Murder on the Toy Town Express

by Barbara Early

  Dad’s brows furrowed. “Why . . . ?” Then he stopped.

  “Why those books?” Reynolds said. “Here’s where they got a little quieter. Our last check with Mark Baker at the FBI picked up on a few connections between one Joshua Duncan and a few men suspected of involvement in organized crime.”

  “The comic books were some kind of payoff?” Dad asked.

  “Not sure yet,” Reynolds said. “But comic books have been used in money laundering schemes in the past. When the IRS asks where the money came from, it’s easy to point to a box of comic books you say you found in the basement. Who can prove otherwise? They’re next to untraceable.”

  “That’s diabolical,” I said. “That means Jenna Duncan . . .”

  “Made an honest mistake with her husband’s dishonest gains,” Reynolds said. “I almost feel sorry for what’s happening.” He glanced at his watch. “Right now, in fact.”

  “What’s happening?” I asked.

  “Search and seizure,” Reynolds said. “When you tick off both the FBI and the IRS, nasty things happen fast. They think they’re going to find all kinds of items used to pay off Duncan for his services. They’re taking the whole kit and caboodle.”

  “They’re leaving her with nothing?”

  “Joint property, joint tax returns. And rumor was she was disposing of evidence and getting ready to flee the area.”

  “She was having a garage sale and getting ready to visit her mother in Cleveland,” I said.

  “Same diff,” Reynolds said. “But from what I gather, she’s talking, trying to get the whole thing pinned on hubby there. It’s just a matter of time before one of them is implicated in McFadden’s death. I think we got this one wrapped up. Just waiting on a pretty bow.”

  Chapter 23

  When Dad and I arrived at Well Played, Cathy was trying to pull a table out of the closet. I ran over to stop her. “Let me get that!”

  “I’m pregnant, not an invalid.” Then she relaxed and let me take over setting up the tables for game night. “It feels good to be able to say that out loud.”

  “She’s right, though,” Dad said. “Got to take care of the littlest McCall.” He looked up. “Barbara, if it’s a girl?”

  “What are you talking about?” Cathy said.

  “Betsy McCall’s cousin,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Feel free to reject any and all of Dad’s name suggestions.”

  “I’ll do that,” she said, waving an accusing finger at Dad. “Parker told me that you’ve been calling me Chatty Cathy behind my back again.”

  Dad put his hands up. “See, even if you don’t name your child after a doll or toy, I can probably find a doll or toy that will fit the bill.” He paused for a second. “Including Bill. Pelican Bill, Bill Ding, Wild Bill, Blinky Bill . . .”

  “Please tell me that’s not why you seem to prefer Ken over Jack,” I said.

  “Not at all, sweetheart,” he said. “After all, jacks are toys too. I would’ve been happy with either name.” He pointed at the stairs. “I can start dinner, if you’d like. Unless you want to get something to go.”

  Since our main to-go option was Jack, I left Dad to make dinner while I focused my attention on Cathy. “So, the secret is officially out. Any limitations or are we free to tell the world?”

  “Tell anyone you’d like. Oh, and I also got to meet Amanda and Kohl today. They came in when you were out.”

  “Were they looking for Dad or me?”

  “I don’t think so,” Cathy said. “Amanda said she’s trying to slowly introduce the town to Kohl to see what he thinks before she makes any big decisions. For what it’s worth, I think he likes the toyshop too. He took a shine to a Superman figure, and I let him take it with him. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “As long as Dad doesn’t bring you up on a bribery charge, I have no objections. Kohl seems to have a fondness for superheroes.”

  “I did, however, hide the price tag from Amanda. And I may have had to undervalue it to get her to accept it. She was asking about the consignment shop down the street, and I dug up an old chamber of commerce coupon book for her. I guess with all of Kohl’s special needs, she relied on Craig’s child support payments.”

  “I know Dad’s set on buying them out, but I hope when the dust has settled, there’s enough left in Craig’s estate to allow them to stay. She seems nice.”

