by Susan Harper
Felicity laughed. “This is hardly the most exciting case I’ve worked,” Felicity said, thinking about some of the madness she had endured over the past couple of years.
“The man was found dead in a full-blown pirate costume,” Iris said. “I think that’s about as much excitement as I can handle.”
It was pitch black outside by the time they arrived outside of Donald’s trailer. Bonnie was parked outside, having only just arrived herself. “You ready?” Bonnie asked as she stepped out of her patrol car.
“Ready,” Felicity said.
Bonnie led the way, knocking on the door first. When it didn’t open, she used a lockpick to get inside. She bore her gun, and she flipped on the light by the door. When she did, they heard Donald’s parrot squawking from within. “It’s the po-po! Scram!” the bird shrieked.
Felicity heard Iris snort behind her, so she turned to elbow Iris to let her know now was a time to be serious. It was just one open room, and the trailer was incredibly junky. Felicity headed over to the kitchen table. “My phone!” she shrieked and then spotted yet another missing item of hers. “And my wallet! Donald stole from me!”
“Latest stash!” the bird squawked.
“Yeah, I noticed,” Felicity groaned.
“Bad bird! Bad bird! Lilly’s a good bird!” the parrot squawked.
“You little thief,” Felicity hissed, taking back her phone and wallet.
“Check this out,” Officer Bonnie said, pointing toward a laptop. She had turned it on, and Donald had had an online auction site pulled up. “Looks like Donald was selling your cellphone. It’s got a few bids already.”
“Seriously!” Felicity hissed. “Who does this guy think he is?”
“Someone who can’t make a living off selling balloon animals,” Iris said, sorting through boxes of balloons and silly pirate-themed costumes.
“Oh, Lilly! I’m home!” a voice boomed as the front door flung open, a young man barging in like he owned the place. “What’s Donald got for us?”
“It’s the po-po! Scram!” Lilly squawked from her cage, and the young man immediately bolted.
“Freeze!” Bonnie shouted, chasing the young man out the door. “Police! I said freeze!”
Felicity and Iris exited right behind her, and Felicity was glad to have gotten out the door just in time to witness Bonnie football-style tackle the man. “Get off me!” he yelped, attempting to throw her off.
“Stop resisting!” Bonnie shouted, and the next thing Felicity knew, the woman had pulled out a Taser. She nailed him right in the throat with it after he elbowed her in the nose. The man very quickly decided to stop fighting her after having his Adam’s apple fried.
“Ouch,” Iris said. “Nice.”
Bonnie put the man in cuffs as he coughed and gagged. “You stupid ho!” he shouted.
“Oh, shut up,” Bonnie said, grabbing her now-bloodied nose. “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me! You broke my nose, you little creep!”
“You freaked me out!” he shouted. “What were you doing in Donnie’s place?”
“Funny,” Bonnie said. “I was about to ask you the same question.”
Felicity rolled her eyes. Iris pulled some tissues out of her purse for Bonnie, passing them to her so that she could hold them up to her busted nose. “That was pretty bad ass,” Iris told her.
It looked like they either had their first suspect or had just tackled a friend of their victim. Either way, Felicity was certain this would help move the case forward. “Hey, Iris, how’s this for excitement?” Felicity asked, and her sister laughed. She thought about some of the cases she had worked before. She always had Jefferson or Jack helping her, so this was a bit different. Having a local cop and her sister on her side wasn’t a bad team or anything—it was just different. “I wonder what Jack and Jefferson are up to now,” Felicity said, letting her mind wander back to Senoia for a moment.
6
Jefferson awoke early the next morning. He ate some breakfast, showered, and dressed appropriately for a man who considered himself to be a professional party planner—donning a button-up and a nice pair of jeans. He combed his hair and snagged his truck keys from the little bowl Felicity had put on a table by the front door. This week has to go perfect, he told himself. Felicity had worked non-stop ever since the shop opened. Even on what were supposed to be her days off, she was always taking calls and meeting clients. This was the first vacation she had taken in years, even before the event planning business obtained its physical location. And after the multiple phone calls Felicity had made to him the night before and his repeated attempts to reassure her that he and Jack had things handled, he wanted to make sure he did not disturb her while on her sister trip.
