“Tyrone and I won’t be there,” Mrs. Webster said. “He can stay with a friend, and I’m going to treat myself to a night at the Mansion House Bed and Breakfast.” She looked quite pleased with herself coming up with that idea.
“Staying there would be lovely, but what about your valuable items. If someone steals them, they’ll be gone,” I said.
“Yes, there is that. I have been focusing on identifying the persons casing the homes and haven’t given much thought to the rest of the gang—the ones who break in and grab the goods.”
Nita looked around to see if anyone could overhear us and whispered. “Perhaps we can get some items from Josh that look valuable but aren’t. Like some fake diamonds.”
“Your ideas are clever, but we have to take them one step further—identifying and hopefully catching who, if anyone, breaks into the house.”
“We could set up a surveillance team,” Nita suggested. “Guido and my five brothers could help.’
“Yes, but no one on that team could make an arrest. When are the aides scheduled to be at your house?”
“Tomorrow. It was a challenge to get the visits scheduled this soon, especially for a Saturday, but my friend managed it. Tyrone and I will vacate the house the next day and night to clear the way for someone to break in while we’re gone.”
I drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. Their plan was like a runaway train, and I needed to do something about it before it derailed.
“Okay, how about this?” I said. “Why don’t we talk to Detective Spangler and get him involved? He can catch the thieves when they come out with the goods. Without them, we can’t link the aides to the break-ins.”
Mrs. Webster frowned. “We would have at least identified the two aides who are victimizing the elderly.”
“But if something happens and they don’t catch them with the goods, it won’t identify which of the aides is involved with the operation. You could be placing an innocent one under suspicion without a way of clearing her.”
“You’ve got a point.” Mrs. Webster’s face became even more creased than before. “How about you talk to the detective for us?”
Detective Spangler seemed surprised at my phone call but agreed to meet me at Hibbard’s Bakery in half an hour. Hibbard’s would be neutral territory, and we’d less likely be disturbed there than at Vocaro’s. Besides, I didn’t want people at Vocaro’s to see us together and jump to the wrong conclusion. This was to be purely a police matter.
I took a seat in one of the booths. When Detective Spangler came in, I held up two cups to let him know I’d already gotten us coffee.
“So what’s up?” He slid into the booth opposite me. “This isn’t about Nicki’s late-night visit to your place, is it? We’ve had one session with the counselor, and it went well—okay, as well as it could go, given she’s fourteen and pushing boundaries.”
“No, this is police business.”
He rolled his eyes.
“Wait, I know you don’t like me getting involved in your cases, but if you don’t listen to what I have to say, you are going to inherit a big mess—none of it my doing. Well, at least not all of it.”
He gripped his paper cup with such intensity I half expected coffee to push up the lid and explode onto the table.
He took a deep breath. “Okay, out with it.”
So I told him, describing Mrs. Webster’s plan. To his credit, he listened to the whole plan without interrupting me.
“Of all the stupid things. Doesn’t Mrs. Webster realize she could be putting herself and Tyrone in danger? What if the thieves don’t break in while she is gone but try next week or next month?”
“I’ve given them all the reasons why they shouldn’t go through with this, but you have to admit it is a clever plan.”
“I’ll give you that, but there is no way of guaranteeing it will go as they hope.”
“Mrs. Webster’s already set it in motion. Knowing her and Nita, they’ll go forward with it regardless of what you want to do. I think that leaves you only with the option of providing security or surveillance. If you don’t, they’ll provide their own surveillance team. Namely, Nita’s brothers.”
He groaned. “You amateur sleuths drive me crazy.”
I also told him about the Vienna Regulator clock I’d identified from the photos he’d given Josh and how the owner’s nephew had acted the day I was there. “It may mean nothing, but it was strange that one of her possessions was among those that disappeared.”
“I’ll check it out. Anything else?”
“They’re waiting at Mrs. Webster’s house to tell you about the plan and hear your decision.”
He looked at his watch. “Okay. I’ll go over there. But you need to come with me.”
“Fine.”
“You ready to go?” He crushed his empty paper cup.
“Before we go, I need to tell you something else, which I know you aren’t going to like.”
He rolled his eyes again. He was probably picking it up from his rebellious daughter.
“Go on.”
I took a deep breath and blurted it out. “Chris Channing is my brother.”
This time, he groaned so loudly everyone in the bakery could have heard him. “Please tell me you aren’t going to be getting involved in his case.”
