We walked into the house and past a sleeping Glenn on the sofa. He was exhausted himself from working the bank incident along with the extra patrols around the hospital.
I took her downstairs to my murder room space and parked her in the loveseat facing my whiteboard.
“Don’t say anything,” I instructed. “Just listen.” I grabbed a dowel rod from Glenn’s workbench and used it as a pointer for the information on the board. “There are three main people involved – Ellis Rich, who everyone assumes was the intended target; Jerome Conner, who was fired by Ellis Rich, and therefore, everyone assumes he was the one who loaded the box with explosives; and-”
Jackie cut me off before I could continue with the third person. “Of course Jerome Conner loaded it. He was the last person to open the box before it went off. That’s what makes the case open and shut.”
I tried to keep exasperation out of my voice. “We don’t know that for certain. What if a bank employee opened it last? What if someone came into the bank and bribed Benny to let them open the box? Benny wouldn’t have admitted to taking a bribe after he realized he was complicit to murder.”
I couldn’t get over the glazed look in her eyes. I opened my bag and pulled out the box of business cards Pepper had given me. I held them out to her.
“Jackie, wake up. This is our case. Two Sisters and a Journalist. You’re the journalist. A man was killed while WE – we, Jackie – were assisting him. You can’t take this laissez-faire attitude and dismiss everything just because you’re tired and mad at Harry and Nick. A man is dead on our watch, and we need to find his killer.”
She took the box and stared at the card on top for a full minute before breaking into out-of-control laughter, complete with her famous snorts. I was tempted to shush her so she wouldn’t wake Glenn, but it was so great to hear her laugh, I grabbed the box of cards, took another look at Charlie’s Angels, and laughed just as hard.
When our laughter subsided, I tossed the box on top of my bag. “After we solve this case, we have to discuss the name of our business. It was cute at one time, but it’s embarrassing now. And don’t even get me started on this logo Pepper had designed for us.”
The twinkle in Jackie’s eye kept me smiling. Whatever fog she had been wallowing in appeared to have lifted.
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” she said. “There’s still something charming about the name, even though it’s hokey. People take notice when they hear it.” She looked at the whiteboard. “Ok. I’m in. Go ahead and continue. So far we have Ellis Rich and Jerome Conner. That’s all the police have. What are you seeing?”
I walked back to the board, picked up my pointer, and continued. “I don’t know that I have anything other than questions. The third player in all of this is Oscar Preston, and he’s dead. My questions start with him.” I tapped each bullet point under Oscar’s name. “Why did someone shoot at him outside the bank? And don’t give me that theory again that Jerome Conner was following him. What if it was someone else? Who would that be? We need to find out more about Oscar and his relationship to Ellis Rich. And what if Oscar knew the box was loaded with explosives. What if this was a suicide – or even a suicide made to look like a murder?” I looked intently at her for a few moments. “This is where the journalist comes in. I really need your help, Jackie. Do you have any vacation left at the paper? Why not take a break from all the running Harry has you doing and work with Pepper and me on this?”
“The only vacation I have left is over Thanksgiving, but I’ll take a personal day tomorrow. Maybe we can make some headway tomorrow and over the weekend.”
“Awesome,” I said. We’ll meet at Pepper’s in the morning, and you can pick up your business cards.”
“I can’t wait,” she said with a chuckle and headed for the stairs. “Let’s go catch some brick-throwing criminals.”
I followed her with my spirits lifted. After a rough day of clumping around, feeling like everything was going wrong, I finally had a some energy in my step.
Chapter Six
With talk of Oscar Preston’s death behind us, Jackie and I turned our sights on the task at hand. Catching the brick-thrower or throwers in the act and ending the embarrassment for the Buxley police force was our goal for the night. If we caught the vandals, I knew Glenn would forgive me for “meddling” in police business.
“How do you want to go about this?” Jackie asked. “Do you want to park somewhere and watch, or do you want to drive around and see if we spot anything out of the ordinary?”
“I think parking is the smart option,” I said. “The police are running patrols, but those aren’t effective. I know if I were throwing bricks, I wouldn’t launch one when headlights were coming toward me.”
I cruised Ash Boulevard for several minutes before finding a good spot to park. The nearest street light was over a block away, making us inconspicuous in the darkness.
“I checked the location of the damaged cars,” I said. “Nothing has happened on the boulevard yet, so I’m guessing this is a prime location if something happens tonight.”
“Harry gave this story to Nick, too,” Jackie said with an annoyed tone. “He said some of the bricks thrown have blue paint on them, but the guys at the police station haven’t been able to connect the bricks to any location in town.”
“No connection? Are you kidding? Anyone who was ever in the old flea market before it burned down should remember blue paint on bricks.”
Jackie looked puzzled. “I was in there a million times. I don’t remember any bricks. The interior was nothing but wood.”
“Arnie used to have his office in back by the snack bar, remember?” She nodded. “The hallway behind his office led to the rear entrance. Years ago, probably before we were both born, someone painted a huge beer logo on one of the walls. It was mostly blue, and the wall was brick.”
She shook her head. “I honestly never noticed. With so many strangers in and out of there, that hallway was too dark for my liking. I always used the front door.”
