Lucky Stuff (Jane Wheel Mysteries)

by Fiffer, Sharon

  Don and Nellie had gone over to the bowling alley already. The EZ Way Inn–sponsored team’s shirts were delivered that morning and Nellie wanted to make sure each bowler had one of the red T-shirts with the EZ Way name emblazoned in black.

  “If they look like a team, maybe they can keep the ball out of the gutter,” said Nellie. She didn’t say this with a great deal of hope. “I got too many XXL’s in here,” said Nellie. “The more XXL shirts you got, the less chance you got to win.”

  Jane poured a glass of ice water and flipped through her notebook. On the first pages, she had written all the information about her own missing stuff, the name of the insurance company Tim had used, the policy number Tim had given her. On another page, she had written down her brother Michael’s flight information. In the middle of the notebook, she had devoted two pages to listing the furniture in Carl’s apartment. That reminded her to take out her phone and send a few of the photos she had snapped there directly to Tim.

  Finally, Jane got to the section of notes that concerned Lucky. She had been hired to be Lucky’s assistant and to find out who was making mischief in the studio, who was tampering with his collection of Lucky tokens, who was leaving him those vague threatening notes, but her job had become more psychological detecting than the nuts and bolts of who was doing what. She had been spending most of her time trying to uncover what Lucky had forgotten from his childhood. So what was it she had become? An investigator of lost minds? There had been a death, and although everyone in authority agreed it had come about through natural causes, Jane had heard Sluggo talk about being murdered. She had written down what she overheard Sluggo Mettleman say in the hospital. Was that part of this? She opened the folder in her bag that had the addresses and e-mails of everyone connected to Lucky Productions. She ran her finger down the page until she saw the name she heard Fran and Lucky mention as Slug’s ride from the hospital. There was, thankfully, only one Mickey listed among the crew members and without thinking through what she would say if and when he answered, Jane dialed the number.

  “Yeah?”

  “Is this Mickey McBride?” asked Jane.

  “Yeah.”

  Jane fumbled through her name and her temporary title as Lucky’s assistant and without telling a direct lie, implied she was calling on official follow-up. As she spoke, she realized she didn’t even know if he had decided to stay with the production or leave town after Sluggo died in the car he was driving. If she asked where he was, she would give away how little she knew and how tangential her employment with Lucky Productions was.

  “We just wanted to check on you, see if you’re doing okay,” said Jane.

  “Why wouldn’t I be doing okay?” asked Mickey.

  “Sometimes, when you’ve experienced an emotional or traumatic…” Jane desperately tried to conjure her inner Belinda St. Germaine.

  “Look, I mean, thank you and all, but I’m okay,” said Mickey. “It was an ugly sight, Sluggo gasping for air like a fish. I felt terrible there was nothing I could do. I got him right back to the hospital.” Mickey paused and took a breath. “He wasn’t exactly my friend. I mean we weren’t buddies in the trenches or anything. Us guys were all playing basketball that day at lunch and I lost the coin toss to go pick him up at the hospital. I can still remember how the car keys felt in my hand when Sal threw them to me. Slug was a mean little shit, but just ’cause you’re a jerk and nobody likes you, that doesn’t mean you’re supposed to die, does it?”

  Jane was no Belinda St. Germaine and she was in over her head. She shouldn’t have called and dragged all this up for Mickey.

  “You did everything you could and we just wanted to make sure you were doing okay. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you talk about it all,” said Jane, feeling less and less like the kind of ethical detective of whom Oh would be proud.

  “It’s okay. I’m supposed to talk about it. I been talking to a therapist Lucky set me up with and I’m supposed to tell the story, get it out, and make it part of my life’s fabric.”

  Jane could guess the therapist.

  “Mickey, you said Sal tossed you the car keys?” Jane was a beat late in hearing it, but once it registered, she had to ask. “Weren’t you driving the car you always did?”

  “I put on my sweats and didn’t have the keys to the van with me, so Sal said I could take one of the better cars, the one he usually used to drive Lucky.”

  “But there was a peanut candy bar wrapper in the car?” asked Jane, more to herself than Mickey.

