Lucky Stuff (Jane Wheel Mysteries)

by Fiffer, Sharon

  “Repressed,” said Jane.

  “Except for one thing,” said Nellie, setting the bowl of tuna and a gigantic bag of potato chips on the table. She opened a loaf of bread and looked down at Rita, who had begun to whimper at her feet.

  “Oh hell, I didn’t save any for you without the onions and mayonnaise, did I, girl? I know all that stuff in it can’t be good for you,” Nellie walked over to the cabinet and pulled out a new can of tuna and reached for the opener.

  “No, Mom, her dog food’s enough for now. I have a little treat for her from the studio. I picked up a sandwich on the buffet and saved some roast beef for her. Just finish what you were saying.”

  “What was I saying?”

  “Except for something,” said Don. “Something about your memories.”

  “Oh yeah. My memories about Boing Boing weren’t repressed. I just forgot them,” Nellie said, and put her hands on her hips as if she had proven her point.

  “Run it by me one more time, Mom,” said Jane. “Not following.”

  “Memories are just things you forget then remember, right? That’s what makes them memories. So I hadn’t thought about Boing Boing in a long time, but when I saw Hermie Mullet acting like Lucky Miller with that stupid cigar and everything, I remembered Boing Boing, because the two of them were friends. At least they used to hang around together on the playground. I can remember that now clear as day,” said Nellie. “And if Lucky can’t remember, like how he acted when I brought it up, like he didn’t remember anything about Dickie, he’s either lying or if he’s having those repressive memories, he’s feeling guilty about something. So, I got to thinking maybe he knows something about why Dickie drowned in the river.”

  “Do you remember how Lucky reacted when they found Dickie?” asked Jane, taking a piece of bread and starting to make a sandwich. It was almost seven o’clock and they were all starving. These European dinnertimes were killing them.

  “Nope,” said Nellie. “Lucky was gone. His family moved right around then, right after Boing Boing’s garage burned down. I think police thought Dickie’s dad had done something to him at first. Old man Boynton was a drunk with a temper. Heard he got sober and respectable afterward, went into the family restaurant business and all, but it was too late to help out Dickie.”

  Don stood up to get the pitcher of iced tea from the counter. “I’m putting the phone back on the hook, Nellie. We should be available for people if they want to call about Carl,” said Don, hanging up the phone. It rang immediately and he answered, taking it with him into the living room, so Jane and Nellie could eat in peace.

  “Maybe he should just talk to them on his portable cell phone,” said Nellie, eyeing Jane.

  “You know Dad has a cell phone?” asked Jane.

  “Apparently he told you even if I had to find out for myself. Who do you think hangs up his pants and jacket every night when he leaves it on the chair? That man couldn’t keep a secret from me if he locked it in a briefcase.”

  “He got you one, too,” said Jane, whispering.

  “Yeah, I know. I know my number, too. I’ve been reading the instruction book and I’m going to text him as soon as I figure it out. Scare the hell out of him and it’ll serve him right.”

  Jane and Nellie ate their sandwiches and crunched their chips. Had there ever been a more satisfying meal? Sandwiches, chips, and iced tea, and Nellie had brought home a whole strawberry rhubarb pie from the tavern. Don and Nellie planned on staying closed for much of the weekend. Lucky Miller Productions was staging some kind of casserole-tasting out at the fairgrounds and on Saturday afternoon, there was the big bowling tournament. There was also a rumor that some guest stars for the roast were arriving over the weekend, so business was going to be even slower than usual anyway.

  “By the way, I don’t think that’s true about the guest stars arriving. Nothing on any of the schedules about it,” said Jane.

  “Nobody’s coming because this thing isn’t ever going to happen,” said Nellie with a shrug. “Who the hell cares enough about Lucky Miller to insult him on television?”

  Jane could see that her mother looked tired. This might be the only weekend they had ever taken off since they started in the tavern business fifty years earlier. Fifty years? Was that possible? They should be retired, her father playing golf whenever he wanted, her mother … What would Nellie do if they retired? Maybe that’s why they weren’t.

