Tall Pines Mysteries: A Mystery/Suspense Boxed Set

by Aaron Paul Lazar

  “Raoul was born into a girl’s body. He…she was my twin sister, Ramona.”

  She paused to let it sink in. The knowledge slipped over me like a numbing shroud. Raoul was Ramona? What the hell… I felt dizzy. The lake turned dark, then psychedelic blue as it morphed in and out of my cloudy vision. Sounds pierced my consciousness in ultra high frequencies. Birds. Words. Crazy words. I sat and stared at the white cotton clouds in the distance while Roberta told us more.

  “Ramona struggled in all aspects of her childhood. She felt out of place. Out of sync. Cut out of life.” Roberta continued as if she’d practiced the story many times, preparing for this day. “She and I were twins, but something had gone wrong during gestation, and my dear twin suffered in silence until finally, one day, she realized that the source of her angst was due to her sexual identity. She wasn’t a girl. She’d never been one. She was a boy.”

  My brow crinkled and a single tear slipped down my cheek. I couldn’t speak.

  Roberta’s pace increased. “It built up over the years. Ramona was a real tomboy, great at sports, always playing baseball with the guys. She loved me, but she hated dresses, hated fancy hairdos. She collected baseball cards and asked for a jackknife for her twelfth birthday. I think it was around then that it finally hit her. Hit him. He’d been trapped in the wrong body since birth.”

  I listened in numb silence. Images flashed past me. Hollywood’s characterization of male to female transsexuals paraded across my brain in tempo to the soundtrack to The Bird Cage. But that was the wrong direction. Raoul had been a girl to start.

  I pushed those images away, then was hit by memories of Raoul taking me fishing on Honeoye Lake, patiently teaching me to bait a hook and wait for the bite. I thought of his passion for all things related to nature. His deep understanding and empathy for those who weren’t quite the “norm.” And his insistence that I follow my dreams, no matter who told me otherwise.

  “He suffered for many years, Marcella. Suffered badly. He refused to date, although our parents practically forced him to go to the prom with a boy who asked at the last minute. He started to do poorly in school. Tried drugs. Tried alcohol. Tried the gay scene. None of it fit him. Finally, still in his female body, he took a job as a security guard and drove a Brinks truck.”

  She turned and looked toward the lake. “Sidney Blount was head teller at the bank. He supervised loading the truck with the fifty million, an unusually high transfer amount, then stepped inside and pulled a gun on Ramona and Lester Peters, forcing them to make his getaway. Since he worked at the bank, he had full access to the process, and the workers respected him. He’d worked on this scenario for years, and finally pulled it off. The cops chased them, shot at them, and killed Peters. When the side door of the van opened around a corner, Blount fell out. He was captured, but Ramona escaped with the armored car, the money, and a bad chest wound. She kept going because they were all chasing her and shooting at her. She wanted to stop and tell them, but felt she had no choice, or they would have shot her dead like Peters.”

  I started to cry. I cried for the knowledge that my dear stepfather hadn’t been a real crook, for his suffering, and for my own selfish feelings of anger and betrayal. Quinn held me, looked at me with soul-searching eyes, and let me get it all out. Roberta patted my back, made cooing sounds, and hugged me a few times.

  “Why didn’t he tell me?” I said between sobs. “And why didn’t my mother tell me?”

  “Your mother didn’t know about the bank heist. She only knew about the fact that he was a transgender. They both decided you didn’t need to know about that part of his life. If word had got out in your community, he might have been ostracized and lost his job. You and your mother would have been taunted, and worst, lost your livelihood. It would just confuse and upset you. Especially when you were a child.” She stared at me with deep empathy. “And what difference would that knowledge have made to you? Wasn’t he a wonderful father?”

  I hiccupped and wiped my nose with a ratty tissue I found in my pocket. “He was the best.”

  “There’s more,” she said. “Come with me.”