He headed to the shop, arriving incredibly early. He wanted to make sure everything was set up and looking good for the day. And if he could get ahead on any party-prep they had to do that day, that would be an added bonus. He had even called Jack the night before, convincing him to come in early as well. Jefferson doubted Jack would be there as early as him, but he had agreed to come in earlier than usual.
Jefferson parked his truck around back and then walked to the front of the shop to unlock it. As he went to place his key in the door, he realized it was open. “What…” he groaned under his breath. Had he not closed the door all the way when he left the night before? He was already scolding himself, but then he realized the wooden door frame was chipped. He pushed the door open and flipped on the lights. “Oh… Oh, no…” he said, shaking his head.
The scene that lay before him caused his stomach to churn. All the books had been thrown from the shelves, and some had been torn apart. The display shelves had been ripped from the walls. Display racks for the costumes for their murder mystery parties were laid out all over the floor. One of the lounge chairs had been completely flipped, and the other’s cushions were spread out everywhere. He walked over the mess toward the counter. The cash register was on the floor, and it was of course empty of any money. He silently thanked Trixie for offering to take the money to the bank the night before, so they had only had enough money in there to make change, but it was still a considerable handful.
Jefferson went into the storage room, and he cringed. It was worse there. All the shelves had been rummaged through, and a good bit of stuff was on the floor. His eyes widened, realizing that the event shop was the least of his worries. He darted up the stairs to the detective agency, and it was an equally terrible disaster—paperwork everywhere, and Jack’s desk overturned. The display board for their current cases was face-down on the ground. “Crud. Crud. Crud!” Jefferson roared. He whipped out his cell phone, having to call Jack twice before he got an answer.
“For crying out loud, Jefferson!” Jack shouted into the phone. “I agreed to come in early, but not this early! What are you doing waking me up? I ought to come up there and whale on you!”
“Jack, we’ve been robbed!” Jefferson shouted.
“What?”
“The whole place, the shop and the agency, it’s been torn apart! Get down here, now!” Jefferson shouted.
“You must be joking!” Jack spat. “Okay, okay, I’m on my way. I’m calling Patrick.”
Jefferson hung up the phone. His first instinct was to look through the files and paperwork in the agency, but even if he managed to organize it all, he wouldn’t know what was missing. He decided to leave that mess to Jack, and he hurried back down into the shop. “Okay, first things first… I got to get the showroom clear,” he said to himself, knowing that’s what Felicity would want. The showroom of the event shop was every client’s first impression, whether they were coming for the event planning or for the agency.
He started by flipping all the furniture back, and he scowled to discover one of the cushions had a tear in it. “Ooh, I’m going to kick’s someone’s—” There was a knock on the door, and through the front windows, he could see Patrick and his rookie partner standing outside.
Jefferson went and ans
wered the door, inviting them in. “Holy cow, Jefferson!” Patrick exclaimed as he looked around. “What happened?! Jack told me you guys had a break in…”
“Yeah,” Jefferson moaned. “I know the money from the register is missing, but we could be missing more than that. It’s such a mess that I haven’t had a chance to go through everything yet. I have to get this place cleaned up before we open.”
“Well, we’ll stick around and help you out until Jack gets here,” Patrick said. “I’ll take both of your statements, and when you guys find out if anything else is missing, you can just give me a call.”
“Thanks, Patrick,” Jefferson said.
The two officers helped him to straighten the furniture, and Patrick went to the storage room to locate the toolbox Jefferson had said was back there. He returned, and he and the younger officer started re-installing some of the floating shelves that had been pulled from the walls. “Most of these are fine, Jefferson,” Patrick said after installing a second shelf. “But some of these snapped when they were yanked from the wall.”
