Geared for the Grave (A Cycle Path Mystery)

by Duffy Brown

  Bourne’s 375 office building was on Hudson Street in New York City, and that it was designed by some famous architect gave it notoriety. My beans came and I munched, staring at the picture trying to think what it meant, and it meant something or Bunny wouldn’t have had pictures of it.

  “Moving up in the world?” came Sutter’s voice from behind me. He pointed to the computer, getting my attention there, then snagging a fried bean. I quickly closed my computer. Sutter flipped it back open, bought the guy on the next stool a beer, making sure he saw the police patch on his Windbreaker, then politely asking him to move.

  “Surprised you don’t have some fancy iPad.” He took another green bean.

  “Not enough kick for the software I use in my job,” I said, trying to get his attention onto something else. I sure didn’t want to tell Sutter how I got this photo. “So, what do you do back in Detroit?” I asked Sutter.

  I got the duh look.

  “Right, you’re a cop with a three-month vacation. I think I want your job.” The Pink Pony was bar-loud, and Sutter leaned closer, his woodsy scent of soap and aftershave washing over me. Little shower droplets still clung to his hair, there was a light scruff across his jaw and his brown eyes were intense—always intense—and my heart skipped two beats, then kicked into overdrive.

  “You need to laugh more,” I said, wanting to somehow get my mind off scruff, eyes and overdrive.

  “I was working on it, then you showed up. Why are you collecting pictures of Jason Bourne in New York?”

  “Why are you hiding out on Mackinac Island?”

  “Who says I’m hiding out?”

  “Only Congress gets three months off with pay.”

  “Where’d you get this picture?” He nodded to the screen and snatched another bean.

  The thing with spilling my guts to Sutter is he could shut me down before I could put this all together. On the other hand, he thought like a cop and knew how bad guys operated. I thought like a designer and knew how to sell soap, cars and soft drinks. “Bunny had it mixed in with some books that Bourne bought at Dwight’s yard sale. What I don’t get is why Bunny would care that Bourne was at this particular New York location—and how did she get the picture in the first place?”

  “Who’s in the building?” Sutter snagged another bean. “Unless you think JB was there to admire the architecture, he was there because of someone inside.”

  I did a search on the tenants. “This one’s a high-end advertising firm; I recognize the name. And there’s a publishing house. The books!” I Googled The Highwayman’s Revenge. “This publisher puts out the Lovelace romance books. They’re hot, steamy sexy books about delicious guys with . . . with black hair who need a shave and smell like . . .” I looked at Sutter, my insides on fire.

  “Okay, so you got a picture of Bourne outside a building where there’s a publisher.”

  “What building?”

  Sutter took my beer. “How many of these did you have?”

  I grabbed my beer back. Get a grip, Bloomfield. “Bourne was burning a box of Lovelace books, and he burned the pictures too. Why would he do that?”

  “How do you know about the burning?”

  “A little bird told me.”

  Sutter leaned closer still, his breath hot on my face. “How did you get into his house?” His eyes shot wide open. “Angelo?”

  “I saved his dog, and Angelo pays his debts. He makes great hot chocolate.”

  “You’re breaking into a hit man’s house and consorting with the mob.”

  “Define consorting.” Sutter closed his eyes and muttered some creative expletives. I closed my computer and slid off the stool. Then I ran for the door to get away form Sutter—and for more reasons than one.

  * * *

  Rudy slept in, least that was my guess, because he wasn’t outside the next morning being Twain, and I sure wasn’t checking out his whereabouts after the little surprise party at Irma’s. Without Rudy/Twain to pull off our tourist attraction, I had to improvise. I shrugged into jeans, got the straw hat Rudy used when fixing the door hinge and went for the Tom Sawyer effect on my own.

  I rented out a handful of bikes and sold off the rest of the trail mix. A few kids gave painting the fence a try, but I was no match for Rudy’s stories. By noon the trim on the shop was bright white, setting off the beach-baby blue, and I added a curly frame around the kids’ heights so it looked like a picture and did a sketch of Rudy on his rocker next to it. The shop wasn’t exactly the Taj Mahal, but it didn’t look bad.