  Chapter 45

  My mind whirled with questions, but we followed her along a path to a small cove protected by pines and blueberry bushes. The water looked shallow, the lake floor sandy. Without thinking, I took off my boots and walked in as far as I could without wetting my shorts. I stood with my toes digging into the soft rippled sand, my eyes closed. The cool liquid circled my calves, inviting me farther. I wanted to throw off my clothes and stroke across the wide expanse. To lie on my back and float under the cobalt sky. To connect with Dad, to speak with him again. To try to understand his pain and the loneliness and confusion he must have felt as a child.

  Roberta’s voice was soft and sympathetic. “I need to show you something.”

  Quinn held out his hand and helped me back to shore when I started to lose my balance. I wasn’t sure if it was because of the slippery rock I stepped on or because my life had lost its balance and I reeled under the impact.

  “Here. Come with me. You can see it clearly from over there.”

  “See what?” I craned my neck to try to see.

  Roberta pointed to a wooden post submerged on the far shore of the cove. It had a square sign nailed to the opposite side, but I couldn’t see the face. I followed her around the cove and stood staring at the plaque. Tears streamed down my face again. I was confused, terribly confused, but I read the words aloud.

  “Lone Owl Lake. For my dear Thelma and our daughter Marcella. But most of all, for the birds.”

  An owl hooted nearby, its sound simultaneously dulcet and eerie. I looked up and searched for it, wondering if it were a sign from Raoul. My father. The man who’d raised me well and with such devotion and love.

  “Roberta?” My eyes asked the questions. So many questions.

  She patted a space beside her on a fallen log. I sat on one side, and Quinn took the other.

  “When Ramona was framed for the robbery, her picture was posted everywhere. She became one of the most hunted felons of all time.”

  “Where did she go? He go? I mean…”

  “It’s okay, honey. I know it’s confusing. Ramona came to me. And I hid her for three long years.”

  Quinn had an epiphany. “At Tall Pines?”

  Roberta nodded. “The cabin had been in our family for a very long time. I think that’s how Tiramisu, or Blount, must have known about it. His family was from Wells, just up the road. Like I said, we went to high school together, and his parents knew our parents back when we were children. We didn’t sell it until last year, and I built my shop with the profits. Anyway, in the winter, she stayed in the cabin with me. In spring, summer, and fall, she camped out here.” Her hands splayed to take in the scenery. “My ex-husband, a veterinarian who’d always bucked the system, treated her gunshot wound. She survived and healed over the winter. We helped her stay low and we studied the options. Also, we didn’t touch the money. We buried it at the cabin, behind the outhouse.”

  Quinn looked up with shining eyes. “That’s where it is?”

  Roberta shook her head. “No. Not any more. Be patient and I’ll tell you.”

  “First of all, we bought her a new female identity, chopped her hair off, dyed it blond so no one would recognize her from the wanted posters, and got her into treatment with the best experts in the field. After the required therapy and a course of hormones, we helped her through the surgeries. It was a long and torturous road. But in the end, Ramona was Raoul, with a whole new identity, a new legal birth certificate, and a desire to make something of himself.

  “We put him through college, where he earned his degree in pharmacy. He started working around here and fell in love with a sweet girl.”

  “Thelma?”

  “No, honey. This was before your mother. She was a little wisp of a girl named Rose. Raoul fell hard for her, and they were an item for two years, until she died in a freak accident at wo
rk.”

  I sat up. “Oh my God. How awful!”

  Roberta grimaced. “It was a tough time for Raoul. He decided to leave the area, transferred to a pharmacy in Rochester, where he eventually joined a group for grieving spouses. That’s where he met your mother.”

  “After my father died,” I said. It all started to come clear.

  “But what about the money?” The stars in his eyes danced when Quinn asked.

  I wanted to smack him for pushing so hard. “Geez, Quinn!”

  “It’s okay. That’s the rest of the story,” Roberta said. A mysterious little smile crossed her lips. “Raoul was ingenious, and little by little he found ways to transfer the money buried behind the outhouse into offshore accounts. It built over the years into an amazing fortune. He never touched it, until he married your mother. He fell in love with you and Thelma, and after a few years, he realized it was time to do something honorable.”

  Quinn looked crestfallen. No treasure for him, nothing buried under X-marks-the-spot.