“Great,” Jefferson moaned. “I’m just glad it’s Monday. We don’t usually have too many walk-ins on Mondays.”
After Jack arrived, Patrick took their statements and reminded each of them to call once they took inventory of the place. The two officers left, leaving Jack and Jefferson standing in the remaining mess. “Have you been upstairs yet?” Jack asked. “How bad is it?”
“About as much of a disaster as it is down here,” Jefferson said, and Jack shook his head.
“Who would break into an event shop just to trash it?” Jack questioned.
“Probably no one,” Jefferson said. “I mean, they emptied the register. If money was what they were after, they probably would have left after that. Whoever it was left the computer behind and yours too. You’d think if you’re going to bother breaking into a place, you’d take more than two hundred dollars in small bills.”
“I’ll run upstairs real quick just to see the damage, but then I’ll come back down here and help you get the showroom floor cleaned up,” Jack said, dipping out through the storage room where the stairs leading up to the agency were.
Jefferson sighed, eyeing the mess around him. He grabbed a trash bag, tossing the display books that had had their pages ripped out. Thankfully, they still had their display books saved online, but they cost nearly a hundred dollars apiece to order. Only two had had their pages ripped out, but it took him a considerable amount of time to just go around picking up the pages. By the time he was done with that, Fix and Trixie came walking in the front door—chatting away, oblivious to what Jefferson was dealing with inside until they walked through the doors themselves.
“Oh my gosh! What happened!” Trixie yelped, not pausing for even a second to start helping Jefferson pick up the torn papers.
“Someone robbed the place last night,” Jefferson said with a scowl.
Jack arrived back from the agency, shaking his head. “We have a problem,” he said.
“I’ll say,” Fix groaned.
“I’m not talking about the mess,” Jack said. “The filing cabinet was turned over, and with the huge mess, I can’t tell which files are missing and which ones have just been thrown all over the place.”
“Maybe you and Fix should go sort through all of that?” Jefferson suggested.
“No, we need to get the main entrance cleaned first,” Jack said. “We don’t need clients coming in on this mess.”
As though fate thought it would be a clever joke, an older gentleman entered the shop just as Jack finished saying this. The old man raised his brow. “My word!” he said.
“Sorry, sir,” Jefferson said. “We had an incident. Our shop was broken into last night.” Jefferson immediately hurried over to speak to the customer while Jack, Fix, and Trixie continued cleaning up the mess. “May I help you with anything, sir?”
“Well, my wife and I are having our fiftieth this summer. I want to do something special, and I’ve heard good things about the shop,” he said.
“I’m glad!” Jefferson said. “Give me a moment to find you an appropriate display book.” The older man went over to the furniture, and he started picking up cushions for them. “Oh, sir, you definitely don’t have to help us clean!”
The old man waved at them. “Eh, I’m old and retired. Not like I have anything better to do with my time.”
Jefferson smiled, thanking the old man as he walked around the shop helping them pick up demolished display books. He even helped them finish reinstalling the rest of the floating shelves. Thankfully, only three of the shelves had been damaged beyond repair. An affordable fix.
Once the floor was mostly cleared, Jefferson sent Trixie to start working on cleaning up the storage room while Jack and Fix headed upstairs to get going on the agency. Jefferson was finally able to sit down and breathe for a moment to help the kind old man toss around ideas for what he wanted to do for his big fiftieth anniversary celebration.
Once the older man left, Jefferson went to the shop phones and ordered a pizza. It was nearly lunchtime, and he had worked his employees hard that morning. When the pizza arrived, he picked up the phone again and called the agency upstairs, letting Jack and Fix know they had food waiting for them. He poked his head into the storage room, smiling to see that Trixie had just about gotten the place straightened up. “Good job,” he told her. “Come take a lunch break. It’s on me today.”
“Thanks, Jefferson!” she said, scurrying out of the storage room and eyeing the pizza.
