Lucky Stuff (Jane Wheel Mysteries)

by Fiffer, Sharon

  “Does everybody really know the rumor that Lucky fakes the allergies?” Tim asked Maurice, who nodded.

  “Everybody I know around here. Malcolm takes credit for scripting Lucky’s life and after he has a few drinks, he likes to tell the tales.”

  “Okay, somebody’s trying to mess with you, scare you a little with the superstitions, and maybe embarrass or expose you as a liar. Or somebody is playing a more serious game and tried to murder you or at least let you die? And now what, blackmail you? Same somebody? Two different people?” asked Jane, not expecting an answer. The threats against Lucky seemed curiously out of order.

  “You boys got something more to do before we lock up?” said Lucky.

  Tim and Maurice, taking the hint, headed back to the set to finish photographing the arrangement before leaving for the night.

  Lucky didn’t try to answer Jane’s question. Jane could see Lucky looked exhausted. No amount of Botox could keep his face from sagging into a well-lined map. Jane stood and announced they should all call it a night.

  “We need to call the police, Lucky,” said Jane. “At the very least, this is blackmail and blackmail is a crime.”

  “Not yet,” said Lucky.

  “You’re not thinking of paying any money?”

  “Haven’t got much left. Besides, I don’t want to pay for what I can’t remember. But something else,” said Lucky. “I don’t want police involved for the same reason. What if I did something terrible? The note says ‘statute of limitations,’ which means I might have broken the law. I might go to jail for something. I can’t call cops in until I know what I did.”

  “Or what somebody is trying to make you think you did,” said Jane. “How many people know you can’t remember most of your childhood?”

  Lucky shrugged. “My therapist, you know, Belinda. And my assistant Brenda knows everything. Malcolm knows, too, and from what I gather tonight, that means anybody might know.”

  “Do you have a security guard on tonight?” asked Jane.

  Lucky shook his head.

  Was he kidding? This was a guy who was so afraid of being swarmed by fans he faked a food allergy, but he didn’t hire security at the studio with all of this equipment, with access to his office?

  “Tomorrow we hire someone. Either someone from your crew goes on all-night duty or we get someone from town. I’m thinking maybe someone from here; no ties to your production company might be the best idea.”

  Lucky agreed that they would hire someone in the morning. In the meantime, Jane went around flicking on lights in various spots and turning on a radio that someone had at their desk. Might as well make the place look like someone was there 24/7. Jane also found switches for outside lights at the rear of the building and turned them on. No harm making the place look lived-in and watched.

  Maurice and Tim were also parked in the side lot, so the four of them made a final sweep of the space, then left together, locking up after themselves.

  Later, after driving Lucky back to the hotel, making him promise to stay put, carefully handling the blackmail letter with a handkerchief and slipping it into an envelope, Jane returned to her parents’ house and called Oh. Explaining everything that had happened since they had said good-bye in front of the Evanston house earlier in the day, Jane repeated her questions.

  “Same somebody? Two different people?” she asked, hesitating just long enough for Oh to clear his throat. “But,” added Jane, before her partner had the chance to speak, “why would someone try to kill Lucky, then blackmail him? I mean you can’t blackmail a dead man, so if the object was blackmail money all along, it was someone who knew he wasn’t allergic.

  “And,” she continued, “there are so many people who might want to murder Lucky. He is not beloved by his staff or by anyone else as far as I can tell. And as far as blackmailing him? I’m not sure he really cares who knows he’s got a made-up story. Wouldn’t he have fired Malcolm a long time ago? Malcolm tells everything he knows to just about everyone he meets.”

  “Mrs. Wheel, I believe you just said something that is true and not true at the same time,” said Oh.

  “You can’t blackmail a dead man? That’s true,” said Jane. “So what’s not … oh. Unless the dead man is Herman Mullet. This is about something Lucky did as Herman Mullet.”

  “Have you read the book by the memory expert yet? The one Mr. Miller is so fond of?”

