Lady Justice and the Broken Hearts

by Robert Thornhill

  Bernice punched him in the arm.

  “Okay folks, this isn’t getting us anywhere. Focus!”

  The professor had been unusually quiet, and had been concentrating on the encrypted message. Finally he looked up. “I think I’ve got it. I believe the beast that is being referred to is the beast spoken of in the Book of Revelation in the Bible. It says the beast will arise in the last days and the scripture tells us that the beast has a number. That number is 666. Using that formula, I have circled every sixth letter in the encrypted message and here is what I’ve come up with.”

  He handed me his paper.

  BEAST

  Q X F U M S L H R A E T O C F K L P B E A V W A

  S X Q R M T Y I L W V R J G D A W I N M K S T C

  V M D A Q K J G T U O P L J E W Z A R X J K B R

  U O S C E A C U L Q Z D M G U K R E

  T K S R Q X R D J B X Z Y I D G A L P T S C M E A T S

  Z V H K Y W P X U O K A Q V H I B W T B L P I F D S E

  C Y O K E Z R M T D X Z P K G E R N J R W Q X D H I Y

  V T Q Z M L F U J S X N B T Q Y E B P C Z M V F S T S

  S B C X L U T V S Y L H U T P W I X T I A Q N C D P V

  D T M S Z F A B Y Q Z P K J B V L

  The circled letters spelled, ‘St. Patrick Parade.’

  “Of course,” Kevin exclaimed. “That’s the perfect place for an attack. Just think about the Boston Marathon bombings. The parade is on Broadway from Linwood to 43rd Street. There will thousands of people along the parade route dressed in all kinds of wacky outfits. Green hair, green beer. Lots of weirdoes. Then there are the floats. Everything from giant shamrocks to an enormous cow. Think about the Trojan Horse. One of those floats could be filled with explosives.”

  “And guys in kilts playing bagpipes,” Bernice interjected. “I’ve always wanted to look under one of those things.”

  “I’ve been there and done that,” Veronica, the former hooker replied. “You haven’t missed anything.”

  “I’ve got a badge that says, ‘Kiss my pecker. I’m an Irish chicken,’” Jerry said proudly.

  “Pretty lame pick-up line,” Dad said. “I’m guessing you haven’t had a lot of success with it.”

  “Sadly, no,” he replied.

  “Let’s get back on track,” I said. “Professor, I think you’ve got something there, but what about the rest of the message? Does your formula fit?”

  “No it doesn’t, and that’s a puzzle. I’ll keep working on it.”

  “I’d better call Mark and tell him what we’ve got so far.”

  I dialed Mark’s number. “St. Patrick’s Day Parade,” I said. “The Professor figured it out.”

  “Too little, too late,” Mark replied. “Our analysts came up with the same thing and we’re on it. We’ll have people all over that parade route, in the crowd and even on the floats. If the terrorists are there, we’ll sniff them out.”

  “What can we do?”

  “Not a thing. We’ve got this, but thanks anyway.”

  “Oh, yes, one more thing. Did your guys figure out the bottom part of the message?”

  “Not yet, but we have enough to get the ball rolling.”

  I was about to clear the room when the Professor shouted, “Eureka! I’ve got it!”

  “What? Tell us.”

  “There is a description of the beast in chapter thirteen of the Book of Revelation. It says that the beast has seven heads and ten horns and upon the horns are ten crowns. If I use the same logic on the last paragraph, circling the seventh letter, then the tenth and the next tenth, then repeating the sequence, here’s what I come up with.

  He handed me the paper.

  BEAST

  Q X F U M S L H R A E T O C F K L P B E A V W A

  S X Q R M T Y I L W V R J G D A W I N M K S T C

  V M D A Q K J G T U O P L J E W Z A R X J K B R

  U O S C E A C U L Q Z D M G U K R E

  T K S R Q X R D J B X Z Y I D G A L P T S C M E A T S

  Z V H K Y W P X U O K A Q V H I B W T B L P I F D S E

  C Y O K E Z R M T D X Z P K G E R N J R W Q X D H I Y

  V T Q Z M L F U J S X N B T Q Y E B P C Z M V F S T S

  S B C X L U T V S Y L H U T P W I X T I A Q N C D P V

  D T M S Z F A B Y Q Z P K J B V L

  “It spells Raspberry Festival. What the hell is that?”