  Roberta stood and swept her arms about her, circling once. “This land was privately owned back then. Tens of thousands of acres belonged to a Mr. Thaddeus Romero. Your father purchased the entire expanse from him when you were about fourteen. Then he donated it to New York State.”

  My eyes clouded, then cleared. “He sort of gave the money back, didn’t he?”

  “In a sense, yes. Of course, the bank would never see its money again. But he returned it to the people in the only way he knew how. And he dedicated it to you and your mother.”

  Quinn shrugged and stood facing the lake. Blue mountains loomed in the distance. And the owl hooted once more. My husband’s face transformed from disappointment to reverence.

  “My God. We found the treasure, Marcella. It’s all around us.”

  Roberta winked at me. I smiled through fresh tears, then rose and linked arms with Quinn. “We did, baby. We sure did.”

  Chapter 46

  Roberta unzipped her backpack and took out a Canon EOS 50D camera. She twisted a heavy lens onto the front, motioning for me to stand in front of the plaque. “For your mother, honey.”

  I tugged at my ponytail, smoothed my rumpled tee shirt, once again wiped my tears, and reluctantly stepped into position. “I’m such a mess.”

  Quinn shushed me. “You look just fine, babe. And Thelma won’t give a damn if you’re in your jeans or evening gown. It’s what’s behind you that matters.”

  I shook off my desire to preen. “You’re right. Okay. I’m ready.”

  Roberta took a dozens shots of me, Quinn and me together, and the lake and its wildlife. I asked Quinn to snap a few photos of Roberta and me. When we were done, she sat down with us on the log again and handed out juice boxes and salted cashews. I shared the oranges from my pack, and we ate in silence.

  A great blue heron soared over the lake, a majestic giant with long, spindly legs trailing behind him in flight. He circled past us and landed in the shallows on the far side of the cove. Rings of waves circled gently outward from where he stood, in ever expanding ripples on the water that mirrored blue sky and cottony clouds. I watched with fascination. He stood stock still, his long, skinny beak pointed down at the water. The feathers along his slender neck were tinted pale rose, and his head sported a black stripe. For a long time, we munched on our snacks and the heron watched for fish. I thought he must’ve gone to sleep when in a sudden jerking flash he popped his head underwater and came up with a sparkling fish in his mouth. It was gone in a second, sliding down his S-curved gullet in one quick gulp.

  Mimi lay at Roberta’s feet, snoozing as if she were home in front of the woodstove. Her sides rose and fell with comforting rhythm, setting the beat for the sounds of the lake and forest around us. Her lavender-gray fur glinted smooth in the sun, a color that seemed unreal for a canine. The hoot of the owl continued, low and regular. The chirping of chickadees played over it. And the gentle rustle of the trees overhead provided a soft shushing background to the birds’ symphony. I closed my eyes, soaked in the sounds, and tried to memorize them forever. For Raoul. For the peace of my soul. For the years I’d never known the whole truth, and for the years he suffered. I was glad we’d been a family, and could never have imagined a better father to raise and care for me.

  A light touch on my shoulder brought me back to reality.

  “Honey? Ready to go?”

  Roberta and Quinn stood with their packs on their shoulders, looking down at me. I smiled and slid my arms through the straps. “I’d like to stay forever. But I guess it’s time.”

  The heron lifted its massive wings and glided to another shallow spot near the dead pine. I took one last look, branded the pristine memory forever in my mind, then turned to follow Roberta, Quinn, and Mimi back down the trail.

  The return trip took only forty-five minutes. We moved quickly and easily down the rocky path, and reached the old truck by five o’clock. We were silent most of the way home, but when we neared the gift shop, a question popped into my mind.

  “Roberta?”

  She turned into the parking area and pulled beside our Rav4. “Yes, honey?”

  “There’s something about the story you told me that just doesn’t click. I’ve had a weird niggling feeling in the back of my mind about the money. I just now realized what it was.”

  Quinn turned to look at me. Roberta pulled up the parking brake and turned off the engine. “What’s bothering you, dear?”

