Miz Scarlet and the Bewildered Bridegroom

by Barton, Sara M.

  “Whoever it is, he’s got a bird’s eye view of the Four Acorns Inn,” she pointed out. “He knew I wasn’t downstairs when he broke the pane of glass on the sun porch. And he must have been watching when I invited Hammerhead inside.”

  “You might be right about that,” I agreed. Michael Sharkey had no idea he’d be invited into the inn to meet the gang. Why would he have punctured his own tires just before picking Jen up? That didn’t seem very likely. What would he have used as an alibi? That probably meant Shark Boy was off the list of suspects unless he had an accomplice.

  “Why pop the tires like that? Why not just unscrew the caps?” she wanted to know.

  “Contrary to popular belief, that won’t cause the tires to go flat. The caps just keep road salt and other gunk from damaging the valves. The tire-popping creep must have known that.”

  “I didn’t. But then, I don’t know that much about cars,” she admitted.

  “Still, you’re right about the act itself,” I decided. “Puncturing the tires was a rather dramatic thing to do, wasn’t it?”

  “Kind of scary,” she confided, biting her lower lip. Neither of us was happy about that.

  “Someone is hanging around the Four Acorns Inn for the chance to cause problems for us. I think whoever it is wants us to be terrified, Jen.”

  “But why? What’s in it for him?”

  “I wish I knew.”

  A short time later, things wrapped up on the side of the highway. Danny loaded the Golf onto the flatbed truck and secured it for the trip to his garage. The state trooper waited until our caravan pulled onto the highway before he pulled into the fast lane, bleeped his siren a couple of times as he passed us, and sped away. The rest of our caravan exited the highway at the next ramp. Bur went back to the inn to stand guard. He didn’t want to leave the Googins girls and our guests unprotected. Kenny and I, meanwhile, drove the kids to Hammerhead’s apartment, so the teen could throw some clothes and a toothbrush into an overnight bag. We got back to the inn just after ten, all four of us rather rattled by the turn of events. I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more to come. If only I could figure out what this was all about, maybe I could find a way to stop the situation from spiraling out of control.

  I knew the where, the what, and the how -- someone wanted all of us at the Four Acorns Inn to be very, very frightened and he was willing to do some very nasty things in furtherance of that goal. Frankly, it was working. But who was doing this and the reason why escaped me.

  Bur insisted on spending the night with us, just in case there was another incident. He didn’t make a big deal out of it. I was in the kitchen, just before eleven, setting up for breakfast. The Wilkies had to leave by seven to catch their flight home, so their eggs had to be on the table by six thirty.

  “Listen, Scar,” my brother said softly as he leaned in, “I’m on the sofa in the library tonight. Mum’s the word, okay?”

  “Okay.” I noticed the concern etched on his face. “Are you expecting trouble?”

  “Expecting? No. Preparing? Yes.”

  And prepare for it, he did. Sneaking into the library with a flashlight, he pulled the wooden blinds and velvet drapes, to prevent any light from warning an intruder of his presence, and then he sat up watching television into the wee small hours of Monday morning.

  Just after two, I heard the dogs whimpering at my bedroom door. Throwing my bathrobe over my pajamas, I hurriedly tucked my cell phone into the right pocket and tied the sash. I hushed Huck and January as I left my bedroom, pulling the door shut behind me, and tiptoed into the sitting room I share with my teenage suitemate. Standing motionless, I paused, straining to hear any unusual sounds. There was nothing outwardly wrong, so I moved on. Quietly opening Jenny’s door, I peered through the darkness. In the faint moonlight that crept in through the third floor window, I could see she was sleeping soundly in her bed, her little spaniel beside her. That was a good sign, I told myself. Mozzie wasn’t worried. I pressed on, still trying to find the source of the noise that upset the other two dogs. The bathroom was empty. So was the storage room by the stairs. Should I just go back to bed or keep looking?