  “Ohhh, I know,” Mary gushed. “It’s a craft fair at John Knox Village in Lee’s Summit. Irma Krug picks me up and we go every year. They have all kinds of cool stuff, jewelry, knitted shawls, baked goods. It’s huge.”

  “How huge?”

  “There are over a hundred and twenty-five vendors and sometimes there are hundreds, maybe even a thousand shoppers.”

  I picked up the phone and called Mark.

  “A craft show,” he said, after I had shared the Professor’s discovery. “I don’t think so. That’s small potatoes compared to the St. Pat’s Parade. There has to be another explanation for the rest of the document. Our guys will keep working on it. Thanks, but I’m still buying the parade.”

  I couldn’t believe how he had dismissed what we had found.

  “How about the rest of you?” I asked.

  “I think the Professor’s right on,” Kevin replied.

  Everyone nodded.

  I turned to Mary. “When does this thing start?”

  “Tomorrow at eleven in the morning. Irma’s picking me up at ten-thirty.”

  “Looks like we’re going to a craft fair.”

  CHAPTER 22

  John Knox Village is a senior citizen retirement community in Lee’s Summit, just east of Kansas City. A part of the huge complex is the Pavilion. It looks like an enormous teacup turned upside down. It is available to rent for all kinds of community events including the Raspberry Meadows Craft Fair.

  We arrived at the Pavilion at ten. The event was supposed to begin at eleven. The first thing we noticed was that the whole operation was a security nightmare.

  Many of the 125 vendors had set up their booths the night before, but at least half were in the process when we arrived. The doors were propped open and men and women of all shapes, sizes and ages were hauling their wares into the arena. There were boxes, crates and containers of every description scattered everywhere, and there was not a security guard in sight. Anyone could easily bring anything into the Pavilion without question.

  We had learned that the event was sponsored by a mother-daughter team who had been putting on such events for over four decades. We had called ahead and asked for a list of the vendors, many of which had been attending the festival for years. We also asked them to pinpoint any first time vendors. If the terrorists were really present, they would probably fit in that category. There were only six newbies. Everyone else had been there before.

  For the next hour, we quietly observed what could only be described as organized chaos. People were coming and going, in and out, with carts and dollies full of all kinds of crap. It didn’t seem possible that they would be ready to open the doors to shoppers by eleven, but somehow, they did.

  By ten-thirty, a line had started to form outside the entrance. Many of the shoppers were residents of the adjacent senior citizen complex. Canes, walkers and wheelchairs were everywhere. A few looked like they had just crawled out of bed, but for others, this was an event. It was obvious the local beauty shop had been busy. There were bouffant hairdos in every shade of blue and grey imaginable, along with the ones dyed coal black or beet red, a futile attempt to recapture lost youth. Looking at the sea of bobbing heads made me think of the current bestseller, Fifty Shades of Grey, although this probably wasn’t what the author had in mind.

  Old guys, obviously bored out of their minds, were tagging along with their wives. You could tell by their expressions that they would rather be anyplace but here.

  Not being vendors, we had to line up outside with the rest of the crowd. When the doors were thrown open at eleven, the eager mass of humanity surged forward, anxious
to get their hands on the best stuff before it sold out.

  I felt something jab me in the backside and turned to see an elderly lady with a cane.

  “Hurry up, Sonny,” she said, “We’re burnin’ daylight here.”

  I stepped aside and let her hobble through.

  Once we were inside, we decided it would be best if we split up. We could cover more ground that way.

  I wasn’t exactly sure what we were looking for. I certainly wasn’t expecting to see one of the vendors with a long black beard wearing a turban, although there was one skinny old guy with a grey beard and grey pony tail who could saw your name in blocks of wood.