  I squinted in the late afternoon sun, shielding my eyes with my hand. “I know I didn’t tell you many details about the past few weeks, but we were told Tiramisu—I mean Blount—started following Thelma because his niece at the FBI alerted him to bills being passed from the Green Valley heist.”

  Her eyebrows knitted together. “What?”

  I sat forward and looked around Quinn, whose expression said he’d been wondering the same thing.

  “I told you my mother was kidnapped. But I didn’t mention the FBI said she was passing bills from the heist.”

  I caught her up on the rest of the horrific details of the past few weeks. After she assimilated it all, I got to my point. “They started chasing us just before my mother paid for us to go on an extravagant outing to a bird show. Something we never could have afforded, and that she couldn’t have afforded either. But she seems to have more money since Dad passed, and…”

  Roberta finished my sentence. “And you think maybe Raoul held back some of the cash?”

  I nodded.

  “He told me he didn’t keep anything out of the heist money, or even the interest.” Her eyes clouded with doubt and her voice trailed into nothingness.

  “That’s what’s bothering me.”

  “Did you ask your mother about it?”

  I realized in the haze of rediscovering Thelma, in the midst of the incredible relief that she would actually survive, in the aftermath and letdown of the following days, it had never crossed my mind.

  My voice softened. In the end I realized I might have hurt Roberta, might have destroyed her memory of Raoul. I felt like an idiot. I should have kept it to myself.

  Roberta’s eyes swam with confusion and she clenched the truck keys in her hand. “He never lied to me before.”

  Guilt slid through me like hot chocolate pudding on a cold, silver spoon. “Oh, God. I’m sorry. I’m sure there’s another explanation.”

  Quinn dove in to help me. “There has to be. Roberta, don’t worry. We’ll talk to Thelma and try to figure it out.”

  She stared into the distance with unfocused eyes.

  “Roberta? Are you okay?”

  With a hint of a smile, she opened her door and slid one leg out. “Don’t worry about it. If you find out more, you tell me. Meanwhile, I’m going to trust my twin. He would never have lied to me. I would have seen right through him.”

  Mimi jumped down from the truck bed and pranced after Roberta indoors. We hopped in the Rav4 and headed to Tall Pines, where I planned to call my mothe
r. Something didn’t gel. Somebody was lying.

  Chapter 47

  We left Roberta and Mimi and swung north on Route 30 to the Charlie Johns Country Store in Speculator. Quinn offered to make whole-wheat pizza with goat cheese, tomatoes, and baby spinach, and after nosing around in the nearby package store, found a bottle of our favorite Tug Boat Red from Lucas Vineyards to go with it. We picked up additional groceries to get us through the next day or two, and headed back to the car. Armed with our food and my unrelenting questions, we returned to Tall Pines, bumping over the roots and rocks in the Rav4. We decided to keep the rental car until next week when we’d figure out what kind of car we could actually afford.

  While Quinn made the pizza, I perched outside on one of the Adirondack chairs overlooking the river and called my mother from the portable landline. Thelma needed to answer some hard questions, and I already felt mad at her. A blackbird squawked and settled on the fence post, eyeing me with suspicion. I cast a glance toward Blackbird Island and tried to remember how much I loved my mother.

  When she picked up the phone, I took a deep breath. “Hi, Thelma.”

  “Hi, sweetie. How’d it go?”

  I felt like saying, “Don’t ‘sweetie’ me!” because of the secrets she’d kept. Even though I logically understood their rationale, I still felt betrayed. “Thelma? I need some answers.”

  “About what?”

  “About Dad. His past. And his money.” I heard Ruby and Sarafina chirping in the background.

  Her long silence was followed by a quivering sigh. “So, Roberta told you.” She sounded as if she’d been dreading this day for years.

  I took a sip of my chilled Tug Boat Red. “She did. She told us the whole story about Dad. About his history.”

  “Are you okay? Was it a horrible shock, baby?” Her voice trembled, sounding weak and almost frightened.

  I sighed. I really didn’t want to upset my mother any more. “It was a helluva shock. I mean, I knew Dad for practically my whole life, but never even guessed about his past.”