  “I’ve just skimmed parts of it,” said Jane. “Lucky has visited her as a therapist so he quotes her a lot and I have read her other books.…”

  “I’m not trying to make you feel guilty,” Mrs. Wheel. “I’m just curious about what she says in terms of fact-finding. I have good resources at my disposal, but Lucky Miller seems to have money and could hire someone who also has resources to investigate his past.”

  Jane agreed and after hanging up, she remembered that Lucky made a big deal of wanting to find out what Nellie knew. Why not just look up a few records? Jane flipped through the numbers in her phone until she got to W.

  “And this is why you don’t ever push DELETE,” said Jane out loud, clicking on the number for Mary Wainwright.

  “Jane Wheel?” Mary answered the phone by reading her caller ID. “What a great surprise! Are you in town for the community theater auditions? Music Man! Can you believe it? Do you think I’m too old for Marian? Chuck isn’t even trying out for Harold Hill, he’s going right for the mayor which I think is a shame, since he has a lovely voice and you don’t really need to dance if you’re Harold, I mean, you just sort of have to march and prance … oh and maybe he’s in the ‘Shipoopi’ number, do you remember? Because then I guess you’d have to be able to learn some steps and between you and me, he has two left feet. What’s up?”

  Jane had no idea how to answer Mary, an old high school friend who was now the only real estate broker she knew in Kankakee. They had had an odd, and according to Mary, “curiously bonding” experience in a recent community theater production, but Jane wasn’t eager to reprise. She decided to come right to the point, since she guessed that Mary wasn’t really all that interested in her take on who should play Marian the Librarian.

  “Mary, can you look up a few houses in Kankakee and tell me the history of their ownership?”

  “Sure,” said Mary, switching to a much more professional voice just in case Jane happened to be a client. “Addresses?”

  Jane gave her the addresses of the houses Lucky had pointed out as the ones he might have lived in. She was able to convey a certain amount of urgency and that got her out of a longer conversation. She did promise to have coffee with Mary soon, but conveniently did not mention she was in town indefinitely. If Mary thought Jane still lived in Evanston? All the better.

  “I knew you’d come back. Everyone comes back,” said Mary right before she hung up.

  Jane could hear Don and Nellie’s voices coming from their bedroom. Since they had never been the kind of parents who discussed things out of her earshot or her brother, Michael’s, Jane was surprised to hear the low gravelly mutter of voices discussing something privately. Although Nellie never gave up any secrets of her own, she wasn’t shy about saying anything that popped into her mind—unfiltered and uncut—in front of her children. She was especially free with opinions and advice, most often negative and uninvited.

  Jane left the bedroom hallway and quietly entered the dark kitchen. Switching on the light, she began rummaging for anything fast and filling. When had she last eaten? She saw the containers in the refrigerator from Beatrice’s fancy picnic neatly lined up on the shelf. Right, she had lunch in Evanston but it was hours and hours ago. She removed all of the cartons and started opening them, adding bread and cheese to her buffet. She poured iced tea and once again noted there was a bottle of expensive champagne looking like a stranger in a strange land on the top shelf. She picked it up and this time, saw the tag attached to the neck of the bottle. Happy Anniversary read the tag. And it was signed Carl. It was September. Her parents�
�� wedding anniversary was in the spring. Jane had sent a card and flowers, hadn’t she? Had the bottle been here the last time she had scrounged in this refrigerator? Hard to believe she’d miss seeing a giant bottle of Veuve Clicquot.

  “Why do you keep staring at the bottle?” asked Nellie.

  Jane shook her head and replaced it.

  “Are you and Dad hungry? I assume you had dinner,” began Jane.

  “When you assume you make an ‘ass out of u and me,’” said Nellie.

  Jane stared at her mother. Where the hell had she picked up that one?

  “We’ve eaten,” said Don, following Nellie into the kitchen, “but I’ll have some ice cream. Nellie?” he asked as he headed for the freezer.

  Nellie shook her head. “That’s expensive champagne.”

  “Yup,” said Jane. “I used to give it to my creative team at the agency as the holiday gift.”

  “You think Carl won it on a punchboard or something?” Nellie asked Don.

