Miz Scarlet and the Vanishing Visitor (A Scarlet Wilson Mystery)

by Sara M. Barton

  Chapter Ten --

  “Was it turned on when you picked it up?”

  “No.”

  “Tell me about the house he took you to in New Jersey.”

  “I don’t know what you want me to say. It was big. And the inside was all torn up. There weren’t any walls.”

  “Why take the girl there? Why not just take the soap from her?” Larry was talking to herself, thinking aloud. “Where did he pick you up?”

  “At the train station in Bay Head. I hitched a ride because I had my dog with me and the Greyhound driver wouldn’t let me on the bus.”

  “You’re lying,” the state trooper announced.

  “No, I’m not! I had my dog with me and the driver wouldn’t let me bring Mozzie!”

  “She’s lying, Miz Scarlet.”

  “I am not!”

  “Are too!” Larry shot back.

  “Wait a minute,” I said, standing up. I needed to pace as I thought this through. “You told us that you were dropped at the train station in Bay Head because you missed your stop. Then you said you were taken to this house by Richie. But why would Richie even know about the house in Bay Head if he was in Point Pleasant, waiting for you to arrive? I think you were at the house in Bay Head and you called Richie to meet you there.”

  “But....”

  “I think you stole that laptop in Point Pleasant, brought it to that house in Bay Head, and downloaded the files there. Why, Jenny?” Hands on my hips, I faced the girl on the sofa, waiting for her reply.

  “That’s where there was supposed to be more soap. I thought I could take some and sell it, to get gas money to get to Pennsylvania.”

  “Who was with you?” Larry demanded. Jenny cringed.

  “Bobby, a kid from Ohio, who had a car. I met him and his friends at the campground in New Hampshire. He drove me to Point Pleasant, to the meeting. When Richie found out I didn’t take the bus, he was really pissed. He started counting the bars of soap, and when there were five missing, he went after me. Bobby got out of the car, to make him stop beating me, and that’s when Mozzie started barking. Richie wanted Mozzie to shut up, so he slit his throat. And then,” she sobbed, “he tried to kill Bobby, too, the same way.”

  “So you took the laptop to make him stop?” I asked as gently as I could, knowing she was already miserable about what she had witnessed. She nodded. “What happened next?”

  “I told him that if he ever wanted to see the laptop again, he had to leave us alone. I swear I didn’t know there were jewels in the bars of soap!”

  “And you promised Bobby you wouldn’t tell anyone he was with you because he’d get in trouble.”

  “He’s got a full scholarship to Ohio Wesleyan, and if he gets into trouble, he loses it.”

  “This girl is a terrible liar, Miz Scarlet.”

  “No kidding,” I sighed. I sat down on the sofa next to Jenny, leaned back, and closed my eyes. I was still missing something. “You broke into that house with Bobby after you stole that laptop. You said you threw the laptop into the bushes outside. In Point Pleasant or in Bay Head?”

  “Bay Head.”

  “How come Richie killed the dog in Point Pleasant?” I wondered. “Is this what you told the state troopers? Where was the dog’s body?” Something smelled very fishy.

  “Am I missing something here?” Larry demanded.

  “Jenny was covered in blood the first time I met her. She told me Richie killed her dog.”

  “Man, when she digs herself into that hole, she digs herself into that hole!”

  “Meaning?” Now I directed the conversation to my friend, mostly because I was furious that Jenny had the audacity to continue lying to me. But even as my head was spinning, I kept thinking there had to be a logical explanation for her really bad behavior. Larry summed it all up in a neat little package.

  “She’s building a lie upon a lie upon a lie, one right after the other. Pull out one, and the rest all crumble.”

  “That’s it!” I cried. “Bobby didn’t give her a ride because he was a nice kid. He was the kid who was supposed to transport the soap. He let Jenny and the dog go along for the ride because Jenny wanted to go see her mother’s best friend in Pennsylvania, and since he was going back to Ohio, he could drop her off on the way.”

  “Now we’re getting somewhere. So, you’re protecting the boy with the fancy scholarship.”