  It was easy to get distracted. Bernice had pulled Dad over to a booth selling jewelry and she was busy holding little baubles up to her ears and asking my father’s opinion. I knew Dad didn’t give a damn one way or the other, but like most men, he just stood there nodding and smiling.

  Ox had been drawn to the booth where they were selling homemade pies, cookies and cakes of all kinds. I could almost see him drooling over the tasty sweets and I knew Judy had her hands full keeping his big appetite in check.

  Maggie was drawn to a booth where one lady was crocheting and another was knitting. I had to marvel at their dexterity as their hands rapidly worked the needles weaving yarn into frilly garments. The huge needles one woman was using looked like dangerous weapons. I noticed a pile of little lacy things with a sign that said, ‘doilies.’ They were the things that my grandma used to put on the arms of the chair and on the headrest in case you had used too much Brylcreem. I had always been fascinated by the word --- doilies. It’s a funny word when you think about it. Say it slowly, you’ll see what I mean. I was deeply engrossed in my doily ruminations when something poked me in the ribs.

  It was the old lady with the cane. “Excuse me, Sonny.” She pushed me aside and started rummaging through the pile.

  Maggie was busy talking to one of the ladies about taking knitting classes, so I wandered on ahead.

  I had spotted a booth where a fellow was selling old 45 and 33 RPM records and I was heading that way when I heard a voice. “Aren’t you Walt Williams?”

  I turned and saw that the question had come from an old guy standing behind a table full of books.

  “Yes, I’m Walt Williams. Do I know you?”

  “I doubt it,” he replied. “But I sure know you. In fact, I’ve used some of your cases as plots in my mystery series.”

  I looked at the table that held at least twenty volumes. “Did you write all of these?”

  He pointed to his chest and the words, ‘Yes, I’m The Author,’ were emblazoned on his neon yellow shirt. “I get asked that all the time. Robert Thornhill,” he said, extending his hand. “I’m so glad to finally meet you.”

  I was impressed and confused at the same time. “You wrote about my cases?”

  “Sure did,” he replied, picking up a novel. “The Lost Tapes. You finding those old Elvis reels and then the owner being kidnapped. Great stuff. Then you going undercover as a sixty-five year old Elvis impersonator. You just can’t make up stuff like that.”

  He picked up another one. “The Assassin. It’s not every guy that can say he saved the President of the United States.”

  “I really didn’t save him. I was just the closest cop when the assassin had a change of heart and gave himself up.”

  “Maybe so, but it made for a great book. Any new adventures you could share with me?”

  “Actually, I retired from the police department and I have my own P.I. firm, but I haven’t done much. I just had open heart surgery.”

  “What a coincidence. So did I. Just two months ago at St. Luke’s. I have a great cardiologist, Dr. Elizabeth Crane.”

  I’m not a big believer in coincidence and this was getting pretty weird. “Liz Crane is my sister.”

  “You’re kidding me!” Robert replied. “It got pretty exciting when I was there. They actually lost three guys in less than a week. It was kind of scary. That’s the plot for the next book I’m working on.”

  I didn’t know if I should, but I thought, what the hell. “I may actually have something for your book.” For the next fifteen minutes, I told him about Jason Marks injecting the potassium chloride into the I.V.’s of the sleeping patients.

  Once he digested what I was saying, he looked a little green around the gills. “So if the Marks guy was just picking patients at random --- it could have been me getting hauled away in the middle of the night.”

  I nodded. “Like you said, you just can’t make this stuff up.”

  “No kidding! Actually, figuring out the plot of my mysteries is half the fun. It’s like a chess game. If the bad guy does this, then the cops will do that, and so on. I have to put myself in the place of the villain and try to figure out what I would do if I was him.”

  I was really beginning to like this old guy and I felt a kinship with him since we had both had our chests cracked open. If he could really think like one of the bad guys, maybe he could help me out.

  “Okay,” I said, “let’s play a little game. If for some reason, someone wanted to blow this place up, how do you think they’d go about it without getting caught?”

  He looked around. “It would be a piece of cake. Have you seen guards of any kind?”