  “I think he bought it for us. A nice gesture,” said Don. “Carl could be like that.”

  “What anniversary?” asked Jane, spreading mustard on roast beef.

  “EZ Way Inn,” said Don. “This month. Forty-five years in business.”

  “Wow,” said Jane, wishing she could think of a more profound remark, something that didn’t sound like the realization that her parents were really getting older. Too old to run a tavern and work twelve hours a day.

  “We’ve been talking, Jane,” said Don. “And I’m just going to say this and you don’t have to answer or say anything yet. Just think about it. Your mom told me about your stuff going missing and how the house deal has gone through and we know Nick’s in school out of Evanston and happy there and Charley, well, you know about Charley, and like you said, you used to have that good job at the agency and everything, but now, you’re…”—Don searched for the unfamiliar word—“freestyle.”

  “Freelance?” Jane asked.

  “Freelance,” repeated Don. “Your mother and I have been talking and we were thinking if you wanted to move home for a while, we could fix up the basement so you could have some privacy down there … You could do it up however you wanted. We don’t usually use that door that leads in directly, but we could unboard it and fix it up as a better entrance so you could come and go.…”

  Jane went over and hugged her father. She buried her face in his shoulder, knowing he would think she was crying. She didn’t want him to see that she was smiling. She had been touched enough to cry at this sincere and heartfelt offer, but the thought of Jane having privacy in Nellie’s basement was hilarious.

  “Thank you, Dad,” said Jane. She looked over at Nellie, who stood in front of the sink with her arms crossed and her lips pursed. “But, no.”

  “I told you,” said Nellie. “She doesn’t want to live here with us. My idea’s better.”

  Don and Nellie had a plan B?

  “Carl’s apartment over Wally’s tavern,” said Nellie.

  Jane couldn’t think of a response fast enough. She had been a successful advertising executive, a happily married woman with a wonderful son, and a PPI, picker and private investigator, with a fairly successful record … and why was it again her parents thought she might want to live over a bar in Kankakee?

  “You look lonely,” said Nellie. “And we thought while you got on your feet, you might want to be around here for a while. That Lowry would be close by and you could work at the EZ Way every now and then if you needed spending money.”

  Jane was about to have more money deposited in her checking account than she had ever imagined having all at once. Even after putting aside the money for Nick’s high school and college tuition, she would be in fine shape. The insurance on all of her lost items was excessive, Tim had seen to that, and the replacement value check would be more than generous. But instead of laughing about how rich she was, she tried, unsuccessfully, to hug Nellie.

  “Thank you,” said Jane. “I’ll think it all over.”

  Don and Nellie both nodded. Jane was surprised that Nellie didn’t agitate for more of a commitment. Nellie had always preferred the fast yes or no to the slow maybe. Jane realized that those bedroom mutterings she overheard were about her. Don had told Nellie that they’d present their offers and suggestions and then just leave it up to Jane. Since Jane was a middle-aged woman who had faced down murderers, thieves, forgers, rabid scavengers, and pickers as well as the even larger specters of downsizing and divorce, she appreciated that now, at forty-something, fortyish, the new mid-thirties, Jane’s parents were letting her make up her own mind. It touched Jane more than she could say that Nellie must have agreed, at least for now, to let Jane think for herself.

  Nellie took Don’s ice cream bowl from him as he scooped his last bite and his spoon as soon as it left his mouth. By the time he swallowed, Nellie had the bowl and spoon washed, rinsed, and in the drying rack. Her parents went to bed, leaving Jane at the kitchen table with Belinda St. Germaine’s book on repressed memory and a roast beef sandwich.

  Jane used her phone to e-mail Nick the good news about the house. She needed to fill him in on the details, emphasize their good fortune. She knew he would be relieved and grateful not to picture his mother there. It had already been planned that he would spend Thanksgiving with Jane and for his longer holiday vacation, fly to Honduras to be with Charley. Jane told Nick that she had a couple of ideas about where to live, but in the meantime, she would be in Kankakee. Don and Nellie needed her and she was happy to be there. She signed off, feeling guilty that she wasn’t totally honest with her son. She knew that if she told Nick the whole truth, she would have to admit that, right now, she needed Don and Nellie as much, if not more, than they needed her.