  “Larry, no one ever claimed to have found that dog’s body. I didn’t see any mention of it in the newspaper account.”

  “Maybe that’s because the dog ain’t dead.”

  “You mean Bobby took the dog for safekeeping? To make sure Jenny kept her mouth shut about his criminal activities? How can Jenny be sure she’ll get Mozzie back?”

  “She can’t, unless she has a way to get in touch with Bobby, Miz Scarlet.”

  “Like a new phone?”

  “Yup.” Larry nodded her head enthusiastically. Jenny seemed to sink deeper into the sofa.

  “And if Bobby was the guy who was supposed to bring the soap to Richie, and if he was four or five bars short, Richie would have wanted to kill him for stealing the soap. Hence, Bobby took the dog as collateral,” I suggested. Larry’s dark eyes flashed a warning at the girl as they locked on and tried to bore a hole right into the teenager’s forehead. Jenny crumbled and fell apart, no longer able to maintain the fiction.

  “Which would explain why that guy showed up in your house today and tried to snatch the girl,” the experienced homicide detective decided. “Bobby knows where you’re staying.”

  For a long moment, no one spoke. It was the end of the road for the teen, the last chance to save her soul. She took it.

  “That man wasn’t trying to kidnap me. He was giving me this note.” Trembling fingers withdrew a piece of white paper from her pocket, folded over into four sloppy squares. As she flipped it open, Larry snatched it from her hands.

  Meet me in the park, at the summit. You can have your dog back, but only if I get the soap.

  “Just out of curiosity, how were you going to explain the miracle of finding Mozzie in the woods?” I asked the teenager.

  “I was going to say I found a lost dog and he reminded me so much of my old, dead dog, I wanted to keep him and call him Mozzie Two.”

  “Had it all worked out, did you?” Judging from Larry’s sarcastic tone, she was really miffed, and rightly so. This was a big, fat mess.

  “He’s all I have left of my family,” Jenny moaned. “I have to get him back!”

  “Shoot!” Those lime-covered legs stood up in those strappy turquoise sandals and I wondered how the hell Larry was going to climb up to the top of White Oak Hill in her current attire. “Do either of you know how long and how hard I had to work to get this job? And now you expect me to go traipsing up a freaking mountain to confront some little punk who may or may not have already killed a defenseless dog?”

  The key word was defenseless. The minute I heard that, I knew Larry was in.

  “You want to borrow a pair of shorts and some hiking boots?”

  “Oh hell, no! I’ve got clothes in my car. You two really are a pair, you know that?”

  I could hear her stomping her way down the stairs and out to her car. She was gone about ten minutes, and in that time, the teenager must have apologized at least ten times. It really was all about the dog.

  Half an hour later, Jenny was ready by the back door. She was wearing a pair of white shorts, a bright yellow tank top, and white running shoes. Larry said it was important to be able to spot her at all times. I was feeling nervous about the plan, so I went over it one more time. Bur would stay with my mother at the inn. I would bring up the rear, following Larry, who was following the teenager. If only Kenny had arrived in time, I’d feel a whole lot more confident. I pointed that out to Larry.

  “Are you insane?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Do you really think I am dumb enough to go up there with just you for protection?”

&nb
sp; “Well, you’ve got your gun.”

  “And what are you going to do? Hit him over the head with a mushroom? You are not coming with us, Miz Scarlet. You are a civilian!”

  “But I have to go! Jenny’s in danger!”

  “Believe me, she’s in more danger with you on the case! You stay here. I have my team moving into place as we speak. I called in a couple of special ops guys who owe me a favor. And if that damned dog isn’t at the summit, there’s going to be hell to pay, ladies!”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I agreed. Was I relieved to be out of the loop or disappointed?

  “Yes, ma’am,” Jenny echoed. She took a deep breath, steeled herself, and headed off to collect her beloved dog. As I watched them go out the door, I could only hope it all went like clockwork. There had already been enough heartache.

  Kenny arrived less than ten minutes after they left. I took him up to my suite to show him the soap and the USB stick with the files. By the time we collected the items and brought them down to the library, marked cruisers were pulling into the driveway.