  “I thought so too. Easy to talk to. She said she has a great gingersnap recipe that got her through her morning sickness. She was going to e-mail it to me once she got back home. Oh, and Maxine also stopped by while you were out. She said the inventory’s going faster than expected. Said they should be done by noon tomorrow, and she was wondering if we could use her.”

  “I hope you told her yes,” I said.

  “I did, especially considering how much you and Dad have been away from the shop.”

  “Which is over, I think,” I said. “According to Reynolds, it’s just a matter of time. They figure it was either one of those two mob guys or maybe Jenna Duncan.”

  “And there we were, eating cheesecake and watching Lori Briggs swig drain cleaner just the other night.”

  “Not drain cleaner.”

  “It said you could use it to freshen drains. By the way, I looked up vodka as a cleaning agent, and a few of the organic websites highly recommend it. Not quite sure that’s where I want to go, since I know it’s a sore spot with Parker too. But speaking of cleaning drains, I’m going to head home and ignore mine. I want to put my feet up for a bit. Is it just me, or are my ankles swollen already?”

  I stepped back to look. “Not that I can tell, but you probably should get some rest.” I gave her a hug. “Thanks for covering for us.”

  She saluted, gathered her things, and left.

  The tables were a little awkward to set up with only one person, but since Dad was taking care of dinner, I made short work of it, hoping nobody was watching through the window. After all the chairs were in place, I’d begun collecting games—tonight’s theme was games we played in the seventies. Of course that included the old standbys: Yahtzee, Risk, Clue, and Mousetrap. Rebound was always fun but a bit noisy. I also pulled out a few nonpristine—playing, as opposed to collectible—copies of some more obscure games. Which Witch? (before it was released as a Ghostbusters tie-in). Sub Search—a kind of 3-D version of Battleship. And Manhunt, an oldie but goodie from Milton Bradley that featured a detective handbook and a crime “computer” and punch cards. It was just a set of spinners hooked up to a small motor powered by a D battery. It was hard to find a spinner that still worked these days, but Miles had made us an app that replicated it pretty well.

  Dad came down the stairs with a tray. Nothing fancy. Grilled cheese, cut diagonally, a handful of chips, and a few gherkins.

  “Oh, the seventies,” he said. “Those were the days. Where men were men and women were generally in distress or looked like swimwear models. And the weapon of choice was definitely a Smith and Wesson revolver.”

  I did the math in my head. “You weren’t a detective in the seventies.”

  “No, but that’s when I knew I wanted to be one.”

  We finished our brief dinner, then Dad carried the tray upstairs. I found a retro station to pump through the speakers, and things were already seeming a little groovy when Maxine walked in.

  “Wow!” she said. “That’s a blast from the past.”

  Moments later, the whole gang started pouring in, with Lori Briggs leading the pack as she chatted with Glenda.

  “They took her away,” Lori said, “in chains.”

  Dad interrupted. “Handcuffs?”

  “Well, yeah,” she said. “And they’re still there, trampling all over the neighborhood.”

  She quieted down her complaints when Ken walked in and kissed me on the cheek.

  “In public?” I whispered, aware that the room had hushed at least a few decibels.

  “They’d better get used to it,” he said.

  Fortunately that pub
lic display of affection was over by the time Jack walked in with Terry in tow.

  “Are we welcome?” he asked me before he’d even let go of the door.

  “Of course,” I said, stepping forward for a hug but then stopping short. I was in unfamiliar territory.

  There was more than a little jockeying for position tonight. Lori Briggs sat down next to the spot where Ken usually sat. But then she was joined by Jack and Terry.

  Ken sat next to where I was across from Maxine. Dad had somehow slipped the Manhunt game on the table and winked before he left to play Battleship with Glenda. I could feel my face flush when I caught his meaning. Manhunt, indeed.

  “I’ve never played this one before,” Maxine said. “How does it work?”

  “Well, we’re all detectives,” I said, “and we have to go around the board picking up clues and writing them down in our notebooks.”

  Ken sighed. “Do we have to? I do this all day at work.”

