by Ali Brandon
Oddly enough for someone who hailed from the Hamptons, the address listed on the card was in Brooklyn, though she didn’t recognize the street name. But that was not what made her stop in midstep and catch her breath.
She had flipped over the card to read the email address that Morris had scribbled on the back. “Jake,” she said as her friend halted beside her in concern, “Reese still has that lipstick note that Hamlet found, right?”
“Yeah. Why?”
Darla took a deep breath. “I think I know now who wrote it.”
TWENTY
“LET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT, DARLA. YOU SNUCK INTO A private memorial service hoping to get the dirt on someone?”
Reese’s tone was disapproving, and his words were all too familiar. In fact, it was a virtual repeat of the conversation she’d had with him a few days earlier regarding the Lone Protester. Given the fact she had been proven correct then—and, it would seem, now—Darla met the detective’s disapproving look with equanimity.
They were downstairs in Jake’s basement apartment, in the middle of polishing off a hasty supper of spaghetti that Jake had put together. “Ma whips up a huge batch of sauce and meatballs anytime she visits. I freeze it for emergencies like this,” she had explained with a grin when Darla marveled at the speed with which she had managed a homemade meal.
With afternoon traffic, their return from the Hamptons had been longer than the trip out. Once they arrived back at the brownstone following Valerie Baylor’s posh memorial, Jake had put in the call to Reese to stop by on his dinner break. Darla, meanwhile, had made a quick stop to check on things at her own store before make a beeline for Bygone Days Antiques.
“No time to talk, Mary Ann,” she breathlessly had told the old woman. “I need to see if you have something old and expensive in the way of a cigarette lighter.” A few moments later, as Mary Ann brought out a few possibilities for her to examine, she added with an apologetic wince, “But I don’t actually want to buy anything. I just need to borrow one for a day . . . police business, you know.”
“So long as you bring it back undamaged, you are welcome to take any one of them,” the old woman agreed with a smile. “But I will expect a full explanation later, my dear, or else I will perish of curiosity.”
Then, with a quick look over her shoulder to the back of the shop, Mary Ann had added in a conspiratorial whisper, “We just won’t mention this to Brother. Now, which do you prefer, the green enamel with silver, or the gold with the embossed swan?”
Since Jake had proved equally successful in her mission to persuade Reese to stop by, enticing him with the twin draws of home-cooked food and some potentially interesting information regarding Valerie Baylor, their plan had seemed to be falling right into place. Then Darla scored the final point. After running upstairs to feed Hamlet and change from her funeral garb into jeans and a sweater, she had taken a deep breath and with shaking fingers, dialed Morris’s number.
She had been surprised when he actually answered the phone, even though she’d been pretty sure that, in the Hamptons, the neighbors did not all gather together after a funeral to share a covered-dish sit-down. But perhaps he would have lingered at the gravesite. Her plan had been to leave a message and hope for a return call, so she had been taken off guard when he picked up almost immediately.
Morris’s tone had been polite if puzzled by her unexpected call so soon after the funeral, until she mentioned the expensive cigarette lighter she supposedly had found. When she suggested that he stop by to identify it as Valerie’s, silence had met her words. She had feared for a few uncomfortable moments that she had crossed a line of some sort. Then, to her relief, he responded in the affirmative to her invitation.
“I don’t often go out,” he explained, “but perhaps I can manage, since this has to do with my sister. Would one o’clock tomorrow be convenient?”
With the plan in place, the three of them—Darla, Reese, and Jake—now were gathered for what Darla privately called a war conference and what she suspected Reese thought of as an annoyance wrapped inside a darned good meal.
She had waited until they had made significant dents in their respective overflowing plates before launching into an account of the day’s events. But she had barely begun her explanation when Reese stopped her with his words of disapproval.
Now, she reminded him, “I was supposed to be on the guest list for the memorial service. It’s not like I bribed someone to find out where it was being held. Hillary Gables gave me the directions herself. So why don’t you quit acting like Miss Manners and let me tell you the rest?”
