Deadly Cost of Goods

by Margaret Evans

  Bronco thought he knew what the problem was, but he was also under orders to pretend he didn’t.

  “You drunk again? Man, I talked to you about that. Not on the job, Simms!”

  “No, Bronco. I would never do that. I’m just worried that the wrong pill is in this bottle. Come, take a look.”

  Bronco looked at the pill in Elijah’s hand. The red dots definitely indicated a dud in this batch, which should mean it was in the right batch. However, Elijah was acting as if it shouldn’t be there at all.

  “Well, you may be right, Elijah. Hand me the bottle and I’ll ask the chemist. Good catch.”

  Simms thought about it for a few moments.

  “Thanks, Bronco. You’re a good man.”

  “Smooth and dark, remember,” Turner replied, grinning. “Just like a chocolate bar.”

  * * *

  At four different locations in the secret passages of the Old Library that evening, tiny cameras and microphones were recording everything from four different angles. The DEA agents in the passages were communicating only by silent text with Corker Duncan, the DEA Chief for Minnesota. They continued to gather evidence but communicated to Duncan that it looked as if these guys were getting closer to moving their drugs.

  Chapter 23

  Holding the phone in Laura’s left hand at eight-thirty in the morning, while in her right was the business card from Mary Poos, the vice principal of Eagle Junction High School, and trying to punch in a number was a juggling act. Poos had given her the card several weeks ago when Laura was helping a joint task force of the Raging Ford and Eagle Junction Police Departments and the Duluth FBI office track down a missing girl from Eagle Junction. Mary had been at the high school for years working as both vice principal and library assistant. She had put the card in Laura’s hand, covering it with her other hand and offering assistance in any way if Laura ever needed it.

  “Call me at any time. I put my cell phone number on there, too. If you want to meet, I’m working at the school during the summer—summer school, you know.”

  Laura tapped in the number at the school. No answer. Next, she tried the cell phone.

  Mary answered on the second ring.

  “Oh, my. Laura! Hello. If you tried my desk phone, I’m out in the library right now, working with some of the students. What can I do for you?”

  “I was wondering…uh…wondering if you ever found a good home for that pretty cat you had in your office a few weeks ago.”

  “Goodness! No, I never did, but maybe I did after all. My home is the kitty’s new home, and his name is MacArthur. I had to give him a strong name, and when you stop by, maybe for lunch today, I’ll tell you why he needed a strong name. Is one-thirty okay for you?”

  “Yes, that’s perfect. Where do you want to meet?”

  “Here, at the school. The early morning classes will be over by then, and the afternoon is all mine, up to the time when you have to go back to work. I’ll order some Chinese for us. What do you like?”

  Laura was in her car driving to the high school at lunchtime when she stopped at a red light, and it struck her that she hadn’t had to do very much to get a meeting with Mary Poos. In fact, Mary seemed to know exactly why Laura had called and that she might need someone with whom to discuss a problem. And she’d made herself available immediately.

  Wow.

  She pulled into the high school parking lot as the last of the morning summer school students were leaving and spotted Mary outside the front door, waving to her as she parked.

  The two women grasped hands and greeted each other.

  Mary’s pale blue eyes sparkled at Laura.

  “Your timing is perfect. The food just arrived.”

  She continued to chat about the weather, the coming holidays, how happy she was that they were able to solve the mystery of all the missing girls recently and put a stop to it, all on the way to her office, the designated lunch room for them. Once they were inside Mary’s office and sitting at a small, round meeting table, she grew quieter.

  “Now please have a seat and let me know why you wanted to chat with me today.”

  “How did you know?” Laura asked.

  “Laura, dear, I met your parents more than once before that tragic incident. I knew your Great-aunt Rose, as well.”

  “You didn’t tell me that before.”

  “No, I didn’t. That was for another time, such as this one. I’ve met a lot of people over my sixty-seven years, and I knew you would come to ask me questions.”

  Laura was nonplussed.

  “I was really going to tell you part of a story and ask your advice.”

  “Only part?”

  “The rest of it is a confidential police matter and I can’t talk about it.”

  “Then we’d better start eating. Help yourself and don’t forget to read the fortune in your cookie after you’ve eaten your meal and not beforehand.”

  They were nearly finished eating about thirty minutes later and Mary Poos was thinking about what Laura told her between bites.

  A missing child, a grandchild of Samuel Rage, the discovery of her library card, and the stories in the newspapers from the time, roughly one hundred years ago. And where to go from there? What to do next?

  “I guess my first question is why you’re taking on this great task.”

  “I don’t know. I feel I have to do it.”

  “Have you actually seen her ghost in the Old Library?”

  At Laura’s surprised face, Poos continued. “I know all the stories. Don’t be afraid to share.”

  “Yes. Twice, as a child. I can’t say any more about that.”

  Mary nodded.

  “A good plan. So you think something bad happened to Lorelei? I would have to agree from the folklore in the county, but as to how to go about finding out what exactly happened after a hundred years have passed? That’s one icy cold case. You have to start with the facts you know. Then you have to go about finding other facts, some hidden in dark corners.”