  “Is that supposed to be me?” Rudy said as he stumbled out of the shop, coffee cup in hand, eyes squinting against the sun, ice pack strapped to his head with a belt.

  “It’s a caricature of you as Twain. I even put in Bambino and Cleveland. Are you okay?”

  Donna and Paddy plodded up to the curb. “Saints above,” Donna said to Rudy. “You be looking like death warmed over and served on a platter. You’re in no condition to be riding with Paddy and me out to the freight docks to check on me new oven and pick up those bikes for Ed that finally made it here.”

  Rudy leaned heavy on his crutch. “Don’t know how I got this way. Yesterday I started off feeling really good after eating a few pieces of Irma’s herbal fudge, then switched to the fudge with booze, and bam, it hit me like a ton of bricks. Bad combination. Worst headache ever.”

  “I’ll just be bringing Chicago with me, paint and all,” Donna said. “It’s getting to be we wouldn’t recognize her any other way, though the blue was a bit more becoming than the white. Makes you look sickly, dear.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” I climbed in the buggy, Rudy handed me a screwdriver to attach the seat and the pedals to Ed’s bikes so I could drop them at Ed’s boat on the way back then Irish Donna, Paddy and I plodded out of town. Main Street was congested this time of day. Well, it was as congested as it ever got in this part of the world, moving at horsey and bicycle pace. We rounded Mission Point, where fudgies played croquet and tennis and sat in white Adirondack chairs looking out at the sparkling, sun-splashed water. The road circled around the whole island for eight miles, no GPS needed—you wound up where you started. Hiking or biking the interior paths got more complicated, not many signs and you never knew where you’d wind up.

  “Now we can get to talking,” Donna said as we left the crowds behind. Main Street turned into Lake Shore Boulevard with sandy beaches on one side and straight-up cliffs on the other. “How did it go at Bourne’s place? There be any skeletons in the closet for real? I kept stuffing scones and tea down the man’s throat best I could to buy you some time I did.”

  “He got back to his house while Fiona and I were still there.”

  “Fiona?”

  “We get around.”

  “Holy Saint Patrick!” Hand to heart, Donna flopped back against the carriage seat. “And ye lived to tell about it? ’Tis the luck of me shamrock that’s keeping you alive these days, it is.”

  I pulled out Sheldon and showed Donna the photo of Bourne by the glass building. “It’s in New York City, and Bunny had this photo in with some Lovelace books that Bourne stole from Dwight’s yard sale. He was burning them. Can you think of any connection between Bunny, a New York publisher and a hit man?”

  “Sounds like a title of a mighty bad book, it does. Bunny worked on her snooty family history for years and went to New York more than once to try and sell the piece of malarkey. She made a big deal out of it, not that it ever amounted to much. Maybe she came across Bourne when she was there and snapped his picture?”

  “New York isn’t Mackinac Island. Bunny and Bourne showing up at the same place at the same time is too much of a coincidence. Whatever got them there, it was a planned event.” I sucked in a quick breath. “Good grief. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “That Bourne’s mustache looks like a dead caterpillar these da
ys? The man’s in need of an overhaul, he is. Think there’s a hit man magazine he can take a look at?”

  “That Bunny was Bourne’s target. He knew she was going to New York to try and sell her book, and he followed her to this publisher.”

  “Faith and begorra!”

  My brain snapped back to what Angelo had said about think global, buy local. “What if someone here on the island paid Bourne to off Bunny?” I said to Irish Donna as we clip-clopped our way out to British Landing. “A hit in New York doesn’t stand out like it does here—except Bunny got to Bourne before he got to her. Miss Congeniality probably suspected someone might be after her. She’d messed up Smithy’s marriage and kept Huffy and Dwight apart, and who knows what’s going on with Speed. She took the picture, and maybe she threatened to tweet it and ruin Bourne’s reputation. Something like the worst hit man ever would be really bad for Bourne’s business.”

