by Duffy Brown
* * *
When I got back to the shop, it was after five and Rudy had himself balanced on a bike right at the front door. He had his one crutch lying across the handlebars, and there was a wild look in his eyes.
“I’m gonna ride down to the VI and have a walleye fish sandwich for dinner and onion soup, and chips, I’m dying for some chips, Those fat ones that make a big crunch when you bite into them.”
I put myself smack in front of the bike to block Rudy’s way. “You’re hungry, I’ll make you dinner. You can’t ride to the Village Inn. You’ve got a broken leg, remember?” I rapped the cast with my knuckles to emphasize my point. “See, no bend, stiff as a board. You can’t pedal. Big problem.”
“I got one good leg left . . . Actually, it’s my right.” Rudy laughed, his eyes not focusing. “A little crutch humor. All I need is one leg.” Rudy waved his hand. “Out of the way, Chicago, I’m on a mission here. Irma, that hot little number, brought over some fudge that she cooked up all by herself today. Best fudge I ever had.”
“Must have been the brandy fudge. You’re drunk as a skunk.”
“I could really do with a KitKat. I love KitKats—and did I mention chips?”
“Listen to me, if you take off on this bike, you’re going to kill yourself, and then Abigail will kill me.” I grabbed the crutch then hoisted Rudy up, the bike toppling over with a crash. Rudy wobbled and leaned on me, all one hundred and whatever pounds, plus cast, and together we did the hop-shuffle back to the kitchen. I couldn’t imagine the alcohol content in fudge being enough to make someone this blammed. I wasn’t cook of the year by any stretch, but I’d made enough Christmas fudge with Mother to know that too much liquid—too much of any liquid—made for really soupy fudge.
I plopped Rudy in a kitchen chair and he banged his fist on the table. “Chips.”
“What if I make pork chops?”
“Lots of chips.”
It was like dealing with an inebriated two-year-old. I got out turkey bacon and eggs and repeated the Hangover Therapy 101 lesson that I had laid out for Irma. I cooked up breakfast for dinner so there’d be something in Rudy’s stomach to sop up the alcohol.
“Here,” I said, putting the food in front of Rudy. “Eat this, all of it, and don’t move from this chair, and no bikes. I’m going to check on Irma.”
“Give my little cutie-pootie a big old smooch for me, okay?”
“I’ll let you handle that one.” I headed out the back door and across the deck, which was still splattered with blue paint from when I dropped the roller when Angelo showed up. I cut over to Irma’s, where I could hear some Bob Marley blaring inside the shop.
Who knew alcohol in fudge could be so potent? I gripped the doorknob, prayed for strength and cut through the kitchen to the main room, where the bass was vibrating so hard on “Three Little Birds,” my teeth hurt. An old turntable with big speakers was set up on the display case. People sat on tables, legs dangling, eyes not focusing, arms in the air, swaying back and forth and singing along—or slurring along, depending on how zonked they happened to be.
Irma shuffled about passing out Doritos and Fritos. The majority of the people in the shop were on retirement road, and they were all three sheets to the wind, thanks to that senior discount Fiona had mentioned earlier.
“Come on in, the water’s fine, dearie,” Irma yelled over the din of off-key warbling. She gave me a big wave and a lopsided smile. Dishes of fudge were making the rounds, everyone helping themselves and sending their cholesterol and sugar levels through the roof.
“No Woman, No Cry” filled the room to cheers and more swaying. I wasn’t exactly a wallflower, and never in a million years had I seen myself as someone who got in the way of a good time, but this was it. If I didn’t break up the party, people would start passing out on the floor. I pulled the plug on the music and climbed on top of a table to wolf whistles, catcalls and shouts of “Show us what you got, baby!”
“The party’s over,” I yelled.
That got me boos and hisses and a pummeling with junk food.
“You are all wasted. What would your kids say if they saw you all like this?” Did those words really come out of my mouth?
“We don’t give a flying fig what our kids say,” a guy in a red and blue plaid shirt called out. “We’ll just cut the little bastards out of the will.”
Giggling filled the room, and two women fell off the tables. Everyone thought it was the funniest thing ever, so it was followed by more giggling. It was like being back in junior high.