  On a normal night, I’d have returned to my room, but this was anything but a normal night. What choice did I have? Too much had already gone wrong at the Four Acorns Inn. I crept down the stairs and listened at the door to the second floor hallway for a few seconds. Everything seemed okay. Hand on the knob, I silently turned it and pushed the door open before stepping into the hall. I paused, straining to hear any hint of an intrusion. Everything seemed normal enough. Maybe the dogs heard Kenny checking the locks as he made the rounds or Bur rumbling around downstairs on a midnight raid of the kitchen fridge.

  A part of me wanted to believe it was just my overactive imagination at work, but another part of me resisted the inclination to bury my head in the sand and ignore reality. Someone was, at the very least, harassing us. What choice do I have but to continue down to the first floor? ‘Better safe than sorry’, as the old saying goes. Maybe I’d better have a look first, just in case....

  Resigned to my unwelcome task, I padded softly down the hallway and leaned over the railing, searching the dark foyer below. Was that a movement I saw by the front door?

  Chapter Nine --

  “Oh!” An involuntary gasp escaped my lips as I realized that I was not alone. Retreating into the shadows of the upper hallway, I counted to twenty and stepped forward again. This is the real deal, Miz Scarlet, not some apparition conjured up in an episode of sleepwalking after a marathon horror film festival. There really is someone down there. I felt my pulse quicken as I stared at the scene below me. What did I see? It looked suspiciously like the silhouette of a man who was up to no good.

  Dressed all in black, he nearly blended into the darkness, but in the faint moonlight, I could see he was doing something by the front door. What was it? I couldn’t tell. With my cell phone in hand, I ducked around the corner and quickly typed a text to Kenny. Man in foyer. Hurry!

  I moved forward again, mesmerized by the drama unfolding downstairs. In less a minute, I sensed a presence on my left flank and Kenny was suddenly, silently beside me, studying the action over my shoulder. He used his own phone to text my brother before he slipped away, heading down the back staircase.

  Three minutes later, my cell phone unexpectedly pinged softly. The unexpected noise startled me and I nearly dropped the plastic case as I scrambled to recover. Glancing down, I saw Kenny had sent me a text. Turn on all the hall lights at once and stay upstairs.

  Feeling my way along the wall with trembling fingers, I searched for the light switch. When I finally found it, I took a deep breath and hit both toggles at the same time.

  As the chandelier burned brightly with an impressive number of electric candles, the man in black was suddenly exposed. It took him a moment to realize he was no longer concealed, but by that time, it was too late. My brother stood only a few feet away from the intruder, and with a two-handed grip on his favorite wooden Louisville Slugger, Bur was ready to play ball.

  “Stay right where you are!” Bur commanded him, but then his tone unexpectedly changed. “What the hell?”

  To whom was Bur talking? I couldn’t see the face, but my brother seemed shocked -- so shocked that when the intruder gave him a hard shove, Bur offered no resistance. He wobbled to and fro before he fell over backwards, going down hard. I heard a loud thwack as Bur’s body made contact with the wood floor and several more as his grip on the wooden club broke. I watched that prized Louisville Slugger bounce and roll about ten feet before finally coming to a stop by the antique grandfather clock. The clamor in the vestibule was deafening.

  Horrified, I scrambled down the stairs, my feet barely touching each step as I rushed to Bur’s rescue. My heart was pounding so hard, I thought it would pop out of my chest. I stopped just long enough to scoop up the bat. With my fingers firmly wrapped around the handle, I drew it back against my right shoulder, all set to
swing. “Stay right where you are, you bastard!”

  The man dressed in black pulled desperately at the front door in his futile bid to escape the raving lunatic wielding the wooden club. He managed to yank it open, only to find there was something, or rather, someone blocking his exit.

  “Going somewhere, Mr. Wilkie?”

  “Ah....” Dave obviously wasn’t expecting to see Kenny on the other side of the door.

  “Don’t even think about it, pal.” Unfortunately, the man did; what choice did Kenny have but to grab him?

  I could hear the sound of sirens in the distance. It was the second police visit in less than twenty four hours. The Four Acorns Inn was certainly not going to win fans among the neighbors if this kept up.

  Hammerhead, eyes still heavy with sleep, stumbled down the stairs. The disturbing sight of Bur sprawled on his back and Kenny wrestling with another man seemed to halt the teenager in his tracks. “What’s going on?”