  “So ye think Bourne did the old biddy in here by cutting her brake cable when things fell apart in the city?”

  “I think she blackmailed him with the pictures; that’s why he wanted them back. She was suddenly getting money from somewhere to start fixing up SeeFar. Either Bourne had enough of paying her off and decided to take his chances, or the person who hired him to do the deed in the first place took matters into his or her own hands.”

  “So why was Bourne burning books?”

  “He used the box of books to get the pictures out of the sale without looking suspicious. Bourne’s bookshelves are more Hemingway than The Highwayman’s Revenge, so he got rid of them. I need to get back into Bourne’s house,” I said, thinking about the locked room. “He’s a businessman. He keeps records. If I can find something that links him to Bunny . . .”

  “We can’t talk about that now, dear,” Donna said as British Landing came into view. “Sometimes even the rocks have ears, and things have a way of getting back.”

  Soft waves lapped against the freight docks as workers off-loaded crates and boxes from a working ferry that was nothing like the sleek white ferries that whizzed fudgies to and from the mainland. Containers of trash from the island lined the dock to make the return trip. Living on an island was like living in a too-small house—there was only so much room and then something had to go, namely the garbage.

  “There ye be, Captain,” Irish Donna called out to the guy I’d met that foggy morning in front of SeeFar. He had on the same stained sweatshirt and beat-up captain’s hat. “I’m checking on me stove that’s finally come in,” Donna said to the captain as she climbed down from the carriage. “Chicago here’s picking up two bikes.”

  The captain tipped his hat to Donna, then sent her and a dockworker off to a storage building to find the stove. He checked his clipboard. “Only one bike made the trip this time,” he said to me. “The other one will be along in a day or so, and we’ll deliver it free, since the order got split. The boys here will load you up, but you need to sign the delivery papers in the office.” He gave me a once-over. “Don’t I know you from somewhere? Hard to tell with all that paint. You’re kind of splotchy.”

  “Just here to help Rudy.” I gave him the innocent look and followed the captain to the front part of the storage building. Two desks, shelves, computers, printers, a bulletin board, a Keurig coffeemaker and a water cooler cluttered the little green room. The captain picked up a stack of papers and flipped through them, a photo of what looked like a cone of black-and-white waves slid out onto the desk. For a second I thought it was the lake or sky at night, except Mackinac Straights Hospital and Health Center was stamped at the bottom along with a date.

  The captain caught me staring at the picture and scooped it into the top drawer of the desk and slammed it shut. “Sign here.” He thrust the papers at me, his brow furrowing. “I remember where I saw you. You were standing outside SeeFar that morning I was taking a walk.”

  He leaned across the desk, eyes cold, voice low and menacing. “I told you to mind your own business then, and I’m telling you again. If you think you know something, you don’t know nothin’. It’s a deep lake we got out there, missy. I’d remember that if I were you.”

  I dropped the clipboard on the desk and tried not to run as I went back to the safety of the buggy. Donna was ready to go, the box with the bike wedged in the back. “Is it the right stove?” I asked her as we started off.

  “That it is, and I can’t wait to start baking. The boys will be bringing it on out tomorrow first thing. That old stove I have now is a time bomb waiting to go off.”

  “Yeah, I know what you mean about waiting for time bombs.”

  “Are ye feeling poorly, dear? You’re white as can be under all that . . . white.”

  I could feel the captain watching us as we headed down Lake Shore. “Where is Mackinaw Straits Hospital?” I asked when we got out of sight of the captain.

  “Over there in Mackinaw City. It’s where we go for the big health issues Doc Evers can’t handle. Pretty much where you’re born and where you die if you’re a local—and you’re looking like ye could be headed there right now.”

  Born? The black-and-white picture was an ultrasound. I’d seen my share of them from the girls in the office back in Chicago. “You know how Huffy’s been a little intense lately, even for Huffy? She’s got a reason—she’s pregnant.”