“We need more chips,” someone called. “More chips, more chips, more chips” was chanted through the room at brain-numbing decibels. But the good news was that I could do chips—and that would get everyone out of here!
“Follow me to the best chips in town!” I found Bob Marley’s “Kaya” on my phone, cranked it, jumped off the table and started a swaying line out the front door. I headed for Horn’s bar, holding Sheldon over my head, with the band of mellow oldsters pied-pipering behind. I figured Horn’s knew how to handle drunks better than I did, and maybe they could sober them up. Right now it would take all the coffee on the island to sober them up. How could this happen from fudge?
When I got back to the bike shop, the cannon up at the fort boomed the six o’clock warning, Taps floated out over the island, marking the end to another day in paradise, and I found Rudy facedown in his bacon and eggs, snoring. Some days in paradise were better than others.
I half dragged Rudy to the La-Z-Boy to sleep it off, then headed for the shower to get fancied up for my eight o’clock date with Angelo. I dressed in breaking-and-entering black, twisted my hair up and pinned it in place. I added black eyeliner ’cause I hadn’t been on a date in months and needed to keep my makeup skills honed. I left Rudy a note saying there was a sandwich in the fridge and that I’d be back around ten, then locked the shop up behind me.
I wanted to think I was getting better at climbing the death steps, but in truth they kicked my butt every time. All the locals around here must have the constitutions of rhinoceroses. Moonlight lit the bluff, a few carriages were out and about, one pulling up beside me. Fiona leaned down and gave me a closer look. “Evie? If you had pointy ears, you’d look like Catwoman. Holy cow, dressed like that, you’re up to something.” She jumped from the cart, then glanced at SeeFar. “You’re sneaking around there? Why? Not that I’m complaining.” Fiona’s eyes danced with excitement.
Great! Fiona’s investigative reporter radar was on full alert. There was no getting rid of her now. “I saved Angelo’s Meatball and he’s helping me sneak into Bourne’s house. I think maybe someone paid Bourne to knock off Bunny,”
“Bourne? Angelo? Meatball? This gets better and better.”
“Let’s hope Angelo thinks so.” Fiona tied her horse and cart to a bench and we tiptoed around to the back of SeeFar. Angelo was waiting by the door in a black suit, white shirt, yellow silk tie and matching handkerchief in his breast pocket. Uh-oh. Breaking and entering goes GQ?
“I can’t make it tonight,” Angelo said to me. “Rosetta wants to go dancing at the Grand. I told her I had business, but she’s not buying it. Said we were retired and she didn’t take all those Author Murray classes for nothin’, and who the heck is this?”
“Fiona. She runs the Town Crier.”
“You brought along a reporter?”
“It’s Mackinac, she only reports on things that smile, and what do we do now that you’re going dancing? I got Bourne out of the house and everything. Can’t you go dancing another night?”
“When my sister sets her mind to something, it happens. I’ll show you and the reporter here how to get in on your own. I did a little walk around that Bourne guy’s place and got some ideas. The front door has a motion-detector light, so that’s not gonna work. The back door has another one, and a keypad lock, making it a little tricky f
or a beginner, but there’s a porch on the second floor. You can go in there, piece of cake. ”
“What if our piece of cake is equipped with an alarm system?” Fiona asked, and I added, “I can’t get arrested; I’m already the black sheep of my family.”
“Hey, every family needs a black sheep,” Angelo said. “But this place won’t have an alarm that’s hotwired to the cops or some agency. If Bourne’s who you think, the last thing he wants is the law showing up. He’s probably living off his reputation. Ya know, like what kind of idiot would break into a hit man’s house?”
“Can’t imagine,” Fiona said, grinning ear to ear.
“The porch lock is one of those fancy bio-matic fingerprint locks that get so much press,” Angelo said. “They look techy, but lucky for us it’s a piece of junk and opens with a pass code and a hidden place for a key. The key’s your in. I’ll give you a crash course in lock-picking.”
“A course in lock picking!” Fiona hugged Angelo and I asked him, “How can you tell all this lock stuff by just looking at it from down on the ground?”