  “I swear I didn’t see that. It was stuffed in the pocket of the passenger side. That’s what was so weird, since Lucky was in that car all the time. He has an allergy, too, you know,” said Mickey.

  Jane assured him she knew it was just a terrible accident. No one thought he should have known about the wrapper. She gave him a few encouraging Belinda-like words and said good-bye.

  No, being a mean little shit didn’t mean you were supposed to die. Sluggo just ran up against Lucky’s sloppiness. Of course Lucky would leave his garbage in the car, especially a candy bar wrapper that he had to hide in the door pocket. He couldn’t very well hold it in his hand and toss it in the garbage, could he? Even if the rumors buzzed that Lucky was faking that allergy, he would keep up his charade.

  Jane’s second stop before the tournament was the factory, the nerve center of Lucky Productions. Lucky had assured Jane that he would get better security for the studio but Jane was pretty certain that the single key Lucky had given her would still work for the side door.

  Four rental cars were in the parking lot along with two plain white vans that had green four-leaf clover decals applied to their side panels. Jane unlocked the side door and called out but got no answer. Perfect. Jane knew that her most valuable trait as a detective was her ability to see the objects around her, to notice the actual stuff of people’s lives. Oh had told her that the first time they met, when Jane’s neighbor had been murdered and Jane pointed out the missing Bakelite button on her vest. Jane also knew that for her, people got in the way of the stuff. When there were human distractions, Jane couldn’t see or hear the stories the objects wanted to tell as clearly as when she was alone.

  Jane’s first stop was Lucky’s office. The curtains were pulled back and two sides of it were exposed to the rest of the open space. Jane knelt down next to the trunk and used the key she had added to her necklace to open it. Like any treasure chest filled with beloved objects, odds and ends, tokens and totems, it was almost impossible to tell if anything was disturbed. At least there were no new notes containing nonspecific threats in sight. Jane closed the lid and relocked the box.

  “I am disappointed in you, Jane Wheel.”

  Jane turned around at the voice behind her to see Sal standing in what would be the doorway if there were defined walls to the space.

  “It’s you?” said Jane, thinking how utterly cliché it was that the first man she had thought fleetingly about dating since her divorce would turn out to be the bad guy. So achingly predictable! But why was he tormenting Lucky? At least the answer to that question might be interesting.

  “What’s me?” asked Sal, his smile remaining bright.

  “You first,” said Jane. “Why are you disappointed?”

  “I find you here, all alone in the studio after Lucky told me somebody has been tampering with his stuff. And I just saw you messing with his trunk. I’m disappointed because when I first saw you I had kind of hoped you and I might get together. I’ve worked on enough shows to know that as soon as the boy finds a girl who he thinks is cute, she’s going to either shoot him or get shot. I’m disappointed because I fell for that old plotline again. I should know better.”

  “I’m not going to shoot you,” said Jane. “I’m not even the bad guy.”

  “Good. Me neither,” said Sal.

  Jane immediately believed him. She knew that made her both a bad detective and a sucker. Her trust was based solely on his curly dark hair, brown eyes, and the fact th
at he was actually wearing bowling shoes. Nonrentals. What kind of bad guy owns his own bowling shoes? And who risks wearing them out on the street unless he’s planning on bowling?

  “I was hired as Lucky’s temporary assistant but I’m really here to find out who’s playing all the tricks,” said Jane.

  Sal actually threw back his head when he laughed. “Why didn’t you say so? I could have told you first thing, then you would have had time to go out on a date with me!”

  Despite the fact that the office was merely curtained off, it was beginning to feel claustrophobic for this showdown or cute re-meet or whatever it turned out to be. Jane suggested they move into the open studio space and Sal followed her, picking up a folder from Lucky’s desk. Jane could read upside down that it was clearly marked, BOWLING TOURNAMENT. Sal held it up. “What I was sent back for.”