  Donna sniffed, her mouth in a deep frown. “I’m gone five minutes now, just five, been on this island for twenty-five years I have, and the captain takes you into his confidence as soon as I turn my back and tells you something like that? You sure know how to be sweet-talking a man.”

  Oh for the love of . . . “There was an ultrasound picture on his desk, and unless the captain’s personally headed for a medical miracle of that persuasion, I think it’s Huffy’s. The captain shoved the thing in his desk as soon as he saw me looking at it, then proceeded to inform me about the depth of the lake and told me that I should keep it in mind.”

  Donna grinned. “Well, now I’m feeling better. Thought I was getting out-gossiped by a fudgie.”

  “Saints preserve us.”

  “Amen. The thing is, I’d be watching my step if I were you, me dear. The captain’s not one for saying something he doesn’t mean, and the man is sure protective of his Huffy. He always has been since Mrs. Captain ran off with the saxophone player from up at the Grand years ago. But you’re right in why Huffy’s acting like a nincompoop, and it explains plenty. She’s wanting a father for her baby before he comes into this here world, and she wants to be living at SeeFar.”

  “And now the father is broke, he’s the cook for the mob and they’re the ones who own the house. Poor Huffy.”

  “She’s never been a poor Huffy. The girl’s not a sit back kind of person, she’s more of a this is mine and I’m taking it kind of gal.”

  “To the point where she’d knock off Bunny to make it happen?”

  “Without blinking an eye, she would.” Donna leaned a little closer, even though no one else was around. “Just between us, I wouldn’t be putting it past her to have planned the whole thing—the being pregnant, I mean. She’s not getting any younger, and Dwight and that house of his are what she’s wanted her whole life. And the other part to be thinking about is that the Captain himself must be in a state that things aren’t going well for his little girl. Somebody needs to be paying for the situation. Dwight got her with child, lost the money and the house and has no way to take care of his Huffy the way she deserves.”

  Donna heaved a long sigh. “Wouldn’t ya know it, we had this Bunny business figured out, we did, with Bourne being our man, and now I’m thinking Huffy or the captain himself coulda done the deed.”

  Or Speed or Smithy. Lake Shore turned back into Main Street, and Paddy stopped at the curb in front of the yacht club. “I’ll drop off Ed’s bike,” I said to Donna as I wrestled the box out of the back of the carriage. “I can walk back to the shop from her
e.”

  Donna and Paddy faded down the street, and after convincing the dock master that even though I was a little rough-looking at the moment I was indeed here to make a delivery and not to abscond with a pricey boat, I dragged the box across the wood planks till I got to Helen’s Heaven, a really fine sailboat if you liked sailboats. It was moored near the end and bobbing lazily with the lake swells.

  I hated bobbing, swells or any up and down movement on the water. I was a feet firmly on the ground sort of girl who fervently believed that if God wanted us in or on the water we’d have gills.

  I tore open the box and attached the pedals and seat to the really cool new folding bike that was perfect to store on a boat. My stomach rolled in time with the waves as I carried the bike onboard, then headed for home, the sun setting over Mission Point.

  I checked in the few bikes we had rented, letting Rudy nurse his throbbing head, then closed up shop for the night. Miles Davis tunes drifted in from Marquette Park, but I was too beat to appreciate anything but a bath and sleep.

  * * *

  The next morning I added the final touches to the white trim as Fiona, complete with purple sequin hat, stopped her horse cart at the curb beside the bike shop. “Girl,” she said as she climbed down, “every time I see you, you’re a different color.” She stepped closer. “Any fallout on our JB adventure?”

  “That glass building we saw is in New York City. Maybe JB was hired to knock off you-know-who, and she figured it out and got a picture of him in the act and was blackmailing him.”

  “And I thought my putting out a special edition on the great Mackinaw Bridge walk was exciting.”

  “But I don’t have any proof . . . yet. So, tell me about the walk.”

  “Every year they shut down the bridge and people walk across, unless it’s too windy and walkers might get blown into the lake. It’s been a tradition for as long as I can remember. The walk part, not the being blown into the lake part.”