in the large front bedroom that had been William’s. I went through them all, including the box of “extras,” many of which had the names and dates written on back. “Howard and Maisy, Feb 14, 1950,” or “Jean at the beach—July 1, 1994,” in what I figured was William’s spidery handwriting. I love old photos, and not just because of the soft graininess and clothes. I love how they preserve moments from the past. We Kellys do not like to keep that kind of record, in case it’s used against us. As for the Binghams, your guess is as good as mine. The Huddys and the Dekkers liked a record. As Gram had said, there weren’t many of her relatives, but I could spot family traits in Smiley’s great-grandfather, like the wavy blond hair and the gap between his teeth. He and his bride stood solemnly in the one shot of them together. Although she took after the father, I thought I recognized some of Gram’s fun and sparkle in her mother. There were a few more of the couple with a laughing blond baby, then a toddler. Gram’s high school photos were there. I didn’t find a record of her as Mrs. Dekker, but there were plenty of Smiley, with Gram and with the man who must have been her first husband. I didn’t find any of Tyler’s parents, but I could understand that.

  I settled into the recliner and smiled at the picture of Gram and her second husband. It must have been a wedding photo. She was rosy-cheeked and pretty in a cream “mermaid” dress with long sheer sleeves. She carried pink roses. I would have enjoyed seeing who was at this wedding, although obviously the Dekker family had boycotted.

  I flipped through more photo albums wondering who everyone was. There were photos going back to the early 1900s, if I guessed. Most seemed to be relatives on William’s side. I noticed patterns: chubby cheeks here, ski-slope noses there, some were tall and slender, others short and burly. Here and there were photos of bright-eyed toddlers—most likely the cousins—who would probably be in their late twenties now.

  It would be fun to ask Gram about everyone when she wasn’t so caught up in the puzzle. I wondered if they’d be tall and slender or short and burly. Smiley also rated his own album—the one that caused him such guilt—although it stopped when he was around ten. As I thumbed through the others, Gram kept that one close to her. I was sure glad it hadn’t been found when his room was trashed and I was pretty sure he hadn’t told her that he thought our burglars might have been looking for it. I couldn’t bring myself to believe that, though. Scattered here and there in the other album were occasional newspaper clippings about him. High school graduation. Police academy graduation. A few from the Harrison Falls local paper after some of our joint adventures. I figured William Huddy had had warm feelings toward his step-grandson. I felt sadness for Gram as she’d missed out on the boy she loved and for Tyler too. It was an oddly pleasant evening, considering why we were really there—instead of in our sumptuous downtown hotel suite—to make sure Gram and Zoya were not attacked again, plus we were missing the adorable pug and there was a police officer keeping an eye on the place.

  Gram and Tyler enjoyed everything—food, puzzle and each other’s company—immensely. I felt I could share in their joy at having found each other. And better than that, still being the people they’d loved. Special.

  Zoya slouched off to bed first, after first dishing out Gram’s medications. “Iss past your bedtime,” she said.

  “Don’t feel you have to wait for me, Zoya,” Gram said. “I’ll be fine. It’s the first time in many years that I’ve had such fun.” I knew that the fun wasn’t the puzzle. It was Tyler. He knew it too.

  Zoya glared at Smiley and me as if we were ax murderers just waiting for our big chance.

  “It’s all right, Zoya,” Gram said, looking up with a touch of annoyance. “Stop being such a silly goose.”

  I understood Zoya’s position. We were all vulnerable; no one more so than Gram and none of us understood what was really going on. I smiled at her. “Everything will be fine.” Not that I really believed it. Still, it would be a relief to have Zoya not moping, sniffing, blowing her nose and occasionally murmuring Asta’s name.

  With Zoya gone, I glanced out the window at the officer guarding the house. I checked the reinforced back entrance and rattled the lock in the front door. We might not have known why it happened, but we could reasonably expect to be safe this night. And after all, Tyler was a police officer who knew what he was doing.

  I’d already snooped through all the photo albums and framed photos. What now? I decided to be practical and do something. I found a pad of paper and a pen. Sometimes when I’m having trouble sorting things out, it helps to put it on paper.

  So many bizarre things had happened in the few short days since we’d arrived. It seemed a good idea to list them. I made myself at home at the dining room table. It was a warm pleasant room with very comfortable upholstered dining chairs. I could hear Gram and Smiley chatting every now and then and periodically a chirp from a bird.

  I began to write. I had the situation at Gram’s covered with

  HOME INVASION.

  I also added

  MISSING PUG

  and

  ZOYA’S ATTACK

  (although it was probably part of the invasion). That was plenty of weird stuff.

  I also listed the hotel happenings.

  ROOMS TRASHED

  and

  JORDAN ATTACKED.

  These things had to be connected. I closed my eyes and thought about what else might have happened that could have been related. I closed my eyes and mentally worked my way through our vacation hour by hour. There was the dark sedan that had nearly clipped us on our walk back to the hotel. There was the microphone under the table in the restaurant. And there was whoever had pushed me from the cable car.