While Reese went back to shoveling in spaghetti, Darla went on to explain her shock at realizing that Morris was actually Mavis. She waited for Reese’s reaction to that, only to realize when none was forthcoming that, as Jake had suggested, he must have known this already.
“Yeah, your buddy Morris gave me his real name and address when I took his statement,” the detective confirmed, grinning a little at her disappointment. “He did leave out the part about being Valerie Baylor’s brother, though, which is suspicious, but not really enough to make the case active again. Still, score one for you, Red . . . er, Darla.”
She bristled a bit at that last but let it pass, going on instead to recount Morris’s strangely brief eulogy. She wrapped up by asking, “Besides the YouTube video and some conflicting witness statements, the only other potential evidence you have is the lipstick note that Hamlet found. Correct?”
He gave a noncommittal shrug. “The key word is actually had. In case you missed the memo, Ms. Baylor’s death was ruled an accident, and there wasn’t sufficient evidence or eyewitness testimony to keep the case open beyond that.”
“What would you say if I had another sample of handwriting that matches it, and the writing just happens to belong to one Morris Vickson, aka Mavis?”
Darla tossed Morris’s business card—carefully sealed now in a plastic zip-top bag—onto the table, her smile as triumphant as if she were throwing down a winning poker hand. The three of them stared at the back of the card where Morris had scribbled his personal email address. The resemblance between the two samples was unmistakable . . . at least, in Darla’s opinion.
She was gratified when Reese picked up the bag and studied the card inside more closely. “Yeah, it’s similar,” he conceded. “I suppose I could get one of the handwriting guys to take a look. But I have to warn you this is still pretty slim as far as evidence goes, even if it turns out that the same person wrote both. The note wasn’t exactly a smoking gun or a confession, and I can’t see this”—he flapped the business card—“being enough to open the case again.”
“And that’s why we’re luring Morris to the store to see if he’ll squeal,” Darla proclaimed, hoping her cop-speak wasn’t too dated.
Reese rolled his eyes and looked over at Jake. “We? Are you part of this, Martelli?” he asked with a sigh.
Jake’s answering smile was a touch sheepish. “Yeah, well, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to do a little of the dirty work for you,” she admitted and went on to explain their plan about the cigarette lighter.
When she finished, Darla hurriedly added, “I called Morris right before I came down here. He said he’ll come by the shop tomorrow around one to take a look at what we have.” Then, exchanging hopeful glances with Jake, she waited for Reese’s response.
The detective wiped his mouth a final time and leaned back with a sigh that had nothing to do with the meal he’d just finished.
“Technically, I should tell you to call off this little meeting. Case is closed, what you’re planning to do borders on harassment, et cetera, et cetera. So let’s pretend I didn’t hear this plan of yours, and you let me know later if anything comes of your face-to-face, okay? But now, if you’ll excuse me, I gotta get back to the precinct.”
Jake rose with him and walked Reese out while Darla took the opportunity to snag her third piece of garlic bread.
“So, are we crazy, or what?”
she asked when Jake returned.
Jake shook her frizzy head. “Probably what,” was her wryly cheerful assessment. She reached for the uncorked bottle of red that had been breathing on the table. Since Reese had still been on the clock, she and Darla had politely refrained from drinking with their meals. Now, however, Jake refilled their empty water glasses with a healthy pour of wine.
“Grab your glass and let’s sit outside,” she suggested. “Who knows, maybe we can get one of those kids hanging out there by the shrine to channel Valerie for us. That would save us the trouble of grilling her brother tomorrow.”
Remembering her final look at Valerie in her casket, and the fanciful thoughts that had accompanied the viewing, Darla shivered a little even as she managed a laugh.
“Thanks, but I’ll pass on the séance and stick with good old Morris,” she said as she grabbed up her glass and stood. “Besides, I don’t have a choice. Mary Ann will be disappointed if I don’t bring back a dramatic story when I return the cigarette lighter to her.”
