by Carolyn Hart
Susan heard him out. “I don’t have anything to hide.” She pointed at the box. “There’s the shoe box from the safe. I intended to tell Wilbur what had happened when I got Sylvie home. I knew he’d understand. But everything’s changed. Sylvie is safe. I don’t have to pay ransom. There’s the money. I’ve returned it. And here’s the important part. I was in the study last night around eleven thirty. I came in through the door to the garden. The door was unlocked. The voice on the phone told me the door would be unlocked. I came inside and went to the safe. I opened the safe and took out the shoe box. Wilbur was not in the room. No one was there but me. I left through the garden and went home and waited for the kidnapper to call, but the call didn’t come. It’s crazy to think I got a fake call that Sylvie was kidnapped and told to get the shoe box out of the safe and there’s no connection to Wilbur being found killed and the safe open. But he was not in the study when I came. He didn’t enter the study while I was there. I never saw Wilbur after I left the house yesterday afternoon. Maybe this will help you.” She was suddenly eager. She pulled out her phone, swiped, tapped. “Here it is. Recent Calls.” She read off the number. “Maybe you can trace the phone, find out who called me, because the fake kidnapping has to be connected to Wilbur’s murder.”
Sam’s stare was skeptical. “Why that kind of charade?”
Susan brushed back a strand of hair. “I don’t know. The whole thing’s crazy. Maybe the person who called me planned to kill Wilbur and thought I’d take the shoe box and keep it and somehow the police would find out and think I was guilty. But I never intended to keep the truth from Wilbur. And”—she pointed at the shoe box—“I didn’t have to tell you about the box. Or return it.”
Sam was emphatic. “Returning the money doesn’t change the fact of theft.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters.” He sounded almost angry. “Grand theft. A felony. You can go to prison for years.”
She stood on one side of the table, looked very young, very alone. She gave a huge sigh. “It doesn’t matter now. Sylvie’s all right. But you should listen to me. Whoever involved me must have done it to make it look like I killed Wilbur.”
Sam stared at the box. “Was there anything else in your trunk?”
I knew he was inquiring about the missing coins. I was tempted to bend near and tell him Susan took only the shoe box, but that could wait until later.
“Anything else?” Susan looked blank.
Judy Weitz said quickly, “A pair of leather gloves.”
Susan was impatient. “I wore the gloves when I opened the safe and held the box.”
Sam was brusque. “You are in our custody for the present. I intend to obtain a search warrant—”
“A search warrant?” Susan looked shocked. “What for?”
“To search your home.”
“You mean I can’t see Sylvie until you get a search warrant?”
“That is correct.”
“I have to see her, find out everything that happened last night.”
“We will find out what happened.”
“She’s just a kid. She doesn’t ever see bad things, doesn’t believe in bad things. I have to be there when you talk to her. Look”—and now she was angry—“you can search whatever you want to. I don’t care. I give you permission. Search my house and car and the garage and any place you wish, but I am going to go home and see my sister.”
“We have your permission to conduct a search?”
“Yes. You can look anywhere you want.”
Sam held her gaze. “In addition, you agree to remain silent when I speak with your sister.”
“Yes.”
Sam pushed back his chair. “Judy, interview the others who are waiting. Detach two officers to conduct a search of Ms. Gilbert’s home and belongings.” He leaned close to Judy, gave an instruction inaudible to us, stepped away, and looked at Hal. “Drive with Ms. Gilbert to her house.”
• • •
I was comfortably seated in Sam’s front passenger seat when he thumped heavily behind the wheel. He put out a hand, touched my shoulder. “I thought you might be here. As if this thing wasn’t already screwy enough.”
“I’m here to help.”
He snapped his seat belt in place, punched the starter. The engine made an odd squealing noise.
I was startled. “What’s that?”
“I’ve had it to three garages and they mutter about the brakes but the brakes work fine.”
“The engine sounds like an eggbeater with a bent prong.”