  I shook my head.

  “First of all, it’s a zoo around here when everybody’s setting up. They bring their stuff in in all kinds of boxes and crates, then store the empties in the back of their booth or under their table. See,” he said, lifting up the cloth on his table and exposing the boxes underneath.

  Just then, the guy in the next booth approached. “Hey Robert, could you keep an eye on my booth for a minute. I’ve got to take a squirt.”

  “Sure, Ralph. No problem.”

  He turned back to me. “There you go. People are coming and going and are tied up with customers all the time. If I was a terrorist and wanted to blow the place up, I for sure wouldn’t hide the explosives in my own booth. I’d watch, and when another vendor wasn’t looking, I’d slip a box with C-4 under their table and they’d never know.”

  It certainly made sense. I had been looking for a terrorist, and the bombs just might be under the table of the two old ladies crocheting doilies.

  I thanked him and started to walk away, but my curiosity got the best of me. “I’d like to buy the two books you were showing me.”

  “Not a chance,” he replied. “You’re my hero. Take them with my compliments.”

  “Thanks, but you don’t have to do that.”

  “You can thank me by sharing more of your adventures. Let me put them in a bag for you. Would you like paper or plastic?”

  I couldn’t resist. It was one of my favorite lines that I use at the supermarket. “I can go either way. I’m bi-sacktual.”

  Robert gave me a big grin. “I love it! Can I use it in my book?”

  “Knock yourself out!”

  The more I thought about what Robert said, the more I was convinced that he was right, and if he was, we had a big problem. There was no way we could go through the thousands of boxes in and under a hundred and twenty-five booths. We needed help.

  I spotted Ox wolfing down a hot dog at the refreshment stand and told him about my conversation with the author.

  “So what are you thinking?” he asked.

  “Dogs! We need the guys from the K-9 Corps, as many as we can get. They can sniff out the explosives just like they do at the airport and we won’t have to open a single box.”

  “Makes sense to me,” he said, opening his cell phone. “I’ll make the call.”

  A half-hour later, a convoy of patrol cars pulled up in the lot and a half-dozen German Shepherds with their handlers swept into the auditorium and started sniffing the boxes and vendors in all the booths.

  I followed along and soon, one of the dogs bristled and started barking at a cardboard box. His handler called him off and he gingerly opened the lid. He keyed his mike. “Get the
bomb squad out here, on the double!” He cleared the booth and stood guard as horrified shoppers looked on.

  In the next aisle, I heard another bark. “I’ve got one here, too.”

  Another dog had approached a booth where two vendors were selling knives of all kinds. The dog sniffed the boxes and finding nothing, moved on to the vendors who were standing there wide-eyed. He took a sniff of the first vendor, bristled and barked.

  The vendors wasted no time. They vaulted over the table and took off in different directions.

  One of them was heading to the front entrance, but stopped short when one of the canine officers blocked his way. Seeing he was trapped, he grabbed the closest shopper, a young mother, and held a knife to her throat.

  “Back off or I cut her!” he said, inching toward the door.

  His eyes were fixed on the officer and he didn’t notice the old lady crouched behind one of the booths. Just as he passed, the old woman who had gigged me in the ribs, whacked him in the head with her cane. He was momentarily stunned. Her second whack knocked the knife from his hand.

  “Take that you damned bully!” she muttered.

  In an instant the two knitters were on top of the guy pressing twelve inch needles into his throat.

  “Don’t move a muscle,” one of them said, “or I’ll purl your ass!”

  The poor guy froze in his tracks until the cop placed him in cuffs.

  The other guy was heading to a back exit and I could see there were no officers near enough to block him. He was heading down the author’s aisle, and I could see Robert crouching behind his table. I thought he was hiding, but quite the contrary, he was timing his move. Just as the terrorist approached his table, he gave it a shove and a flip, scattering a hundred slick paperbacks in his path. The fleeing felon hit the books, his feet went out from under him and he hit squarely on his back. Before he could recover, one of the K-9 dogs had his arm in a toothy vise.