  Jane sat down on the stool next to the now empty catering table. Three blackboard menus hung on the wall behind the table. They were marked “Daily,” “Vegetarian,” and “Special Diet.” The first two had been erased and washed. Only the special diet board had writing on it. It was subdivided into peanut-free, gluten-free, and lactose-free. Jane pitied poor Sam needing to accommodate all of these special needs when he supplied the daily meals. His grandfather Mack wouldn’t have known what to make of all the requests and demands.

  “So tell me now. Who’s playing all the tricks on Lucky?”

  “Everybody. Anyone who comes in and finds the trunk unlocked. Or has one of the copies of the key we’ve made. We’ve been doing it for as long as I’ve worked for him. The thing is, he never noticed before. Not until we got to Kankakee. This is the first time he’s been with it enough or sober enough or whatever.”

  “Those horseshoes? All hung upside down? He wouldn’t have noticed that before?”

  “Maybe. Not sure who did that one. It was more ambitious than most of the pranks we usually pull. We switch out those four-leaf clovers for three-leaf ones and once I actually took one of those mustard seed charms and hung it on the rearview mirror of the car and he never even noticed. Lucky’s got his radar up on this trip.”

  “It’s Kankakee,” said Jane. “He’s trying to get hold of his life and he thinks the key is here, so he’s sharpened up.” Jane stood up and went over to the menu boards, removing the “daily” board and studying the wall behind it. She ran her finger over the adhesive hook that held the menu. “Any locals in on the jokes?”

  “Not that I know of. But you should ask Fran. She loves doing the stuff and might have recruited some of the Kankakee hires.”

  Jane rehung the blackboard and went over to Fran’s desk. There was a wooden paper tray next to the landline phone. Jane lifted the ledgers off the tray, not sure what she was looking for. Strips of papers cut to look like the fortune-cookie fortunes?

  Jane wandered back into the center of the main room. She turned to look at every view from where she stood. It was a magnificent space. She loved the brick walls and the skylights—all of the industrial trappings of the early factory, but with the potential to set off a few private rooms. What she could do with this place! Jane finished her 360 degree viewing by facing the set so recently decorated and tweaked by Tim and Maurice.

  “The Last Supper,” said Jane.

  Sal walked over and stood next to her.

  “Absolutely,” agreed Sal. “Is that on purpose?”

  “I hope not,” said Jane. Maurice and Tim had assured her she’d get why it looked so familiar. They had said it was because of the curtains, which did add to the forced perspective. Stick twelve guys up there and the dais was going to become something other than the normal cable channel comedy special. Jane had heard that most comics had persecution complexes, but Lucky wasn’t going to like the implications of this supper being his last, was he? And the world wasn’t going to buy Lucky Miller as anyone’s savior seated right in the middle of this tableau. Between the reviews he’d get—bad taste at best and anti-religion at worst and the bad karma he himself would perceive, Belinda St. Germaine might need to add a whole new chapter to her book for this one.

  Sal got a phone call and checked the number. Although he sent the call directly to voice mail, he told Jane he had to get to the bowling alley. “My team needs me,” he said, scrolling through texts. “I’m a hell of a bowler. Am I out from under your surveillance?”

  “Not exactly, since you just admitted you were guilty,” said Jane. “But I don’t think you’ll get far in those bowling shoes.”

  “I won’t leave town, Jane Wheel,” said Sal.

  Jane assured him she would be right on his heels, but she wanted another few minutes in the building. She walked up to the front offices and checked out the storefront windows. Sitting down at one of the front reception desks, Jane called Mary Wainwright and got her voice mail.

  “Mary, another real estate question,” said Jane. “What did the old stone factory on Water Street make? No rush, just curious.” Jane realized sitting at the desk that faced front, she could see the Kankakee River across the street. No one was playing basketball in the park, no one was playing in the sandbox. There was just a swath of green about to go gold and the river beyond. A nice-enough view. If it were possible to put a little roof garden on top of the building, the view would be even better.

  Jane drove to the bowling alley with a mission-accomplished smile on her face. She had discovered who was behind the tampering with Lucky’s lucky stuff and it wasn’t anyone who intended real harm. If the note writer was part of Lucky’s crew, it was someone who might have taken the whole merry prankster thing too far, but Lucky could relax and throw himself into his therapy without considering police action. If it was someone else who had left the notes? Jane would add up everyone who had access, question all of them about what they had done, and by process of elimination find out who was the not-so-clever shakedown artist.