He gave a rumble of laughter. “That’s good. That’s what I’ll tell them when I take it in next time.” But the burst of good humor was quickly gone. He shot a quizzical look at the apparently empty passenger seat. “You aren’t here about my car.”
I went right to the point. “Everything Susan’s told you is true.”
A heavy sigh. “Outstanding citizen murdered. Safe rifled. Secretary comes up with wild tale about kidnapped sister and ransom money and dumps the stolen box of cash on the table. Slam dunk to arrest, charge, convict. Except for this voice—nice voice—that tells me to back off. The mayor will want an arrest ASAP. If I tell her I have it on good authority that the secretary’s on the side of angels, she’ll want to know, Whose authority? If I told her about you, I’d be in a psych ward before she could chortle, Hurray, got rid of him at last.”
We turned off Broadway into the area of more modest homes.
“I’d like to ignore you, pretend you aren’t”—a thoughtful pause—“who you say you are. But I figured out a long time ago that the world is more than I see. Sometimes I’ll go into a room and I smell gardenias and there’s a shaft of light near a window and just for a heartbeat I see my sister Leah. She was killed in a car wreck. Twenty-two years old. But I see that glimmer and I know she’s happy. So I know you’re here. I know you are sent to help the good guys. But this time I think you’ve made a mistake. When did you join up with Ms. Gilbert?”
“At her house at approximately ten minutes after eleven last night. She was on the phone.” I was as cogent as Della Street bringing Perry Mason up to date. “She was distraught. She begged the person she spoke to not to hurt her sister, said she couldn’t get a hundred thousand dollars. She hung up, tried to call her sister. When there was no answer, she left a message.” I described Sylvie’s room, the discovery of her cell phone on the dresser, hearing Susan’s message played back. The rush to the Fitch house, the cautious entry as the music blared, the opening of the safe—
Sam interrupted, asked for particulars, listened intently as we turned onto Susan’s street. “Are you sure she took nothing from the safe except the shoe box?”
“Yes.”
He nodded. As he pulled into the drive behind Susan’s car, he said, “I don’t have a good feeling about this one.”
Chapter 5
Sylvie wriggled in Susan’s tight embrace. She looked young and fetching in pink sweats. A headband with Happy worked in red beads against white terry cloth kept her blonde curls in check. She tried to pull free. “Hey, Susan, what’s with this kidnap stuff?”
Susan held tight to her sister’s arms. “You are all right. You are.” Her voice shook. “Oh God, I was so frightened.”
Her eyes wide as a startled doe, Sylvie looked beyond Susan at the doorway.
In the lead, burly Sam Cobb’s somber face made the moment momentous. He was there with the force of law, and the law would not be denied. Hal Price, blue eyes intent, neither friendly nor hostile, watched Susan, seeking a sense of her character from her demeanor. Two uniformed officers waited a pace behind, a short middle-aged balding man with a fringe of wispy brown hair and a greyhound-lean fortyish woman with an impassive face. Their nameplates read respectively Ofc. B. Riordan and Ofc. L. Malone.
Sam turned to the officers. “You have your
instructions?”
“Yes, sir.” The lean woman pulled out a pair of plastic gloves. Her partner did the same.
Sylvie planted her hands on her hips. “This looks like a TV show. Big man frowning, lean sidekick, two stone-faced cops. You people need to learn how to smile.”
Susan hurried to speak. “Something awful—”
Sam interrupted. “First, let’s hear about last night.” He moved heavily across the room, looked down. “Miss Sylvia Gilbert?”
Officers Riordan and Malone checked a bookcase, methodically pulled books out to look for any objects hidden behind.
Sylvie’s hands dropped. She looked small and very young. “I’m Sylvie. Who are you?”
“Police Chief Sam Cobb.”
“Police chief? Look, Susan has it all wrong. Nobody kidnapped me. You people can go away.”
Sam gestured at the sofa. “Please sit down.”
Sylvie looked at Susan, her blue eyes uncertain.
Susan said quietly, “Explain what happened, why you left your phone here and where you went.”
The bookshelves done, the two officers moved about the room, lifting furniture.