  Jane took a bite of her sandwich and opened Belinda’s book to a chapter entitled, “Researching What Really Happened—Pros and Cons.”

  Why travel to your childhood home? Why walk the path that you trod so long ago? Why not simply look up the facts, interview the family, talk to friends? The answer is painfully simple. Your friends and families will not be the source of truth you seek.

  Even the best-intentioned family members will have faulty memories themselves. If you don’t believe me, call your brother or sister and ask about the last holiday you spent together. Ask about the food served, the conversation at the table, who cleaned up, and who watched a football game in the den. Ask about who liked the pie and disparaged the green beans. I will bet you the price of this book that the answers you receive on everything, from the dinner menu to who complained, who argued, who bragged, will be different from what you expected. No two people have the same memories.

  If you are trying to piece together what happened in your youth, you will not be well served by someone who was there with you. Why? Because they have their own struggles with their memories, their explanations for what happened in their lives, why they turned out to be who they are. You were not and are not their focus. Ask yourself this—do you remember everything about their days, their nights, their important moments? Then why should they remember yours? Even if they claim to know something about your childhood or have a vivid memory of an event that revolved around you? Their accounts will be heavily filtered by how the event affected them, what impressions were left on them. Only you remember you.

  Okay. So you can’t trust the truth and accuracy of the accounts of others. But what about facts? you ask. What about simply looking up dates on the calendar, addresses of the houses of friends or relatives, checking for photographs that might offer factual answers?

  I will answer that with a story. Suppose you decide to walk through your old neighborhood, hoping to find the house of your old friend Bill. You know something happened in that house but your memory is blank, an erasure on the page. You walk up and down the block, searching for the house where it happened. What happened? IT happened, but you do not have a clue about what IT was. You walk up and down, back and forth. Did Bill’s house have a red door?
Did it have a red door or has it been painted? Was there a porch? With a swing? Do you remember a rosebush, a birdbath, a crooked chimney stack? Why not simply find a phone book from your childhood years and look up Bill’s family’s address? Once you’ve obtained the facts, the address, you can simply walk to the house and look at it and not waste all of your precious time pacing and speculating.

  Precious time indeed! It is the time you spend walking up and down the block, searching literally as well as figuratively, that offers the rewards you seek. For every moment you spend speculating on whether or not you sat on that porch swing with Bill, you build another small piece of your bridge back in time. You build it intricately and carefully, engineered with your own memory of you. Perhaps that wasn’t Bill’s house, but you and Bill trick-or-treated there, sitting on the porch swing gazing at the scarecrow that was built in the yard. Perhaps it was there that you realized what had happened to you was not right. Perhaps that’s where you began the process of forgetting. It is there, then, that you must rebuild the bridge of remembering. That bridge to another time cannot be made of pylons of disjointed facts—addresses and accounts of others—or you will be forced to leap across the span, from teetering column to teetering column. No. You must become a careful architect, engineer, and builder. All three of these jobs are yours—and no amount of facts will hasten the memories or the reconstruction of who you were and how that led to who you are.

  Jane had to admit that Belinda St. Germaine could make a case. Of course, Jane might be able to poke some holes in her theories and make a case of her own for gathering some easily obtainable facts. But that bit about the architect and engineer and builder? Jane liked the idea that one had to multitask in order to grab hold of one’s life. Maybe that’s what Jane had been doing with all of her hunting and gathering. She searched out all sorts of memories from her childhood and beyond, surrounded herself with all sorts of items that were keepsakes, defining objects of the lives of others. Why in the world did she do that? She admired Art Deco design, loved the feel of worn wood and the patina of old silver, but all that stuff about the stories, about the caretaking of stuff. What was all that about? Jane built a bridge to the past, all right, but instead of her own past, she had constructed millions of those “teetering pylons” Belinda described and in Jane’s case, where in the world did they lead? Whose past was illuminated?