Although Detective Spangler offered to drive me to Mrs. Webster’s house, I opted to meet him there. During the drive, he would have preached to me about getting involved in police affairs. I felt guilty enough as it was getting Mrs. Webster involved without him telling me the dangers of that over and over.
When we arrived, Mrs. Webster explained her plan, with Nita jumping in to provide additional details. He listened, but it was clear he wasn’t happy with any of us. He especially wasn’t pleased with me for planting the seeds for Mrs. Webster and Nita’s plan when I asked them to look into the home health care workers.
“Listen, ladies,” Detective Spangler addressed Nita and Mrs. Webster. “First of all, this is a police matter and not something for some amateur sleuths to try their hands at solving. It’s admirable you want to help, but it’s not a game. It has the potential of blowing up in your faces. The guy who attacked Josh meant business. And if he’s linked to the thefts, and we don’t know that for certain, you could find yourself in a bad situation. These guys don’t fool around.”
Mrs. Webster raised her chin and looked Detective Spangler in the eye. “I’ve thought this through, and I’m willing to take that chance. We’ve got to stop these people preying on the elderly. Yes, it’s a police matter, but sometimes ordinary citizens can get information the police can’t. And in this case, a doddering old lady and her ditzy niece might have better luck.”
Perhaps I shouldn’t have given Mrs. Webster all those Mrs. Polifax mysteries by Dorothy Gilman about an elderly CIA agent no one ever suspected.
Nita brought out a pot of coffee for us. “I’ll be there to keep an eye on her, playing her ditsy niece.” She seemed to be relishing this role as much as playing the mayor’s wife in the Music Man production, coming soon. Probably more. I hoped she didn’t get carried away and overplay her part.
Detective Spangler shook his head, “Say I go along with this scheme. And I’m not saying I will. It would be better to have a policewoman there with you instead of Nita.”
“Absolutely not.” Mrs. Webster sat tall in her chair, her small frame dwarfed by the large detective. “People crooked enough to steal from the elderly could sniff out a police officer a mile away and be scared off. I want nothing to jeopardize this operation.”
“How about if I also stay with Mrs. Webster?” I wondered what I could rearrange on my full calendar.
Nita shook her head. “Sorry, Laura, but that won’t work. You have no acting skill at all. The aides would see through you in seconds. Mrs. Webster and I have it all worked out
. When they come, one in the morning and one in the evening, I’ll greet them, play the ditzy niece, and then go into the kitchen to make us tea. It’s more to let them know she’s not alone.”
“While Nita’s away, I’ll talk about memories and my special mementos, showing a different one to each aide,” Mrs. Webster said. “This afternoon, Josh brought two lovely pieces of jewelry for us to use as bait. He’s such a nice man to provide the jewelry.”
“With an operation intended for his benefit, he should contribute something,” Detective Spangler said. “Did he bring you something worth breaking in for?”
Mrs. Webster took out two velvet-covered jeweler’s boxes that looked like they came from quality stores. The first one contained a gold necklace set with rubies of various sizes. When she held it up, the rubies caught the light from a nearby lamp and sparkled. Even without knowledge of quality jewelry, I was impressed with the piece. It looked costly. But it could be totally fake, and I wouldn’t know the difference. The second box contained a strand of opera length pearls with a gold clasp. The luster on the pearls would have been hard to fake.
“I’ll hide them in two different places and take out the ruby necklace to show the morning aide, and I’ll show the pearls to the night aide. I’ll make a big show of where I keep them hidden, like I’m trying to keep them a secret from my niece.”
I hoped it wouldn’t be a wasted effort, or place Mrs. Webster and Nita in a precarious situation. If nothing else came of it, Mrs. Webster would have a pleasurable stay at the Mansion House Bed and Breakfast. She couldn’t have picked a more pleasant place to hide out. Tyrone and I’d prepared the woefully out-of-date mansion for sale the previous spring. Ron Zigler and Geoff Clarke snatched it up and turned it into a premier bed and breakfast.
“I’m pleased you’re going to be a guest there, ” I told her. “After the work you did helping us with the mansion, you deserve a luxurious night there.”
“I still think this is a bad idea.” Detective Spangler glowered at all of us. “You run the risk of someone stealing Josh’s jewelry and no one being caught.”