Sylvie frowned. “What are they doing?”
Susan looked weary, resentful, grim. “They said they’d get a search warrant so I told them they can look wherever they want. I don’t have anything to hide.”
“What are they looking for?” Sylvie demanded.
Susan shrugged. “I don’t know. But it’s all right.”
Sylvie fingered the neck of her pink sweatshirt. “You said there was trouble at work. Has something bad happened?”
Sam was smooth. “We’ll get to that in a minute. Tell us about yesterday.”
Sylvie plopped down on the sofa. Suddenly her face lightened, was eager and excited. “It was the funniest thing.” She pulled off her headband, brushed her fingers through springy curls. “I went to my car after class yesterday morning and there was a bright yellow sheet tucked under the windshield wiper. I picked it up. I thought maybe it was a flyer and I’d get a discount off of something.” She gave a quick grin. “I like discounts. But this was even better. I have the greatest psych prof. She comes up with fun challenges and we find out a lot about ourselves.” She sounded young and earnest. “One time she had each one of us go to the animal shelter and make up a story about an animal. I picked out this huge charcoal gray cat who was missing part of one ear and—”
Sam intervened. “You found the flyer. What did it say?”
Sylvie’s gaze clearly relegated Sam to the realm of old and no fun. “At the top of the sheet printed in big black letters it said: A PSYCH TEST. Below that in red letters it said: Go without a cell phone or speaking to anyone for 24 hours and win two tickets to the next Blake Shelton concert.” She paused. “Wow.”
“Where is the flyer?”
“I didn’t keep it. I tossed it in a trash can at McDonald’s. See”—and she leaned forward—“I followed the directions. It said to put my cell phone in my bedroom. So I came home and put it on the dresser. I left Susan a note”—her glance at her sister was reproachful—“so you wouldn’t worry. I told you I’d be back this morning. Anyway, I put my cell there. That was part of the instructions, everyone was to put—”
Sam held up a broad hand. “Wait a minute. Everyone?”
Officer Malone headed for the hallway and bedrooms, Officer Riordan stepped into the kitchen. There were muffled sounds from both locations as the search continued.
Sylvie was patient. “It would be our whole class. There are nine of us. The sheet said each person’s phone had a GPS tracker. I don’t know how she did that. Oh.” Sylvie looked uncertain. “You won’t put her in jail for that, will you? I know people aren’t supposed to sneak trackers on people’s phones, but this was for a class so that should make it all right. Academic freedom. Anyway, I got a kick out of thinking everyone in our class was busy putting their cell phones in their bedrooms. The rest of it was pretty simple. Lay low for twenty-four hours. No contact with anyone. Leave car parked where it was. The sheet said: Transport provided. Follow map. I did and walked ten paces west, eight paces east. There was a cute drawing of a ribbon and the instructions said Ribbon Marks the Spot. I followed the steps and there was a bike parked in a stand with a red, white, and blue ribbon tied to the handlebar, and it didn’t have a lock so I knew I was supposed to use it. I don’t know what the others did. I thought about checking in at a motel, but I didn’t want to spend any money. Instead I took a sketch pad and biked to the lake.”
One of the prettiest spots on campus was a small lake nestled between the fine arts building and the athletic fields.
“I sketched a heron. About five I rode the bike over to McDonald’s and had supper, got a Big Mac and fries and chocolate malt. Then I rode the bike to the library and found a carrel. At closing time, I hid in a restroom, then I sacked out on a sofa in the lounge. This morning I got up and rode the bike to the cafeteria and ate breakfast. I didn’t speak to anyone, so I kept my part of the bargain, and then the twenty-four hours were up. I rode the bike back to the stand across from the dorm and got in my car and came home. I decided to call Susan to tell her all about the test—”
Officer Riordan poked his head out from the kitchen. “Finished in here.” He looked at Susan. “Is the garage locked?”
Susan shook her head. “We never lock up unless we’re leaving town. You can lift the door. It’s manual. Or go in through the side door.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” He moved silently away.