“A decent pair of binoculars. It’s the family business.” Angelo looked to Fiona. “Don’t print that.” He handed her a pen flashlight, then slid a thin leather wallet from his breast pocket and flipped it open to—
“Dental tools?” I asked.
“That would work too.” He took a long, thin, pointy thing from the pouch and then something shaped like an L. He stuck the L into the lock on his door. “We’ll practice. This is a tension wrench; it holds the cylinder in place. Turn it just a little bit.”
He put long pointy into the lock. “They call this a hook pick. There’re pins holding the lock in place so you can’t open the door. This pushes the pins up and out of the way. When they spring back down, they land on the cylinder ’cause you turned it. Turn the cylinder the rest of the way like you would a key, and bingo.”
“We are so going to hell,” I whispered.
“And it’s so worth it,” Fiona gushed.
Angelo handed me the tools. “Bobby pins, nail file or a paperclip work too if you were in a pinch, but these do a better job. Feel for pins,” he said to me as I stuck in the wrench then the pick.
I fished around and there was a snap. Angelo ruffled my hair. “You got it. You’re a natural. I’ll give you two a boost up to the porch, then I gotta go rumba.”
We crept across the neighbor’s yard, hopped a little iron fence and wound up in the back of JB’s place. No lights were on there, leaving the yard black as a tomb—bad choice of words. Angelo made a cup with his hands. “Try not to get my suit dirty. You can drop back down into the shrubbery when you want out. Make sure to lock the place up and put everything back the way you found it.”
More landing in the bushes; my life was not improving. Up I went, grabbing the wood railing, then pulling myself over, falling headfirst with a hard thump.
“Shh,” Angelo hissed from below as he boosted Fiona.
I peered over the edge and gave a thumbs-up.
“There could be cameras,” he stage-whispered as he started back to his house. “You never know about these hit man types; they’re a whacko bunch. Keep your head down low so they don’t see your face, and slouch—that hides how tall you are. Oh, and hunt around for a hidden room. Hit men keep their ammo out of sight. Otherwise it freaks the pizza delivery guys when they come. One look at an assault rifle and you can kiss your pepperoni with extra cheese good-bye.”
Angelo faded into the night, and Fiona turned to me, eyes huge. “Cameras? Ammo? Hidden room? How’d I get so lucky?”
“I came to town and Bunny croaked.” It took me twice as long to do the piece of cake lock as it had taken to do Angelo’s, but I finally turned the cylinder and clicked the door open. Fiona gave me a high-five. “You know,” I said, “we really are going to hell for this.”
“Yeah, but right now life is sweet. We’re in Jason Bourne’s hallway.”
We crawled to an open door that was obviously JB’s room. The bed wasn’t made and clothes were flung across a chair. No desk; a dresser with the usual array of clothes; and a nightstand with Tylenol PM, Tums and a smiley-face stress-relief ball.
“Looks like being a hit man isn’t all flowers and sunshine,” Fiona whispered.
We scooted to the next door. “It’s locked,” Fiona said, turning the knob. “It’s one of those old door locks like in the Disney version of Cinderella.”
“Except there aren’t any cute little mice headed my way with a key to save the day.” I stuck the wrench tool in the lock and fished around till it caught on something, then I gave a hard turn, but it slipped. I tried again then again with no luck.
“We’re wasting time.” Fiona said and started downstairs. I kept the flashlight aimed at the floor and away from the big windows that offered a killer view of the night harbor and Mackinaw Bridge.
The dining room held a table, a hutch, six chairs and a layer of dust. Across the hall in the living room, the red coals of a smoldering fire offered the only light, with a box of logs sitting right in front. My flashlight reflected off a silver briefcase by the couch, handcuffs dangling off the side. “It’s the briefcase,” Fiona gasped. “Open it.”
“You open it.”
“Looks like it has a combination lock, and Angelo didn’t cover that in Lock-Picking, the Beginner Class. What are we looking for again?”