“CERTAINLY, IT’S AN INTERESTING PIECE,” MORRIS VICKSON OPINED AS he examined the sterling silver and green enamel cigarette lighter that Darla had handed him. “It has an art deco look to it, don’t you think? I’m no smoker, but I fancy myself something of an expert when it comes to vintage silver.”
“Mary Ann said it dated from the thirties,” she agreed. When the man gave her a questioning look, she hurried to explain, “She and her brother own the antique store next door. I had her take a look at it.”
“Ah,” Morris said with a nod as he handed back the lighter. “I’m not surprised you thought it might belong to Valerie,” he went on, “but I’m afraid I don’t recognize it. She did own a fancy lighter or two that people had given her as gifts, but this wasn’t one of them. Besides, she had a practical streak. For everyday she used those cheap plastic throwaways.”
“Oh dear, then it must have been a customer who left it,” Darla said and tucked the lighter in the drawer beneath the register. “I’ll just hold it here until someone comes looking for it.”
Morris’s arrival had been timed perfectly, Darla thought in satisfaction. With it being Lizzie’s day off, she had only James to contend with. Fortunately, his usual lunch hour coincided with the appointment time Morris had given her, so only she and Jake were in the store with the late author’s brother.
With a glance now at Jake, who was casually thumbing through a bestseller at the counter, she told him, “I’m so sorry I brought you here on a wild-goose chase, Mr. Vickson. But Mary Ann said the lighter might be worth a couple of hundred dollars, so I couldn’t just mail it off to you without knowing for sure it really was your sister’s.”
She felt a sting of guilt at this litany of small lies. No matter what role, if any, Morris had played in his sister’s death, returning here to the store surely had to have been difficult for him. But if he were distressed, he hid it well under a gracious manner.
“I completely understand, Ms. Pettistone, and I hope you find its proper owner. Oh, and I do thank you for the photos. That was thoughtful of you, to make prints as well.”
He gathered up the neat stack by the register. Once Darla had confirmed that Morris would be stopping by that afternoon, she’d put in a second call to James asking him to print out some of the photos he had taken at the autographing and then bring them to work with him.
James had complied. And, being James, he first had cropped and touched up each picture to its best advantage and then printed them on expensive photo paper. He had even included a disk of the files in case Morris cared to upload the pictures to his own computer. Now, as Darla watched, the man thumbed through the copies.
He paused at one that showed Mavis applying a dusting of powder to Valerie’s face. While a candid shot, the scene as James had cropped it had an artistic look to it, with both figures in profile. The resemblance between the two was so obvious now, Darla wondered how she could’ve missed it.
With a sigh, Morris let the pictures slip back to the counter.
“You know,” he said in a thoughtful tone, “this is all still so fresh. Every morning since she died, I go through this strange sort of countdown. I wake up and tell myself, Just a day ago, my sister was still alive . . . just two days ago, my sister was still alive . . . just three days ago, my sister was still alive.”
He paused and shook his head.
“Two more days, and the countdown will change. It will be, My sister died a week ago . . . my sister died two weeks ago . . . my sister died three weeks ago. Then it will change to months, and then it will move on to years. At what point, Ms. Pettistone, do you think I’ll finally stop counting?”
“Probably never,” Darla replied, sympathetic tears unexpectedly filling her eyes.
She had done much the same thing as a teenager, when a beloved cousin of hers had died, too young, in a car accident. For weeks afterward, she had mentally checked off each day on her personal cosmic calendar as one more day without Amanda being there for her to write to or call. Even now, she sometimes still went through that mental litany, marveling as she did so at just how much time had passed.
She hurried to add, “But after a while, it won’t be every day, and in time it won’t hurt quite as much.”
“Do you think so?”