  “Afraid I’ll beat you?”

  “Fine. What do we have to do?”

  “First, we all have to decide if we want to solve a murder, a robbery, or a swindle.” Then I demonstrated the “punch cards” and probe.

  The game progressed slowly, with Ken stopping every so often to question the terminology of the game board.

  “Safecracking and burglaries aren’t robberies. You can only rob from a person when they’re present.”

  “Says the law,” Maxine said. “Apparently Milton Bradley had other ideas.”

  “What’s bothering you?” I asked. “You seem all out of sorts tonight. I’d have thought you’d be more relaxed since the investigation seems to be winding down.”

  “Sorry,” he said. But there was more that he wasn’t telling me and apparently didn’t want to talk about, and I didn’t have to be the Amazing Whatchamacallit to see that.

  I turned to Maxine. “So, how’s it going at the comic shop? Cathy told me you were almost done.”

  She nodded. “That Amanda’s a real good worker. So is Kohl. He was helping out for a bit.”

  “Craig’s kid?” Ken said. “How old is he?”

  I put my hands over Ken’s ears. “Ixnay on the ildchay aborlay awslay.”

  Maxine laughed. “He’s fourteen. And he knows more about what’s going on than he lets on. I’m sure of it. We had him sorting through comic books, separating the different superheroes. It made the rest of the inventory easier.”

  “Was anything else missing?” Ken asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Maxine said. “Well, except for the graded comics. We eventually got all the rest of the stock from the train show, and we did sell some there, even though we weren’t open very long.”

  Lori laughed at something one of the Wallace brothers said. It was that over-the-top flirty laugh that men seemed to adore and that reminded me of brakes squealing before impact. I glanced over there, and she had the attention of both men. Lambs to the slaughter?

  “Liz?” Ken said. “Your turn.”

  While I considered my move, Ken turned to Maxine. “Look, Kohl can help out, but make sure he’s not working too long.”

  She nodded. “He got tired after a little while, so he sat down and started drawing. That surprised me. He’s quite good. Like his dad, almost. Except . . .”

  “Except?” I said.

  “He adds all kinds of details, but his people don’t have eyes. The rest of it is perfect. Here.” She reached into her purse and pulled out a folded paper. “I need to frame it or something, but he drew this today and gave it to me.”

  I looked at the picture. It was Maxine. You could clearly identify even the clothing she was wearing, all with intricate folds and shading. Where the face should have been was just a collection of dots and squiggles.

  “Amanda said he usually doesn’t even try to draw the faces.”

  “That’s really good though,” I said.

  “Huh,” Ken said. “Is he some kind of savant? Like that one guy on the news who drew the whole of New York City after a twenty-minute helicopter ride?”

  Maxine shook her head. “I asked Amanda about that. She said no. Just that he took to drawing real young, and it seemed to calm him. He works hard at it. Maybe it’s one good thing he inherited from Craig.”

  “He inherited the shop and the house too, right?” I asked.

  Ken nodded. “We found his will in the search of his house while investigating the break-in there. Things were tossed around a bit, but nothing too much was broken or damaged. Needs some serious redecorating, though.”

  “A woman’s touch,” Maxine said. “I always thought so. I offered to help him, but . . .”

  She trailed off, concentrating on the game. “Did I win? I think I won,” she said. “How do I check it?”

  That startled me back to the game. “Other side of the punch card.”

  “Yep,” she said. “Jim Nasium.” Then she groaned. “This is your father’s game, isn’t it?” She thumbed through the list of suspects. “Maria Net. Dora Jar. Mel O’Day.”

  “Hank,” Lori called out, “can’t I get through one game of Yahtzee without any of your puns?”

  “Sorry,” he said not even looking up. “No dice.”

  After the groaning subsided, Ken asked, “Does anybody want to try that 3-D Battleship game?”

  “Sub Search?” I said. The question was a little awkward, considering it was a two-person game. “I should carry around some candy to see if I can’t make enough to at least pay for the lights and electricity tonight. You two can play without me.”