Sam cleared his throat, looked skeptically at Sylvie. “Did you check with your professor on this so-called test?”
Sylvie shook her head. “Doctor Rodriguez is always coming up with something different. I thought it was great fun.”
“Can you text her?”
Sylvie nodded.
“Please do so. Inquire about the results of the no-cell-phone test.”
Sylvie used her thumb.
I hovered behind her, read the text: Did I win the Blake Shelton tickets?
In only a moment, a reply pinged: What Blake Shelton tickets?
Sylvie’s eyes widened. Quickly, her thumb moving faster than a hummingbird’s wings, she sent another message.
In a moment another ping.
I read the professor’s reply: Someone played a joke on you. Sorry. If I find some Blake Shelton tickets, we can go together!
Sylvie’s eyes widened. “The test was a fake! Who—”
The back door slammed. Brisk footsteps sounded in the kitchen. Officer Riordan stepped into the living room. “Chief”—his voice was matter-of-fact, but his green eyes gleamed—“I found what we’re looking for. Got photos. Objects remain in situ. You—”
Sam was already moving, Hal right behind him.
Susan stared at the retreating figures, hurried to catch up.
“Miss”—Officer Malone was in the doorway to the hall—“remain where you are.”
“It’s my garage. There isn’t anything that could matter to the police.”
She dashed across the kitchen, pushed through the screen door, clattered down the wooden steps.
The garage door was lifted, but Officer Riordan stood by a large galvanized tub near an outdoor faucet next to the back steps. Officer Riordan pointed into the tub. “The tub was bottom up. I saw some mud sticking to the rim. That stopped me. Sure, it made sense the tub was turned over to keep it from filling with rain. But I didn’t like those mud fragments. They looked pretty fresh, so maybe the tub was sitting upright until, say, last night. I turned it over. Look what was there.” He held a Maglite in one hand. The brilliant beam illuminated a small wooden chest and a lumpy red velvet bag.
“No.” There was shock in Susan’s voice, shock and utter disbelief.
I didn’t need anyone to tell me that I was looking at th
e velvet bag and lacquered wooden chest that held Wilbur Fitch’s prized rare coins.
• • •
Neva Lumpkin stood with arms akimbo staring down at Sam Cobb. The mayor was a memorable figure. I think that is a kindly description. Her coronet braids were too rigid, her wide-striped orange and yellow blouse too bright, her brown slacks too tight. She was a six-foot, two-hundred-pound mass of self-regard, self-adulation, and self-aggrandizement.
She slapped her hands on the desktop. “I called twice. I texted three times. No response. I have to come to your floor and find you in a subordinate’s office and, after hemming and hawing, you finally consent to speak with me. I am the mayor.” The announcement was delivered in a stentorian tone. “I represent the people. One of Adelaide’s shining lights has been struck down in the sanctity of his home—”
I thought sanctity was reserved for holy places, but I am always eager to learn.
“—and I pledge my sacred honor to devote myself fully to the apprehension of his murderer.” Her cheeks burned bright red. “Howie says the case is all wrapped up. The secretary broke into Wilbur’s safe, absconded with cash and a rare coin collection, and the coins were actually found at her residence. I’ve had a dozen calls from the media. Even the New York Times.” A reverent pause. “I couldn’t speak to them because I have not been informed.”
Ah, now her fury was explained. Neva Lumpkin swayed like a cobra when the media flute played.
“Howie assures me it’s only a matter of hours and an arrest will be made. I’ve called a press conference at noon.”
Sam’s face congealed at the mention of Detective Howie Harris, a sycophant the mayor would like to see named chief of police.
“According to Howie, the secretary cracked Wilbur’s skull.” Neva’s heavy face assumed contours of sadness. “Wilbur Fitch, a town father. An example to all citizens of Adelaide, to all Oklahomans, to—”
“Yeah. All of the above.”
The mayor gasped, her lips parted. Outrage lifted her penciled brows.
“I got it the first time, Neva. Damn shame about Wilbur. Agree there. We are investigating and talking to witnesses—”