  “Let go of him, you brute!” Diana Wilkie appeared at the top of the stairs. “Leave him alone!”

  Racing down the stairs like a deranged demon, she pushed Hammerhead out of her path and made a beeline for Kenny, but I was already moving forward to intercept her.

  “Try it, lady,” I warned her, baseball bat at the ready, “and I’ll knock your sorry ass right out of this ball park!”

  “Whoa! Hold on there, ladies!” said a booming male voice. I looked up in time to see a man in a green golf shirt and brown slacks, shiny badge clipped to his hip, enter the inn. His right hand was poised to reach for the weapon in his shoulder holster. “Let’s not get carried away!”

  “You think I’m getting carried away? First, we had a break-in, then the tires on the car were punctured, and now this!” I sputtered. “I think I’m showing a great deal of restraint under the circumstances!”

  “Scarlet, take a breath,” Kenny told me, his voice calm, but serious. “We’ve got this.”

  Two uniformed officers gingerly stepped over the threshold, careful not to disturb Kenny’s efforts to subdue Dave Wilkie with the help of the plain clothes cop. The first took hold of the belligerent Mrs. Wilkie as she writhed madly, arms and legs flailing in every direction. The second insisted I surrender the Louisville Slugger. Reluctantly I acquiesced, but only after I was sure Dave and Diana had been cuffed. I wasn’t willing to take a chance they might get away.

  “Fine! You can have the bat, but don’t let go of those two creeps! They’re a menace to society!”

  “Are you hurt, buddy?” The second cop carefully placed the bat on the hall table, gave me a warning glance, and made his way over to my brother, who was still lying on the floor, more than a little dazed and confused. “Just take it easy till you get your bearings.”

  “Bur!” I rushed to my brother’s aid. “Can you sit up?”

  We carefully propped him up. Bur grimaced as he shifted his body into a seated position.

  “Ouch!”

  “How’s your head?” the cop asked, studying my brother’s pupils. I spotted his name tag just above the breast pocket: Parker. “Do you have any dizziness or nausea...any double vision?”

  “No. The only real damage is to my pride and my backside. I landed on my tailbone.”

  “Let’s get him into the chair,” I suggested. Parker gently pulled him to his feet and steadied him. I tucked my arm under Bur’s right elbow and the cop took the left. Together, we guided him to a chair, as a worried Lacey joined us.

  “Goodness gracious, is he okay?” she queried, her concern obvious. “I think he needs medical attention.”

  “I’m fine,” the injured man insisted, even as his fingers explored the back of his head for signs of trauma. “Just give me a minute.”

  Hammerhead, his courage rising now that there was a heavy police presence in the foyer, decided he was interested in the black box Dave Wilkie left by the door.

  “Holy mackerel!” he uttered in disbelief, moving forward to examine the gizmo. “Is that what I think it is?”

  “What do you think it is, kid?” A new arrival in the foyer demanded, peering over the teen’s shoulder.

  “It looks like some kind of an incendiary device. See?” Shark Boy leaned over, pointing to the plain box. “It’s made of balsa wood. That would go up in flames quickly. See those firecrackers? They’d all probably go off at the same time. There’s even a wick.”

  “Those aren’t firecrackers,” said another uniformed officer, examining the contents of the wooden box more thoroughly. “They’re M-80 quarter-sticks of dynamite, and with that many tied together, more than capable of blowing right through that front door.”

  “Whoa!” That got Michael’s attention. “That can’t be good!”

  “Wilkie wanted to blow up our front door?” My brother was nearly speechless at the thought. But now the budding engineer was fascinated by the prospect.

  “Well, not necessarily,” Shark Boy replied, considering the possibilities. He invited us to follow the trail of the wick. Looped around the box twice, the remainder of the woven cord was tied to the inside knob of the front door, a long length of cord hanging down. “It sure would make a huge racket. There’d be lots of damage from the explosion, which would probably cause a fire.”

  “Dave Wilkie wanted to start a fire?” I shook my head in dismay. “Why would he want to do that?”