“When Mama and Roger had the building rebuilt, they said there were materials in the basement that hadn’t been damaged or burned. Some of the building collapsed from the lack of structural integrity rather than fire.” I paused for a few moments. “I wonder if Mama has some of the bricks?”
Jackie chuckled. “You can’t possibly think your mother has anything to do with this.”
“No, of course not,” I said, but I knew my words sounded hollow. Mama was a true eccentric, and I wouldn’t put it past her to use the vandalism as a way to get a message across. What that message could be eluded me, but just the fact Mama had access to the bricks in question left doubt in my mind.
I reached into the back seat, grabbed a grocery sack, and pulled out a thermos of coffee and two mugs. I handed them to Jackie. She poured the coffee while I partially unwrapped tuna salad sandwiches and pulled a few napkins from the center console.
“You’re a lifesaver,” Jackie said, trading one of the mugs of coffee for a sandwich. “I haven’t had a chance to eat anything since breakfast.”
“I don’t remember if I ate at all today,” I said. “Glenn turned off the alarm and let me sleep in this morning. When I got up, I still had enough of a headache, I didn’t feel like eating.”
Jackie frowned. “I know my asking bothered you earlier, but do you really feel fine? What if the headache is from a brain bleed? You might have hit your head harder than you think.”
I was glad her words didn’t irritate me this time. I knew she was genuinely concerned. “I’m positive I didn’t hit my head when I fell. I think my arm came up and smacked me in the face, or my bag hit me, but I don’t have any bumps, lumps, or bruises from hitting my head.”
“If that thing you call a purse hit you in the face, you definitely need to have your head examined. At the very least, you have a major concussion.”
I laughed and took a big bite of my sandwich. Mumbling around the toast, tuna, onions, cheese, and peas,
I pointed and managed to say, “Look at that.”
Across the boulevard, running closer to the houses than the sidewalk and street lights, three figures scurried along, slightly hunched over as if that would make them less likely to be seen. They ducked down an alley a half block in front of us.
I dropped my sandwich onto the grocery sack and turned the key in the ignition.
“Wait a minute,” Jackie said, carefully re-wrapping her sandwich. “We’ll never see what they’re doing if we try to follow in the truck. We need to go on foot. Come on.”
Before I could argue, she was unbuckled and out of the truck. I grumbled under my breath. This wasn’t how I anticipated the evening would go. I had expected to catch the criminals in action, call the police, and be done with it. No part of my plan called for my getting out of the truck and running in cold weather.
Jackie was across the boulevard before I had even begun jogging in that direction. Managing to keep my weight at an acceptable level was one thing, but being out of shape was another. And criminals or not, there was no way I was running full tilt after three people who were probably armed with bricks.
I rounded the corner into the alley and barely saw Jackie’s dark outline ahead of me. She stopped and turned around to wait for me. When I caught up to her, my breathing was labored. Hers was normal.
She put a finger to her lips in a hush gesture, pointed to a shed, and whispered, “They’re in there.”
I noticed a small flashlight in her hand and whispered back, “I’ll open the door. You shine the light inside.”
She nodded.
I threw the door back and yelled, “Come out with your hands up.”
Jackie’s flashlight barely worked, and I didn’t notice anyone in the small beam of light. Just as I was thinking I needed to get a flashlight with a million lumens, the kind that will light up a city park, something heavy grazed my forehead and momentarily stunned me.
“Estelle!” I heard Jackie yell. “You just threw a brick at Jo.”
One of the flashlights I had just been thinking about came on and blinded all of us. My headache ratcheted up several notches.
“Jo?” Mama asked. “Is that you? What in tarnation are you doin’ here? We thought you two were the brick bandits turning the tables on us.”
Jackie was now shining her pathetic little flashlight in my face. I flinched.
“Hold still,” she said, pulling a tissue from her pocket and dabbing it across the scrape on my forehead. “It looks like the brick only grazed you. It shouldn’t bleed much. How do you feel? Now do you want to go to the hospital and get checked for a concussion?”
I pushed her away. Steam was building again. “I’m fine. I’m totally fine, and I don’t want to go to the hospital. You go to the hospital.”
Mama stepped forward, put an arm around Jackie, and glared at me. “Who made you sourpuss of the year? I don’t care if you were nearly blown up yesterday, there’s no reason to be mean to Jackie.”
I closed my eyes and actually felt close to tears. I rarely cried, but the overwhelming frustration of the past two days seemed to crash down on me … but still … tears? Maybe I did need to have my head examined.
“Ok, ok. I’m sorry. Jackie knows I didn’t mean it. I’m on edge and probably shouldn’t even be out here tonight.”
The realization that Mama had thrown a brick at me hit me. I picked up the brick from where it had fallen. The smoothest side was covered in blue paint.
“Where did you get this?” I asked with an accusatory tone.
“You know full well where I got it. Roger and I have bricks from the flea market fire in the back yard. We’re going to build a fire pit with them. We just haven’t had time yet.”
Mama’s back yard was filled with junk for and from the flea market. If I had seen the bricks there, they never registered in my mind as anything other than trash.