  Don came in from the living room and hung up the phone. He told them it had been Wally calling and that he and Pepper would come in on Monday to discuss a memorial. Wally reminded Don that he had given them the key to Carl’s apartment and they should come over any time to look at the stuff there. Wally didn’t want to seem pushy, Don said, but he wanted to be able to rent out the apartment the following month if possible.

  “Can’t blame him,” said Don. “Not enough money in the saloon business, might as well be in the landlord business.

  After pie was consumed and dishes were washed, Jane excused herself. She planned to leave for Evanston early in the morning and hoped to be back by dinner. She took Belinda’s opus with her to her room and crawled into bed. She hoped she could stay awake long enough to get through a large enough chunk so she could discuss it with Lucky. The sooner his “repressed memories” came back, the sooner Jane could put a stop to Nellie’s suspicions that Lucky was up to something. Unless of course, Lucky was up to something. Hadn’t Slug Mettleman implied that he was? Even playing back what had happened in Slug’s hospital room didn’t help Jane fight the wave of fatigue that rolled in. She began nodding after two pages.

  Jane’s phone rang and she clicked it on forgetting to check who was calling. She twisted it in her hand and held it out, tried to make out the number before saying hello.

  “Mrs. Wheel?”

  “Oh? Hello, I mean…” Jane fought to sound alert and not just awakened at nine o’clock at night.

  “Yes, it is. I am so sorry to have wakened you.”

  “Detective Oh, I didn’t expect to hear from you. In fact, I didn’t, I mean I wasn’t sleeping, I just couldn’t locate my phone at first, I couldn’t … okay. I was asleep. I’m trying to read an enormous book on repressed memories and I’m sorry to say it’s putting me right to sleep.”

  “Mrs. Wheel, you are a woman who makes her living by experiencing the memories of others as well as your own. Surely you aren’t concerned about repressed memories?”

  Jane explained Lucky’s phobias as briefly as she could. Earlier, she had phoned Oh to ask if he could locate a Dickie Boynton, since she had Googled when she stopped in at a copy shop that had free wireless, hoping for a Kankakee address and phone number, but found nothing. She had also asked him to find out what he could about the early life of Herman Mullet and his family without mentioning anything about that being Lucky’s real name. Might as well double-check Lucky and his repressed memories and his biographer Malcolm and his false memories and find out whatever facts existed about Lucky Miller’s early ties to Kankakee.

  “Mrs. Wheel, I’m sorry about the news I have. You didn’t tell me why you were interested so I don’t know the connections, but sadly, there is no good news about either individual.”

  “Yes,” said Jane, sitting up straighter in bed, fully awake now.

  “Richard Boynton went missing when he was thirteen years old. Several days later his body was found. He drowned in the Kankakee River.”

  “What’s the bad news about Herman Mullet?” Jane asked.

  Herman Mullett also went missing at thirteen years old. His body was never found.”

  12

  Too wide awake now to go back to sleep, Jane pulled out her laptop. Only after she powered up, did she remember that at Don and Nellie’s, she had no wireless.

  “What would I look for anyway?” she said. Rita, lying at her feet, raised her head briefly, then, seeming to know that no answer was required of her, resettled herself and went back to sleep.

  When Jane had quizz
ed Oh about Boynton’s death, his information had more or less meshed with Nellie’s memory. The boy’s body was found three weeks after he had been accused of starting a fire in which a garage and shed had burned to the ground. According to Mr. and Mrs. Boynton, their son Dickie ran away after the fire. He had a history of “staying away from home” as they had put it at the time, and they waited four days before reporting his disappearance to the police. Three weeks later, his body was recovered from the Kankakee River. The parents said he often camped out by the river and one night, after a particularly heavy rain, police felt he could have slipped in and perhaps been caught by a current. He was not, Dickie’s sister had reported, a strong swimmer.