  “To get rid of the evidence,” Kenny replied. He pointed to a small bottle now lying on its side near the wall. “It looks like he brought his own accelerant. Dave must have planned to place the box of quarter-sticks on the front porch just before soaking the long end of the wick in the flammable liquid. He probably planned to leave the door open a crack, giving himself enough time to hide somewhere nearby, before the explosion occurred. That way, it would look like the attack was done by an outsider.”

  “What in heaven’s name is going on down there?” my mother called out, leaning over the railing of the upper hallway. Her face contorted in fear when she saw Bur. “Is my son hurt?”

  “Listen up, people. Nobody is to touch that thing. I’ve got to call the bomb squad,” said the cop in the green golf shirt. He was already dialing. “Yeah, Valboa here. I’ve got an improvised explosive device out on White Oak Hill.”

  He shooed the group away from the evidence and stepped out onto the porch to finish his conversation as my mother and Thaddeus emerged from the small elevator. She had to maneuver her wheelchair through the expanding maze of people, her frustration clear. “Excuse me. Excuse me, please. Excuse me....”

  “Say what?” Bur was still rubbing the back of his head, wincing. I leaned in and felt a lump rising on his skull. “Did you say bomb squad?”

  “You should have Dr. Van Zandt examine that,” I told my brother. “You might have a concussion.”

  “I’m fine,” he groaned. I disagreed vehemently. Lacey gave him the once-over too.

  “You are not.”

  “Am too,” he moaned.

  “Scarlet’s right. You should let the doctor take a look at you, Bur.”

  “He’ll have to do it outside,” Valboa told us. “We’ll have to evacuate the premises immediately. We’re not allowed to dismantle something that entails this much risk; it’s a matter of department policy.”

  “Great,” I groaned. “When the neighbors hear that we had a bomb planted on our front step, we’ll get closed down! Son of a....”

  “At the moment, that’s the least of our concerns,” the detective replied firmly. “Have we accounted for all the residents of the inn?”

  “No, Jenny isn’t with us. And we’ve got to get the pets,” my mother pointed out. “We can’t leave them behind.”

  “I’ve got Scrub Oak,” Lacey called out a moment later, returning from the living room with the feline dangling from her arms. She plunked the cat on my mother’s lap for the ride outside.

  “Let’s head to the carriage house to wait this out. We can set up some patio chairs,” Bur suggested. He was still unsteady on his f
eet, leaning on Lacey and Dr. Van Zandt.

  “Jenny’s still upstairs, and so are the dogs.” I crossed the hallway and hurried up the stairs to fetch them, Kenny on my heels. “We’ll meet you outside.”

  “Mozzie, Jen!” I called out as we climbed to the top of the second floor landing. I pulled open the door to the third floor staircase. “Get up! It’s an emergency!”

  “What? What time is it? Am I late for work?” she answered groggily, dressed in an oversized tee shirt. “I’m so-so-sorry!”

  “No. There was a little incident downstairs. Come on. Grab your robe. We’ve got to step outside for a little while. And bring Mozzie with you.”

  By the time we exited the building, there were police barricades at the entrance to the driveway of the Four Acorns Inn, where a small army of first responders milled around and a couple of neighbors peppered a pair of uniformed officers with questions. On the street, a fire engine and six volunteer firefighters were at the ready, on the off-chance things went south. When the volunteer ambulance crew showed up, running their emergency lights, it was the icing on the cake for me. How were we supposed to handle the bad mojo on this, especially after the trouble up the road at Wallace’s house with Karin Frenlind? We might have to have a “pretty please, forgive us” party for the neighbors. Maybe we could generate some goodwill by grilling up burgers and doling out hot dogs.

  At quarter past three, after it was thoroughly examined, photographed, and documented, the container of quarter-sticks was deposited into the explosion-proof barrel by the bomb squad, minus the dangerous wick, and detonated.

  “It could have been worse,” one of the cops informed me a few minutes later. “If this was daylight, you’d have every reporter within a thirty-mile range camped on your door. Detective Valboa says we’re calling this incident a prank at the moment, while Diana and David Wilkie are investigated.”