  “What’s going on?” I saw that look of apprehension in my mother’s eyes. Kenny broke the news to her as we gathered in the living room to await the outcome.

  “This must be some kind of money-laundering thing,” Bur suggested. “If they’re delivering the soap with the jewels hidden inside, they have to have a distribution network.”

  “The answer’s probably on the USB stick.”

  “Gift baskets,” I decided, building on Jenny’s information. “You can put a bar of organic soap in a gift basket and no one looks at it twice.”

  “And you can ship a gift basket,” Kenny added. “In fact, if you’re sending them to your retailers, you can even ship several in the same container without arousing suspicion. The scented soaps won’t test positive for drugs, and why would anyone look for jewels, real jewels, in organic soap?”

  At a little after three, an all-terrain vehicle pulled up to the front door. Jenny was home, carrying a bundle wrapped in a blanket. I rushed to the door, threw it open, and hurried her in. January ran up, wanting to know what was going on. Huck was on the heels of the fox terrier.

  “Well, did you get Mozzie back safely?” My heart was pounding hard against my breastbone. Jenny’s face was glum. Larry, chauffeured in a second ATV, arrived at the front porch and climbed out. She was laughing with her colleagues. I couldn’t, for the life of me, understand whether the outcome was good or bad. “Jenny?”

  The blanket was pulled back to reveal the oddest looking creature I had ever seen. White-and-brown head, big brown eyes, no fur below the chin. “He shaved Mozzie’s hair off!”

  “Oh, dear,” I sighed, as the naked pooch stuck out a pink tongue and licked Jenny’s hand weakly.

  “What is that?” Bur demanded. “It looks like E.T. on a bad day.”

  “No,” the girl sniffed. “It’s a-a-a Cavalier King Charles spaniel.”

  “How unfortunate,” my mother announced. “Those are such pretty dogs, too.”

  “I know!” The teenager was inconsolable. Even as I watched her, I thought much of the teary-eyed lament was born of her relief that Mozzie was still alive and her sense of guilt for having deceived us for so long.

  “Hair grows back, Jen.”

  “But they cut him. See?”

  Sure enough, the bottom of one of the little dog’s ears had been sliced off. That must have happened when the teenager snatched the laptop. Or the soap with the jewels in it. Or both. I took a closer look. There was crusted blood and some signs of infection.

  “Hey, she did good,” Larry told me, looking over my shoulder. “We got the little bastards. They’re on their way to jail, probably post bond tomorrow. What’s the matter with the dog’s ear?”

  “Someone cut it off.”

  “Take the dog to the vet, Scarlet. Have the vet document the injuries. Get a complete work-up, with photos. I’m going to put somebody’s feet to the fire.”

  “Right.” I felt the dog’s little body. It was hot. Not good. I eased the limp pooch back into Jenny’s arms and pulled out my cell phone. The vet’s assistant answered on the third ring.

  “I need the vet to examine a dog who was physically abused. All the injuries have to be documented for court.”

  “Is this an emergency, or can it wait until tomorrow?”

  “The dog’s been cut and it looks like the wounds are infected.”

  “Bring the puppy over to the emergency room.”

  “Okay. Thanks.” I hung up and told Kenny the situation. He and Larry were going over the details of the New Jersey case, and the homicide investigator was getting all the contact numbers and names, so she could coordinate the Connecticut end of things.

  “I may or may not be here when you get back, Scar. Sarge is meeting us just over the New Jersey border, so Larry can hand over the evidence.”

  “I’ll be glad when this is over,” I sighed, resting my head on his shoulder. His lips brushed my forehead tenderly.

  “Me, too.”

  “Poor puppy,” the teenager cooed, hugging her dog tightly. “Don’t you worry, boy. We’ll get you fixed up.”

  Even as we made our way to the carriage house to collect my car, that was a promise I wasn’t sure we could keep. For the first time in days, I slid behind the wheel of the Focus, and Jenny settled herself in the passenger seat. The limp dog lay in her lap, and I knew the outcome was out of our hands. How bad was the infection? How long had the unfortunate creature suffered? And what would happen if Jenny lost the only tie to her old life?