Rita from Rita’s Bed and Breakfast stepped forward into the bazillion lumens of light.
“Jo, Estelle didn’t have anything to do with the car vandalism. We’re here on behalf of the Blue Hat Society Detective Agency, and we’re going to catch the brick bandits. We’ll be famous, get our society mentioned in newspapers all across the country and be able to open new chapters everywhere.”
A strange little hunched-back woman set the quadzillion lumens on a box and stepped into the light. In a high-pitched, squeaky voice, she added, “And all for the low, low price of five hundred dollars to start a chapter.”
Pepper would have been proud at how far my mouth hung open. I glanced over at Jackie. She was struggling to hold back a smile.
“Who are you?” I blurted out to the woman.
Mama now slipped her arm protectively around this woman’s shoulders. She had to scrunch down to do it, but do it she did.
“This is Burpy Rhodes. She’s the newest member of our chapter of the Blue Hat Society, and she’s our treasurer.”
“Nice to meet you,” Jackie said.
I offered no such pleasantries, and before I could ask Mama why she was using incriminating evidence to catch the vandals, a patrol car pulled into the alley and parked.
Officers Tom Collins and Bill Winnie stepped out.
“Swell,” I muttered under my breath. Bill Winnie had partnered with Glenn when Bill first joined the force. He and I got along well. It was Officer Collins who gave me problems.
Bill took the lead and said with a smile, “Good evening, ladies. We’ve had a couple of calls about some commotion and a radioactive light coming from this location.”
“No problem here, officers, “Mama said. “We were hot on the trail of the brick bandits until Jo and Jackie thwarted our efforts, but we’ll be going now.”
“What happened to you?” Tom asked me.
I hesitated. I didn’t want to show him the brick and cast suspicion on Mama, but I needn’t have worried. Burpy answered for me. “Estelle threw a brick at her. She thought she was the ringleader of the bandits. Hit her square in the head.”
Bill stepped forward to look closely at me. “You ok?”
I rolled my eyes and said through gritted teeth, “I’m fine.”
“Where’s the brick?” Tom asked.
I had no choice but to hand it to him. He looked it over and raised a quizzical eyebrow to Mama. “From the flea market fire?”
She nodded. “After we heard on the beauty shop gossip line that the bricks had blue paint on them, I’ve been bringing one along with us. When the brick bandits strike again, we can compare it to the ones they’re using.”
Bill shook his head. “No need, Estelle. The bricks have been identified as having come from the Borden Brickyard over in Patterson.”
“Good to know,” she said. “It was rough hauling that one brick around. We had to take turns carrying it.”
I was still miffed Mama had thrown the brick. I faced Officer Collins. “Aren’t you going to tell Mama and her friends to go home and leave this to the professionals?”
“Why should we go home?” Burpy asked in her crazy high voice. “We have as much right to catch the brick bandits as you do.”
“I’m a legal private investigator,” I shot back.
“Jackie’s not,” Mama said. “And neither is Pepper.”
“They’re legal because they’re working under my tutelage.”
“Tutelage, schmootelage,” Mama said. “You’re still under Arnie’s tootles, and until you get your license, you don’t have the right to tootle anyone.”
I touched the scrape on my forehead. “You threw that brick on purpose, didn’t you? You know full well my license is on its way. I’m not doing anything illegal.”
She harrumphed loudly.
Bill stepped in. “Calm down. This is a police matter, and none of you should be working this case. You’re only making our jobs harder. Instead of catching the person doing this, here we are dealing with all of you.” He turned to face me. “Jo, do you want to press charges against your mother?”
“Of course not. She’s my mother.”
I saw Mama crack a smile. She slipped her arm around my waist and said, “If there’s nothing else, officers, I think we’ll call it a night.”
Burpy grabbed the gajillion lumens and switched them off. Strange balls of light remained floating in front of my eyes. I couldn’t see a thing.
Jackie gripped my arm. “Come on. Let’s go before they change their minds.”
I knew Jackie disliked being involved in any incident that might get her name in the paper. As the Beacon’s star reporter - or maybe as the Beacon’s used-to-be star reporter - she was always careful not to embarrass Harry or herself by being the subject of an article rather than the byline.
My eyes gradually adjusted to the darkness. I saw the patrol car pull away.
Jackie and I didn’t speak as we walked up the alley. She seemed lost in thought, and my head hurt too much to carry on a conversation.
The sound of breaking glass rang out as we neared the boulevard. Jackie took off at a run, but I continued at a snail’s pace. I was cold and miserable, and there was no way I could run after anyone or anything.
When I rounded the corner, Jackie was long gone. I continued my slow plod to my truck but stopped abruptly when I realized a man was standing next to the driver’s side door.
He yelled over to me, “Is this your truck? My car and your truck have been hit. I already called the police.”
Swell. It never occurred to me that the darkest spot on the boulevard might be the best place to park, but it would also be the perfect location for the brick thrower.
When the man stepped aside, I saw the driver’s side window of my truck had been smashed. A quick check of his car showed both windows on the driver’s side broken. I suspected this wasn’t the work of just one person.
Murder Breaks the Bank Page 5