“Bourne’s client list, something that says somebody paid him a bundle to knock off Bunny, and my guess is it’s in that locked room.” Shaking with fear, disappointment and the sinking feeling I was getting nowhere fast in finding the real killer, I slunk over to the hearth to get warm and to try and come up with at least one good idea, since I hadn’t had any in a really long time. I reached for a log from the box to add to the fire and kick up the heat, then stopped dead. That four-poster bed with moonlight and the chickie and delish dude book was right there in front of me.
“What?” Fiona asked coming up beside me.
“It’s Lovelace books from Dwight’s yard sale. I recognize the L.L.Bean box they were packed in.”
“A half-burned copy of The Duke’s Decadent Proposal’s smoldering here in the fireplace. I’ve read this one. My guess is it caught fire all by itself.” Fiona fanned herself with her hand. “There’s a bedroom scene on page—”
“Why would a hit man burn books? Why these books? I get that romance is not everyone’s cup of tea, but setting them on fire seems a little extreme, don’t you think?” I picked up The Secret Diary of Miss Collette and photos of a man in a brown leather jacket, bad mustache and fedora who had a silver briefcase cuffed to his wrist fell to the floor.
“It’s Bourne in disguise coming out of an office building, or maybe going in—hard to tell,” Fiona picked up the pictures. “It’s some contemporary building with big glass doors and windows all across the front.” She passed me the photo with the 375 address in silver numbers over the entrance. “375 where?” I asked. “The building has a big-city feel, but why is this photo of Jason Bourne and this particular building important? Why would someone take it?”
“Why put it in a box headed for the fire,” Fiona added. “Bourne wanted it destroyed, not just tossed in the trash.
I pulled out Sheldon and snapped pictures of the pictures, then emailed them to myself as a key turned in the front door. Fiona’s eyes covered half her face and my heart dropped to my toes.
The front door opened, and Fiona hunkered down beside the couch, pulling me with her. Humming, Bourne walked into the living room and stood by the hearth. Humming was good, right? People didn’t kill people if they were happy—unless killing was their job, and they really liked their job.
He put a pink Blarney Scone bag on a little table by an overstuffed chair, and instead of turning Fiona and me into worm food, he picked a book out of the box. He heaved a sigh, tore out some pages and t
ossed them onto the hot embers, which burst into a soft yellow glow. He added more books, crumbled the photos and added the pieces to the blaze.
He headed for the bookshelf and fiddled with something there, then opera filled the room. He started for the kitchen and I followed Fiona to the steps, swiping a blueberry scone from the little pink bag along the way. Four scones or three—JB would never know the difference, and we needed to get something positive out of this evening.
Following Fiona, we tiptoed up the steps, timing footfalls with the loudest opera shrieks. I split the sugary scone in two, handed half to Fiona then reset the lock and closed the door behind me. We climbed over the railing and landed in the bushes, staying put for a few minutes to finish off the pastry and to see if bodies falling from the second floor happened to have caught Bourne’s attention. When nothing happened, I thanked Puccini or Verdi or whoever had penned the opera bellowing inside, and we made a dash for the street. We climbed in Fiona’s cart, neither of us saying a word for a full minute. “Gee, that was fun,” I finally managed.
“You bet it was,” Fiona agreed, and meant every word. “We need to get in that locked room. The question is how?”
Fiona dropped me at the shop, retrieved her bottle of That’s Berry Daring nail polish and took off to finish up an editorial piece for the Crier. I checked in on Rudy, who was still zonked in the La-Z-Boy. I’d seen my share of hangovers, but fudge hangovers were something else. I got my laptop from my room, hoped it had some juice left and headed for the Pink Pony for free Wi-Fi and some fried green beans. The bar was packed, and a guitar player was warbling on about Alabama being his sweet home.
I found a stool at the end of the bar behind the cash register and away from the turmoil. I ordered a beer and beans and pulled up Google Images. Dropping in the picture of Bourne and the glass office building, I did a search by image. This works great for well-known stuff, like pinpointing the location of Machu Picchu or the Washington Monument, but this office building was pretty obscure, and—holy cow, it worked! Smooches to Google. Bless the guys who rode around with those cameras strapped to the hoods of their cars. I wondered if the island had cameras strapped to the backs of some horses. They should!