  “Would you like me to do that?” Maxine said.

  “You had a long day. Sit down and have fun.”

  I went to the candy counter and grabbed an armload of candy popular in the seventies: Good & Plenty, Milk Duds, Necco Wafers, Chuckles, and the ever-popular Sky Bars, which we now had to import from Canada. I also took along some of the old-fashioned cinnamon and lemon suckers made after the recipe at Crystal Beach. The old amusement park was still going strong then. It hadn’t closed until 1989, after 101 years of operation. Dad says he took us once, but I have no memory of it.

  I stopped at Jack’s table first, trying to greet everyone with the same friendly tone. They were still playing Yahtzee, and Lori was calling out for threes as she rolled the dice. She rolled five of them.

  Terry tossed down his scoring pencil. “There goes that game.” But he didn’t seem too upset as he watched Lori do a celebratory dance with more than a little jiggling involved. The thought struck me that Lori won an awful lot of our tournaments, and I began to wonder if some of her male opponents were throwing their games.

  “Candy?” I asked.

  Both Jack and Terry made purchases from what I had in stock while Lori stretched—an action that didn’t go unwatched by the men present—and bought a pack of her favorite candy cigarettes.

  While she was gone from the table, Jack summoned me over. “I have to talk with you. Not here.” He walked to the rear of the shop, and I followed him to the area right in front of the wall featuring our bright vintage lunch boxes. He rested his hand right next to the Aladdin Hogan’s Heroes box that we probably would’ve had in a sealed display case had it been in better condition.

  “Jack, what is this about?”

  “It’s weird for me to be here, right?”

  “Maybe a little, but we live in the same town. We’ve weathered a breakup before and remained friends. I’d like to think that can happen again.”

  “That’s what I figured you’d say.”

  “I really should get back—”

  “There’s something else I need to tell you.” He took a fortifying breath. “It’s about Terry. I’d been thinking he was keeping another secret. About all that happened at the train show.”

  “More involvement?”

  He nodded. “But not directly. Well, I guess it is directly. He kind of came clean about it this morning, and I said I’d talk to you about it.”

  “Why me?” But the a
nswer hit like a rock in the pit of my stomach. “So I’d talk to Ken for you.”

  He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Something like that.”

  I winced. I hoped I wouldn’t regret this, but I’d also entertained the thought that Terry was still holding something back. “What is it?”

  “Terry knew Craig from school,” Jack said.

  “Craig was in our class, though,” I said.

  “But more Terry’s size. I don’t remember it—such a long time ago—but apparently when Craig gave any of us a hard time, Terry would step in and challenge him.”

  “Craig could be quite a bully,” I said. “But that was decades ago. I’m sure it cooled down.”

  Jack paused, looking at the lunchboxes, then at the floor, before he finally met my gaze, his eyebrows pinched. “Terry was giving Craig a hard time at the show. Teasing him about that superhero suit. I’m sure he was just mouthing off.”

  “What exactly did he say?”

  “There was this little girl with a balloon, and she lost it and started crying. So Terry decided to taunt Craig. He said something like, ‘Hey, superhero-man. You can fly. Go get that kid her balloon.’”

  I pressed my hand against my mouth and leaned against the display.

  “I genuinely don’t think he meant to do any actual harm. Terry had no idea that sculp-drug, whatever it is, was in Craig’s system. How could he? Or I’m sure he wouldn’t have said what he did.”

  “Give me a moment to process,” I said.

  “How bad is this?”

  “I don’t know.”

  We must have been MIA for too long, because Ken poked his head around the corner. “There you are. What’s going on?”

  Jack looked at me, and I nodded. He told Ken the rest of the story. “What’s this going to mean for him? Will this mess up his parole? I mean, I’m sure he was only mouthing off.”

  Ken opened his mouth a couple of times, looking as if full sentences had formed in his brain but refused to cross his lips. Eventually he just shook his head. “I have no idea. I think your best bet is to get Terry to talk to Howard Reynolds.”