  “I am exploring some dark corners already, but there are so many corners that I’m not sure they will yield any helpful answers.”

  “They say the truth always finds a way to the light, just like insects do. Find some more facts in those dark corners. You found what happened to our missing teen a few weeks ago.”

  “But that was recent and easy because the perp made some pretty sloppy mistakes.”

  “And you can count on that happening with every mystery and crime, Laura. The crook always thinks they’re smarter than they are, and they always make mistakes. Your job is to find the mistakes, the things that just don’t quite fit. Sometimes a mistake can be evident simply in the timing of something someone did. The mistakes are there, and I know you’ll find them.”

  “What if there are too many suspects?”

  “The mistakes will surface and the suspect pool will shrink. Trust me. I read every Nancy Drew and Agatha Christie novel at least three times. And I’m a true cold case follower. Now read your fortune quickly because you have to get back to your shop!”

  “Wait. I owe you for half this meal. And you still have to tell me why your adopted cat needs a strong name like MacArther.”

  Mary laughed, her eyes twinkling.

  “It’s my treat, Laura, and I’ve enjoyed our lunch tremendously. The cat’s name? Well, it’s because he has to face Winston and Olive, two very good-sized Gordon Setters, my latest round of show dogs. So far, my setters are tolerating the intrusion of MacArthur quite well and have been most courteous to him. I think it’s because of a respect for the name.”

  In the car, Laura tore open her fortune cookie. It read, “You are on the right path.”

  * * *

  Laura’s spirit lifted after talking with Mary Poos. The woman was very wise in her understanding of people and what they needed. She was also a good judge of truth coming out of people’s mouths. Laura figured she would be an asset in any criminal interview.

  Wednesday afternoon
passed with its usual sales and excitement over the coming holiday. What stuck with Laura, however, wasn’t her customers or merchandise flying off the shelves. Rather, it was Mary’s comment about mistakes that criminals make and that sometimes it was the timing of those anomalies that gave them away.

  She texted Connor, during a slow few minutes, to see if he could come for dinner tonight. The food would not be that memorable, she warned, but she had lots to share with him. Connor replied that he would try.

  After the shop closed, Laura checked her upstairs fridge and freezer.

  “Pork chops it is,” she said to the cat that wasn’t hanging over her shoulder at the moment and added a few things to her shopping list stuck to the fridge door with a magnet.

  When Connor texted that he was at the back door, she responded telling him to punch in the same code for the last time because she was changing it tonight. And he was to come right on upstairs.

  His nose would have told him where to go, whether Laura had or not.

  “Good timing,” she called over her shoulder as she stooped to pull the pork chops out of the oven. “The sweet corn is early, so it’s not the best, but it should be okay. The baked potatoes are already done. If you can grab the sour cream from the fridge, that would be great. I know you and I are both tired and hungry, so let’s get to it!”

  With that, she put two chops on Connor’s plate and one on hers, reached to the side to give him his plate.

  He loaded his plate with a corn cob from the pot and the potato of his choice and set it on the table. Then he pulled the sour cream from the fridge.

  “What do you want to drink? Beer? Wine?” he asked.

  “No, I think that would put me under the table at this point. I’ll have water. I filled up a number of those reusable water bottles. I’m trying to get away from the recyclable single-use ones. Help yourself to whatever you want to drink.”

  “I think I found the dessert.”

  “You leave that right where you found it, Sergeant. ‘Substantials’ come first.”

  “You have no mercy, woman.”

  “Yeah, well, when you get sentenced to a week of hard labor for eating chocolate cake for breakfast and sneaking another piece before dinner so I had no room for anything else, it kind of sticks with you.”

  “What’s wrong with chocolate cake for breakfast?” Connor inquired.

  “Absolutely nothing, as far as I’m concerned. But you will never have permission to spoil any dinner I cook for you.”

  “What was the hard labor?”

  “Raking leaves.”

  “Didn’t you do that every year anyway?”

  “After raking, I had to pick rocks and twigs out of the ground between the grass blades. Every day for a week. Do you have any idea how fast those things reappear every day?”

  “Maybe they were the ones you missed the day before…”

  Laura narrowed her eyes at him and sat down. Halfway through her meal, she realized he hadn’t greeted her with a kiss or hug or even a handshake. She was about to say something when she peeked at Connor under her lashes and noticed how voraciously focused he was on eating.

  He finished up eating with polishing off a full glass of milk.

  She waited a moment before speaking.

  “Did you use up that much energy in your week at the academy? Did those young people totally drain you of your super-strength?”

  He wiped his mouth, set down the napkin, pushed back his chair from the table, and finally looked at her, said the words she had wanted to hear yesterday.

  “I really missed you. And not just the meals.”

  “Anything you want to talk about?”

  “Not tonight. This evening is because I promised you I would listen to what you wanted to tell me about the clue objects in your father’s envelope.”

  “Do you want dessert first?”

  “No, I think we better talk first. Let the food settle. So what did you find out?”