  The more puzzling announcement—that Herman Mullett had also disappeared at thirteen—was a little murkier. According to what Oh had found out about Herman and his family, they left Kankakee right around the time of the fire. So far, so good, Jane thought. However, the Mulletts reported their son missing immediately after they moved to Louisville, Kentucky. No neighbors had ever seen them with a boy. Police at first thought Herman Junior had run away, back to his old home in Kankakee, but no one there saw him. The boy had disappeared. One account said that the parents claimed that he was fascinated by the water and might have drowned. No one really knew the Mullets in their new home, so no one knew what Herman looked like. There were only old school photos that were briefly circulated. No one ever saw a young boy with Mr. and Mrs. Mullet before or after his reported disappearance. A few years later, Herman Mullet Senior was accused and convicted of fraud involving a Ponzi-like bond scheme and he died in prison. Mrs. Mullet remarried and relocated to Canada with her new husband.

  “But Lucky Miller is Herman Mullet. Neither he nor anyone else disputes that,” said Jane, although even as she said it, she wondered who would dispute it and why?

  “Interesting,” said Detective Oh. “Lucky Miller took that name legally when he was eighteen years old. The name he changed it from,” said Oh, pausing for a moment and Jane could hear him turn a page in his notebook, “was Herman Muller.”

  “Mullet and Muller are practically the same name,” said Jane. Maybe he faked whatever he showed to change his name … birth certificate or whatever.”

  “Possible. Records were typed and filed then, rather than saved on a computer so of course, a mistake or a forgery might be more possible.”

  “Were his parents suspected of foul play? I mean, when a child goes missing, aren’t the parents always investigated?”

  “Yes, sadly the parents are always under suspicion, correctly or incorrectly. But this was the era before twenty-four-hour cable news. With no zealous anchorwoman or anchorman trying the case in front of the public, the story probably just faded. The Mullets were new and unconnected in the community. No family, no friends. No advocate to keep the boy’s disappearance in the news. The parents held a small memorial service for him. They did produce a birth certificate so there was no reason to believe they had made up a child. It appears that the boy’s death was accepted and ruled an accidental death.”

  “Do you believe that?” asked Jane.

  “Mrs. Wheel, you know that speculation and assumptions are the mark of the amateur…” said Oh. Jane sighed, feeling like she should apologize first for interrupting and, secondly, for forgetting everything he had taught her. Then Oh added, “Instinct, however, is invaluable. And my instinct, I believe, is in agreement with yours. I think that although my research turned up this news about Herman Mullet Junior, I feel the reports of his death might have been greatly exaggerated.”

  “Especially since I work for him now. He better be alive and kicking. Ghosts can’t sign a paycheck,” said Jane.

  “Mrs. Wheel, I understand you are helping out your parents now, but you’ve also taken a job with Mr. Lucky Miller? Must I change the sign on the door to our office?”

  Bruce Oh so rarely made a joke that Jane thought for a moment that he had, indeed, put a sign on the office door. Oh and Wheel? Jane liked it. But she caught his throat-clearing, which she realized was his nod to a chuckle and assured him that she was immersed in many part-time jobs, none of which added up to a full-time anything.

  “I am, though, between places of residence, it seems,” said Jane, filling Oh in on the house sale, the quick move, and the endless merry-go-round that her worldly goods seemed to be riding.

  “You sound more sanguine about this than I might have imagined, Mrs. Wheel,” said Oh.

  “Yes,” said Jane. “I know. I haven’t quite figured this out yet. Losing my stuff. Either I’m in denial or I have come to a curious crossroads. I think I’ll know more after I make the sweep through my house tomorrow.”

  “Perhaps you have been seduced by the idea of a clean slate, Mrs. Wheel.”

  “Go on,” said Jane, sitting up straighter in bed.

  “There are those who sell many of their belongings and start over just to have a tangible new beginning. My wife, Claire, tells me stories about many of her Chicago clients who do this with their condos and their lakeside cottages. This adds greatly to Claire’s business. But I think on a deeper level than home furnishings, sometimes people just need to rid themselves of everything familiar and breathe new air, don’t you?”