  I added

  BLACK PRIUS

  to the list. I had to assume it was part of the crazy package. Too bad we hadn’t been able to see anyone in the vehicle. Nor had we noticed an unusual number of dark Priuses lurking around, if you didn’t count the cop cars. Oh. Cop cars. There was the pudgy faux officer who had been supposedly watching the house after the invasion.

  PHONY COP

  went on the list.

  I also added

  RESTAURANT—MIC UNDER TABLE.

  Of course,

  CABLE CAR

  deserved a lot of attention.

  At least there I’d seen other people’s faces on the cable car, unlike the masked intruders, the invisible dog thieves, whoever had trashed our rooms, planted the mic under the table in Magari and pushed me on the hotel stairs and, of course, the unseen driver of the dark sedan.

  I closed my eyes again and tried to recall the people on the cable car. Who had been there? Some familiar faces. I remembered the squealing schoolgirls with their black asymmetrical haircuts with the weird-colored tips, the shredded jeans and the selfie sticks. Now that I thought about it, we’d seen them around the tourist areas and near our hotel. I decided to start a list.

  SUSPECTS

  SCHOOLGIRLS

  went on the list.

  Next, the puffy bickering couple. They’d been at our hotel too.

  BICKERING COUPLE!

  On the list!

  I could hardy forget the hulking guy who’d stood behind me on the cable car: with his large, moon face, tight shirt and general sweatiness. I knew I hadn’t seen him since, but perhaps he’d been in the speeding car. That was probably a stretch. Anyway,

  SWEATY MOON-FACED GUY

  was added.

 
Perhaps the short, bullet-shaped man with the crisply gelled black hair was a better bet. He’d shouldered his way between me and Smiley. Maybe he’d also given me that sharp push.

  BULLET MAN

  went on the list.

  I mentally scanned the other passengers on the cable car to see if any of them matched up with the many people I’d run into since then. None of them matched anyone else I’d noticed around, either in the hotel or on the street or near Gram’s. Of course, the men who invaded Gram’s house were masked and “hatted” so how would I ever know?

  Unless it was the two sweet silver-haired ladies with the Birkenstock sandals and Tilley hats, I was out of suspects. I laughed at the idea but then thought I could hear a Kelly voice saying, No one is who you think they are.

  Fine.

  BIRKS LADIES

  went on the list. I had to chuckle, but you really never know. After all, they were staying in our hotel. They were around in the tourist area and we had seen them in the lobby. They could have overheard Smiley making the dinner plans. They were on the cable car. Could they have pushed me? Yes, but why would they?

  Since I was thinking about the hotel, I added another suspect. The

  MANAGER

  had acted very suspiciously and had insisted on comping us dinner at a restaurant where our conversation was bugged. If that wasn’t weird, I didn’t know what was.

  It seemed like a ridiculous exercise and yet I needed to do something. Doing anything was better than doing nothing. I spent quite a long time trying to come up with more suspects without any success. I wondered whether to add Zoya. She wasn’t happy with our presence. How far would that extend?

  ZOYA.

  Why not?

  I paced around after that and checked on the puzzle addicts in the other room. Plenty of Pacific Ocean still to go. I returned with a cup of herbal tea and stared at my list of bad and weird events and my list of suspects, most of them quite unlikely. How were they connected? Or were they? How could I ever untangle any of it? I needed a better arrangement. I needed a white board or a wall that I could write on and stick photos on, like in an incident room. I needed to be able to make links between people and events and draw dramatic sweeping arrows with black markers. I didn’t think I could do any of that in Gram’s house.

  But I did have an idea. I hustled back to the kitchen and helped myself to a stack of recipe file cards from the drawer. Not dramatic, but useful. And you use what you can. I took half blue cards and half white. Gram had no problem with me using them or anything else in the house. She said as much without taking her eye off the puzzle. “If you want anything, take it, my dear. Anything at all.”

  Excellent.

  The home invasion. The disappearance of the dog. The knocking out of Zoya. The use of the fake cop. The tossing of our rooms in the hotel. The attack on me in the staircase. The near hit-and-run. The push from the cable car. The mic in the restaurant. Every item got a card. Every suspect did too. I used blue for the events and white for the suspects. I placed them on the table and tried to figure out which events could be related to which people. I made notes under each heading. I began to see the odd possibility. Maybe I had seen that large man on the cable car. For instance, the moon-faced man on the cable car and the faux cop were both large and sweaty. There had also been the big, finger-snapping waiter at Magari too. Not sweaty, but large. Were they all the same person? I’d only had a glimpse at the moon-faced man because he’d stood behind me and the faux cop had his cap low on his forehead. But it was possible. And if it was possible, it would have to mean that Moon Face and Faux Cop knew who I was and the connection to Gram and her house. I had been the target on the cable car, not Smiley. So what would that be about? Had they merely followed us? Why? Was our every move being shadowed? I shivered. That was creepy enough to be a Sam Spade case. While I tried to think of explanations and relationships, the stress of the past two days caught up with me and I conked out, my head leaning back against the upholstered dining room chair.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Follow the money.