The two of them sat down on the lounge furniture and shortly afterward, Fix joined them for lunch. “Jack still working up there?” Jefferson asked.
“He says he’ll be down in just a second. He wanted to look through some of the files to see if he could figure out if anything is missing,” Fix said.
Jefferson had just finished his first slice when Jack came barging downstairs. “Man, we got a serious problem!” Jack exclaimed.
“You’re telling me. I have to get this cushion repaired, plus I got to go out and get new shelves, and there’s a small hole in the wall over there where they threw down the clothing rack,” Jefferson groaned.
“No, I mean a serious problem, Jefferson,” Jack hissed. “We have some missing files, all right. Whoever broke in stole the file from Senator Daily’s case.”
“Whoa,” Fix said. “That is pretty serious.”
“What all was in it?” Jefferson asked.
“Everything,” Jack said. “Witnesses, how we solved the case, our contacts, and even the names of anyone who helped with the case or the event. It’s all in there.”
“That’s not good,” Jefferson said. “Better let Patrick know.”
“Has anyone called Felicity?” Fix asked.
“No!” Jack and Jefferson shouted together.
“Look,” Jefferson said. “This is probably nothing. We’ll look into it. There’s no reason to stress Felicity out by getting her involved. There’s nothing she can do about it while she’s in Helen, and the last thing we want is for her to end her vacation early because she thinks we can’t handle it.”
“Agreed,” Jack said, and Fix and Trixie nodded along with the decision to keep this from Felicity until she returned to Senoia.
7
The young man was now sitting up, still gagging a bit, while the three women stood nearby. Felicity stood, her arms crossed as she stared down at the would-be home invader.
“You freakin’ tased me in the throat!” he shouted at Bonnie. “Are you out of your mind?!”
“How do you know Donald?” Bonnie asked.
“None of your business!” he shouted.
“It is, actually,” Bonnie said. “He’s dead.”
The young man frowned. “Oh,” he said, his voice becoming a bit softer. “What…what happened?”
“Someone assaulted him and dumped him in the river,” Bonnie said. “Now, you answer one of my questions. Your name. What is it?”
“Mick Davies,” he said. “Donnie was a friend of mine. I wasn’t breaking into his place, I swear. I come over all the time and we hang out. I just let myself in most of the time.”
“I believe you,” Bonnie said, rubbing her nose. “But why did you run?”
“Because there were people creeping around his house, that’s why,” Mick sneered.
“Yeah, well, you heard her shout ‘police’,” Iris said. “So, why did you really run?”
The man kept his mouth shut. Bonnie knelt in the dirt, looking him square in the eye. Felicity tried not to grin too much. There was something very daunting about the seriousness in her face, the dried blood on her nose, and the way the moonlight was casting a shadow over her eyes that made her quite intimidating. Felicity was impressed. “Listen,” Bonnie said, her voice practically hissing with each word. “You resisted arrest, and I’m pretty sure you just broke my nose. You know it’s a crime to assault an officer, right? So, let me make this easy on you. You are going to start singing like a good little bird, or I’m going to make the list of charges that get laid on you tonight look like a rap sheet belonging to a freakin’ cartel member. Got it?”
Mick shifted nervously on the ground as he tried to make himself more comfortable—a difficult feat, Felicity imagined, while wearing handcuffs. “What do you want to know?” Mick asked.
“I want to know what your involvement was with Donald,” Bonnie said. “I heard you talking to the bird about what Donald had for you. Were you his partner?”
Mick eyed each of them cautiously.
Felicity spoke, her arms still crossed and a scowl on her face. “Give it up, Mick,” Felicity said. “Your best bet is to cooperate.”
“Fine. Fine!” he snarled. “Donald and I tag-team people. We’re pick-pockets, all right? Donald would distract people with his little magic tricks or with the bird or whatever. My job was to blend in with the crowd of observers and take what I could. I’d dump everything I got in a drop-off point, and Donald would sell everything online and split the cash with me.”