  * * *

  “Breathe new air,” said Jane aloud. The house was quiet when she woke up, dressed, and made coffee and toast. It wasn’t like her parents to sleep in, but Carl’s death had shaken their world. Jane leaned over the sink and peered into the African violet plants on the window sill and pressed her nose up against the screen, repeating, “Breathe new air.”

  “Who you talking to, honey?”

  Don padded into the kitchen, wearing a robe and slippers. He reached over for a mug from the maple cup tree on the counter and held it out for Jane to fill.

  “I can’t remember the last time I was dressed before you, Dad,” said Jane, filling his cup to the tiptop. Don had trained her to pour a full cup. As someone who never messed with cream or sugar, he liked to know he was getting his money’s worth.

  “I can’t remember the last time we didn’t open up on a Friday,” said Don.

  “I can’t remember any time that mom slept this late,” said Jane.

  “She’s not sleeping,” said Don.

  Jane’s dad pointed out the kitchen window that faced the side yard. “She’s out there pulling weeds. Nope, she’s out there … well, I’ll be damned.”

  Don had seen his wife bending over and, accustomed to seeing her doing one chore or another, initially assumed she was tracking an errant dandelion making a late fall appearance. Jane joined her dad at the window and echoed, “I’ll be damned.”

  Nellie had found a tennis ball somewhere and was throwing it for Rita. Bending over to pick up the ball, Nellie paused for a moment, plucked out something from the grass, then threw the ball again. Rita ran out for the long one and jumped and caught it. Nellie waved her in with one hand, staring down at whatever she had found on the lawn.

  Jane and Don stared at each other. Nellie, their Nellie, playing fetch with the dog? Don nodded as if agreeing with an offstage voice and when Jane gave him her what-gives expression, he laughed. “I guess you can teach one old dog new tricks.”

  “What’s so damn funny?” said Nellie, coming into the kitchen to wash her hands.

  “What did you find on the grass?” asked Jane, covering for her dad.

  Nellie unclenched her left fist and dropped a four-leaf clover on the counter. “I told you I find them all the time. Even in that little patch of weeds behind the tavern.”

  Nellie elbowed Jane away from the toaster, removed two slices, buttered them, and had two more toasting before Jane could protest. Since she knew she wouldn’t get near the counter again, Jane gave up and sat down, spreading her toast with peanut butter and strawberry jam.

  “Since you and Rita are getting along so well, can I leave her here while I drive up to Evanston? I’m walking through the house and tagging stuff for the movers.
I left a message for Tim and he’s picking me up in the van so I can bring a few boxes, but there’s not much…”

  “No, he’s not,” said Nellie. “He left the van in the driveway for you an hour ago.”

  “Oh no,” said Jane.

  “Here,” said Nellie, handing her a note that had obviously been folded, unfolded, and refolded.

  “Want to just give me the gist?” said Jane.

  “Moby or somebody wants him to work today on the place settings for the roast. Lucky and his writers are going into an all-day meeting, so they can have the studio space to themselves and Tim’s sorry, but he’s sure you’ll be fine. Then he apologizes again for the movers he got you the first time. Says your stuff is now heading back to Iowa or someplace.”

  Jane had already taken a large bite of her toast. She now reminded herself to chew it and swallow carefully. Nellie was peering at her, waiting for her to say something. Nellie had chastised and scolded and tsked-tsked and shaken her head over each new object she had seen Jane unpack—either here in Kankakee or on the rare occasions when Nellie had visited Jane and Charley’s house in Evanston. Nellie didn’t approve of clutter or unnecessary dust catchers. Whenever Jane protested that the objects she found told her stories of the people who had left them behind, Nellie snorted. “Why the hell you need somebody else’s story?” she’d ask. And Jane, never coming up with a satisfactory answer, would simply shrug.

  “Yup,” said Jane, after she swallowed. “It appears that my stuff has truly taken off without me.”

  “Lowry,” said Nellie shaking her head.

  Jane was surprised that Tim was taking the heat—not that he didn’t deserve it—and that Nellie wasn’t saying “good riddance” and telling her how she should thank her lucky stars.

  “I’m sorry to hear that, honey,” said her dad. “I’m sure you’ll get everything back.”