  —The Kelly Rules

  I JUMPED WHEN Tyler put his hands on my shoulders.

  “That’s not the best way to sleep,” he said.

  “I think you’re right. Did you finish your puzzle?” My neck was stiff from dozing on the chair. I rubbed it and grinned.

  He shook his head. “It might be a lifetime effort.”

  “Better you than me. All that ocean.”

  He grinned back. “To tell the truth, I’m enjoying the puzzles. We’re talking about a lot of happy times I’d forgotten. Never thought I’d get such a kick out of spending an entire day in this amazing city doing a puzzle with my grandmother.”

  “Don’t forget the housework,” I teased.

  But it made sense. I would have loved to have a grandmother to do something with, although maybe not a three-thousand-piece puzzle. Grandmother Kelly’s skills had inclined more toward evading police pursuit. My imagined Grandmother Bingham had endless possibilities, because I knew nothing about her.

  “It’s nice that you have this chance.”

  “What have you been up to besides sleeping sitting up?”

  I couldn’t stop myself from yawning, so my answer wasn’t useful.

  He said, “Get some real sleep. I’m going to stay up and make sure nothing happens in the night.”

  “I don’t know if I can sleep, there’s so much whirling in my head. Do you want to take turns?” I yawned again.

  He ruffled my hair and said, “Tomorrow, I’ll sleep and you’ll watch. How’s that for a deal?”

  “I thought that’s what happened last night.”

  “My police training is paying off.”

  I pointed at my list of suspects and troubling events and the cards for each. “Trying to figure out who’s after us and why so I can get to the bottom of everything.”

  “Let me know the minute you figure it out. Once the mystery is solved, then I can get some sleep too.”

  “I’m on the case.”

  * * *

  MY DREAMS HAD been full of shadowy figures, dark sedans, breaking doors. I woke up jumpy. I padded downstairs on sock feet and found Smiley, still staring at the puzzle.

  “You made some progress,” I said. “There can’t be more than ten thousand square miles of ocean to put together.”

  “I still can’t figure out what’s going on,” he muttered. He wasn’t talking about the puzzle.

  “Tell me about it.”

  “First, there’s oatmeal for breakfast,” he said. “Gram believes in it.”

  “Hmm. Did she make it?” I grew up on Froot Loops and Count Chocula and the signora wasn’t big on oatmeal, so my first thought was to resist. Resistance turned out to be futile.

  “I did, according to her instructions. You’ll like it. It’s got whipping cream in it and toasted almonds and dried cranberries and maple syrup. Vanilla too.”

  I did like the oatmeal, which should not come as a surprise. I liked the fresh coffee too.

  Gram had taken her breakfast in bed. Zoya was floating through the neighborhood calling for Asta. Smiley was one big yawn machine.

  He headed off to crash and I took my place back at the dining room table. I was hoping that the images from my weird night’s sleep would lead to some clarity.

  They did not.

  So many crazy ideas and events were whirling around in my head. Part of the whole Hammett nightmare was the strange randomness of all that had been going on. But still, random or not, I needed to try to sort things out, needed to know what to do next, needed to figure out who to trust and who to run from. I’m a practical girl. As Uncle Mick would say with a wink, “Follow the money.” After all, Uncle Mick always did follow money, even if it was usually for the wrong reasons.

  So. What money? As far as Smiley and
I went, there was little of value. I had the rest of the cash to pay for Red Harvest, hardly worth killing for, or even scaring the pants off someone for. There was a photo album but I didn’t see that as something worth pushing a girl off a cable car for or breaking into an old lady’s home and terrorizing her. Well, attempting to terrorize her. We had nothing else of value in our hotel room and I’d had nothing on my person when I was attacked.

  That’s if you didn’t count the pittance that Tyler and I each had to spend on meals, sightseeing and souvenirs in what was left of our rapidly diminishing holiday.

  I bit my lip. Of course, Uncle Mick also would have said, “But there’s always money somewhere.”

  The only possible pot of it that I could imagine was Gram’s own equity, whatever amount she had amassed, inherited or earned and socked away.

  Did that make sense? Most of that would have been in investment funds and annuities deposited regularly in her bank for her needs. Not the sort of thing you’d break into a home shouting, “Where is it?” because of course, “it” was off being invested.

  But the fact was that Gram would be worth a small fortune. The house alone would get my uncles’ attention, regardless of the décor. Location. Location. Location.

  So who would care about Gram’s fortune? Someone who stood to gain?

  Presumably Tyler would benefit as she was very fond of him. His horrible parents had cared enough about her money to cut her off from the grandson she loved. Call me crazy but there was no chance he was doing anything sinister to get his hands on his grandmother’s wealth. Sometimes, you just have to trust. Smiley’s sins had been caring too much about his job, worrying about how things would look, not trusting me and letting me down. In fairness, he hadn’t always let me down, and if he owed his life to me, I also owed mine to him. If money was his thing, he would have stayed with the family and not become a small-town cop with a fairly impoverished girlfriend.

  So probably not Tyler and he was the only one likely to inherit. I knew that. I assumed he did, but how to know who else would be in the loop?