Smiling a little, he gathered the photos again and slid them back into their envelope, tucking the packet into his messenger bag. “Please thank your manager for me. My parents and I will enjoy having these pictures.”
“I’ll gladly tell him, but please don’t feel you must leave right away,” Darla insisted, hoping no desperation had seeped into her tone.
The conversation had wound down far more quickly than she had hoped. She reminded herself that this should not have surprised her—not if her previous guess that he did, indeed, suffer from social anxiety was correct. Somehow, though, she needed to keep him there and talking.
“James took a late lunch,” she went on, “but he will be back any minute if you would care to thank him yourself. And I’ve just made a pot of fresh coffee if you’d like a cup while you browse the shop for a bit.”
Too late, she realized she had forgotten the nearby stack of Haunted High books. She saw the pained look on Morris’s face as he caught a glimpse of the books, and she mentally kicked herself. So much for browsing.
She threw a helpless look at Jake, who gave a small shrug. Short of tackling the man and insisting that he indulge in chitchat, there wasn’t much either of them could do. But before they had to resort to such drastic measures, the bells on the front door jingled. The door opened to admit a small pigtailed figure wearing round black glasses and a blue plaid school uniform, and carrying a pink backpack.
“Callie!” Darla exclaimed in pleasure, gesturing the girl in. “I was hoping you would stop by. But what are you doing here in the middle of a school day?”
“Today was a half day,” the girl explained with a precise nod, “so my mother let me go shopping with her. She’s in the bath store down the block. She let me come in here by myself because I told her you had a book for me.”
“Why yes, I do.”
Darla reached under the register and pulled out one of the autographed copies of Ghost of a Chance. “I saved this one for you, just like I promised.”
“Wow.” Callie took the book in both hands and stared at it in awe. “I can’t believe I have a signed copy!”
Shifting the treasured tome so that she hugged it with one arm, she dug with her free hand into her uniform pocket. “My mom gave me money to pay for it,” she explained and held out two crumpled twenties.
Darla smiled and shook her head. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Morris taking advantage of her distraction to start toward the door. “Tell your mom that the book is my gift to you for being such a good customer.”
A desperate idea occurred to her. Gesturing toward Morris, she went on loudly, “And I have another surprise for you, Callie. This gentleman is Mr. Morris Vickson
. He’s Valerie Baylor’s twin brother, and he stopped by for a visit.”
The announcement stopped Morris in his tracks, and he glanced at the young girl with polite uncertainty. Darla pressed her advantage, telling him, “This is Callie. She’s one of your sister’s biggest fans.”
“I’m very pleased to meet you, young lady,” Morris said with a hesitant smile, putting out a hand adorned with the familiar puzzle ring.
Despite her youth, Callie knew the routine, for she smiled and took his hand in return. Her tone polite, she said, “Nice to meet you, sir. I’m very sorry about your sister. She was a wonderful writer. When I grow up, I want to write books just like her.”
“Well, all good writers start out as good readers,” he assured her. Then he frowned, his expression considering. “Tell me, Callie, what did you think when Lani learned the secret of the Janitor’s closet in the second book?”
“You mean how the closet was actually a mysterious portal to h-e-l-l?”
When Morris nodded, the girl gave an exaggerated shiver. “That was pretty darn scary. I had to keep the light on all night after I read that. But that’s okay. I think it would have been dumb if Lani didn’t check out the closet once she found out about those kids disappearing.”
“And what did you think of the Janitor?” Morris wanted to know.
Darla had thought that the Janitor—by day a mild old man with a lisp and a kind smile, and by night a malevolent demon with sharp teeth and pupil-less eyes—was one of the creepiest characters she’d ever read. She, too, was curious to hear Callie’s take on the character.
The girl shrugged. “I thought he was pretty mean, at first, but later on I decided he was more sad than scary. I kind of felt sorry for him, even though he tried to kill Lani’s best friend. And I was kind of mad when the ghost gang destroyed him with a séance at the end of School Spirit.”