  Laura rose and put both of their plates in the sink, giving her an opportunity to smile to herself. Connor had selected the biggest baked potato of the bunch and was now paying for it.

  “Okay,” she said, resuming her seat. “It’s the small, furry animal.”

  “You found out the reference?” Connor asked, coming to life from his drowsing posture.

  “I thought I did.”

  He looked the question.

  “When Jenna and I went to the Pickens studio to look up old pictures of the town and the Old Library, Denny Eldridge was taking photographs of a toddler who cried. He told us later that he and the other photo studio in town use little, furry, stuffed animals that they sometimes let the kids keep because they’re distracting when you give them something soft and small to hold or hug. Small, furry animals.”

  “And what happened to make you think you might not be on target?”

  “Last night’s holiday committee meeting. I found out that the elementary school uses them for the pre-k, kindergarten and first grades; the library uses them for special early childhood activities; and the medical center also uses them for inpatient tots. That’s way too many for me to consider. How do we figure out which entity my dad’s clue is supposed to be pointing at?”

  Connor was silent a moment.

  “How certain are you that the miniature toy animal in your father’s envelope of clues is the same as the ones you’ve identified in these places?”

  “You know I’m not going to say, ‘what else could it be,’ but it fits. I’ve been all over this town for almost a year now, and I haven’t noticed anything else that comes close, not even in the toymaker’s or baby shops or the tourist traps. And you know that everything in his envelope is symbolic.”

  “That will be hard to narrow down. Are any of the final twelve in your conspiracy list in any of these places?”

  “No, but I just thought of something,” she said, brightening. It was Mary’s mention of timing. “We may be able to narrow things down a bit by looking at which of these places was using the toys before my parents were killed. My dad wouldn’t have known about something happening after that.”

  “That’s a very good point,” Connor responded. “Will you be able to find that out?”

  “Yes. No problem. Then we can look at the people at the places we’ve narrowed it down to and give the list to Nolan, right?”

  He nodded.

  “Here’s another thought. Check who used them before your parents were killed and isn’t any more.”

  “I’ll do that, too, although that might be trickier to track,” Laura responded. It was an angle that hadn’t occurred to her. “Beanie Babies came out in the nineties, but I’ll check.”

  “So you have a plan that we’ll get back to. Anything else you wanted to talk about?”

  She pulled up the video on her phone and handed it to him across the table.

  “Yeah, I saw this,” he said, no change in his expression, handed it back.

  Her mouth fell open a bit.

  “It wasn’t me looking on YouTube; it was a bunch of the cadets who showed it to me. They wanted to know where I learned to dance like that.”

  “Jenna showed me and I deliberately didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to upset you and mess up your inspiring speeches to the cadets.”

  “Thank you for that, but I already knew. It’s okay. Now where’s that dessert you wouldn’t let me touch earlier?” Connor left off the part, once again, about the cadets’ interest in Laura’s availability. He was more than just a little curious to see if any of them would put their money where their mouths and eyes were and actually show up not only in his town, but also her shop.

  She set a piece of cherry pie in front of him, topped off the milk glasses.

  “I didn’t make it this time; but someone else did who is very talented in pie-making.”

  “Marie Callender?”

  “Did you see the box in the recycle bin?”

  “Nope. She’s my second favorite pie baker
,” he said, giving her a long look.

  As they finished their pie, Laura had two more questions for Connor before he had to head back to the office.

  “How are you keeping that white glove so clean?”

  He glanced at his hand.

  “Take it off and wash it every night.”

  “Doesn’t that invalidate the bargain?”

  “Nope. I just have to wear it out in public continuously. I only have a week left.”

  “How did Brianna and Sven do holding down the fort?”

  “Good. And they told me about your visitor and how often he’s been hanging around your shop. If you see him again, text me. I’ll come over right away or get someone else. Sven says it’s the guy who made the anonymous 911 call the day you were kidnapped. And don’t forget to change your security code on the door tonight.”

  This time he dashed, leaving her with the dishes, which was okay with Laura because she’d gotten the hug and kiss she wanted and the words she wanted to hear.

  * * *

  “What is going on here?”

  Elijah looked a little on the dulled side. He just shrugged.

  “I don’t know. They were fine this morning. I don’t see as good in the dark as I used to.”

  As daylight continued fading, a small group was drawn to Elijah’s work area.

  “What’s going on, boss?” one man asked.

  Bucky Swindell just held up his hand for silence.

  “Elijah?” he repeated. “Your arm’s bleeding. What happened?”

  Elijah looked at the small gash on his arm, dripping blood onto the floor, as if he didn’t even know he had such an arm.

  “I don’t know. I guess I fell or something.”

  Swindell directed one of the men to get the first aid kit.

  “Doesn’t it hurt?”

  “Naw, not really. I’m just not feeling that good today.”

  “The labels on these bottles aren’t right, Elijah. They’re crooked. We can’t afford a mistake like that.”

  “Are you sure, Bucky? I held the labels real straight.”

  “But they don’t look right.”