  The real mystery, the only mystery that was left for Jane to solve, was what had happened in Lucky’s childhood that so traumatized him into forgetting his past. In chapter eight of her book, Belinda St. Germaine had listed several events traumatic enough to wipe the memory slate clean. The loss of a good friend, number six on the list, was enough to blind one to the time period. Even if Dickie Boynton hadn’t been that close to him, it sounded like the two had been neighbors and perhaps Dickie had been the only friend Lucky had made as a boy. He still didn’t seem like the friend-making type. Again, Jane wondered just who would be attending the roast and celebrating the spotty, mostly made-up career of Lucky Miller.

  Jane thought about Nick’s texts, the ones that so casually mentioned new friends at school. It was a gift that he liked sports as much as he liked science and math. It allowed him to live outside of his head, to relax in the company of peers, to enjoy a camaraderie that was based on something physical and immediate. His happiness didn’t all depend on the solitary solving of an equation. Often it was triggered by a powerful kick or an effective block. When Nick’s soccer coach switched him to defense a few years ago, Jane worried that he would feel bad, that her son would be disappointed not to be able to score as many goals.

  “Keeping the ball out the net is as important as putting the ball in the net,” explained Nick, one reasonable step ahead of his mother.

  Like a pinball, her thought went from soccer to football, from Nick to Charley, and she remembered her husband explaining the anonymous linemen guarding the quarterback.

  “They’re his protection, his security, his insurance,” said Charley.

  Insurance. Security. Jane parked the car and Googled company names that had the word security in them. That was what Lucky’s father’s business was in Kankakee. Security Advisor. And Oh had told her that articles he found indicated he had most frequently listed his occupation as a salesman. Maybe he sold stocks and bonds, thought Jane, but he also sold insurance. And insurance only pays out when something is lost or someone …

  Tim knocked on the car window and Jane, writing her thoughts and
questions in her notebook, jumped.

  “Come out and play,” said Tim.

  It had been a while since Jane had seen such a big smile on her friend’s face. She opened the car door and Tim wrapped her up in a big hug. For a moment, Jane felt a twinge of envy. This was the kind of hug that preceded good news, someone else’s good news. And although she wanted Tim to be happy, she was smart enough to know that another’s happiness was what often took him away from her.

  “Do you like Maurice?” asked Tim.

  “I’ve just met him,” began Jane.

  “Lame answer,” said Tim. “We both know that you are a firm believer in first impressions and like-at-first-sight.”

  “Yes, I like Maurice,” said Jane.

  “I knew it,” said Tim. “What’s not to like?”

  “But I love you,” said Jane. “And that behooves me to caution you about falling too fast for someone who lives thousands of miles away.”

  “Behooves?” asked Tim.

  “It means that my feet would turn into round little hard-shelled hooves; in fact, I would be a total four-legged ass if I didn’t act like your good and faithful friend and not just your yes-man bobblehead, agreeing with you all the time.”

  Tim nodded, forcing his smile into a more thoughtful expression.

  “What if I were to tell you that Maurice and I have stayed up the last few nights talking about just those issues? Maurice lost his partner a few years ago, not that long after I lost Phillip. We’re both old enough to know who we are, what we want,” said Tim. “I knew with Phillip. I know with Maurice.”

  Jane wasn’t sure she was ready to hear that Tim was moving to L.A. Not when she was this close to making a decision about where she was going to put down new roots.

  “We’re big boys,” Tim said. “We can handle some time apart for now and our idea of spending some time here, some time there, allows us to see how we fit into each other’s lives. And figure out how to merge our professions. And I was thinking, while I spent some time in L.A., you could run things here. Just for now, while you figure out what you want to do. Maurice thinks I ought to move to a bigger space here and expand—offer rental pieces for production companies. He thinks there are enough movies shot in the Midwest that I could supplement sales with rental of props and furniture and…”