“That’s why we need someone watching the place while Tyrone and I are gone,” Mrs. Webster said. “So you can catch whoever breaks in. Are you going to provide surveillance for that night? Or are we going to have to line up Nita’s brothers? We’re going to do this with or without your help.”
Detective Spangler looked up as though looking for heavenly guidance and expelled a long drawn-out breath. “I should take you all in for interfering in an active investigation.” He paused. “But since I can’t talk you out of this crazy scheme, I guess I’ll have to provide surveillance. If nothing else, to keep an eye on you. Let’s just hope it only turns out to be a major waste of time.”
Chapter 23
Most home searches start online, and exterior photos show up first. A beautiful interior won’t matter if buyers don’t make it past the front door.
The next morning I received a text from my father. We’d made a tremendous leap in communicating—jumping from no communication to texting.
Ted Wojdakowski agreed to represent Chris. I told Chris about you.
I thought of him at the jail and how frightened he must be. Should I go visit him there? Or should I wait for our father to introduce us after Chris was released, which might not ever happen? I was still angry with my father for being incommunicado for all those years, but I didn’t plan to hold it against Chris, especially given his situation.
Most people, upon learning they have a new brother, go to the hospital and stare at him through a nursery window. I would get to see my new brother at the jail through a window separating prisoners from visitors.
I also thought of Beth and the abrupt end to her life. Could Chris have done that to her? I wasn’t sure if I could look at him and act naturally with the image of Beth in that trunk still fresh in my memory.
Today was also when Mrs. Webster and Nita put their plan into effect. That was something else to think and worry about.
Relieved to have a break over the weekend from the competition activities, I stumbled into the kitchen to find Aunt Kit cooking breakfast. She must be worried about me if she’d resorted to cooking again, something she didn’t do very often or successfully.
“Hi, Aunt Kit.”
“Good morning, dear. You don’t need to worry about Inky. I’ve already fed him and cleaned out his box.”
“With this level of help, perhaps I can convince you to stay longer.” I sat down at the table and accepted the cup of coffee she placed in front of me. “That reminds me. What did you decide about the cottage near the college you looked at?”
“With everything that’s been going on, I decided to put off making a decision right now.”
I frowned. “I hope my activities aren’t keeping you from that.”
“Worrying about you, I decided I couldn’t take on more stress. If the place is still available once things settle down, I’ll get it. If it’s not, I’ll find something else. In the meantime, how about some fried scrapple?”
“With maple syrup?”
“Absolutely.”
I accepted a plate of the crispy slices of scrapple and the pitcher of maple syrup. Scrapple, a combination of ground sausage and cooked cornmeal, sliced and fried, was one of my breakfast favorites and a Pennsylvania specialty. It was something I didn’t get very often and sweet of Aunt Kit to make it for me.
“I received a text this morning from my father.” Again, I felt awkward, wondering how I should refer to him. It would have felt more natural using his given name, Phillip, but it didn’t seem like a good idea. “He said Ted Wojdakowski is going to represent Chris.”
“Who’s Ted Wojdakowski? That name sounds familiar.”
“Nita’s cousin. One of her aunts married into a Polish family in town.” I poured myself a glass of grapefruit juice from the pitcher on the table.
“Ah, yes. He’s the one who represented Tyrone when the police accused him of murder.”
“I sure hope Ted can help Chris. In Tyrone’s case, I firmly believed in his innocence and did everything in my power to help him. I don’t know Chris well enough to have that kind of faith in him.”
“All you can do is provide emotional support,” Aunt Kit said.
“My father also said he told Chris about me.”
“That couldn’t have been easy for him. But none of this situation is easy. What do you plan to do now that Chris is aware of you?”
“I might visit him at the jail. Would that be strange, me showing up like that?”
“I imagine he would appreciate having a visitor. He’s also probably curious about you.”
Just then my cell phone signaled a text from Nita.
Morning aide just left. Went great. Spot-on performance by Mrs. Webster. Almost blew it laughing in the kitchen.
That afternoon, after warring with myself as to whether I should go or not, I found myself at the city jail, signing in. In the past, when I visited prisoners, which was becoming too frequent, I’d been told only family or legal representatives at this time. So I made it a point of telling the police officer at admissions that Chris Channing was my brother. Even to my ears, that sounded strange. I wasn’t sure if I would ever become accustomed to saying that.
Before I could gain admittance, I had to wait until they checked with Chris to determine if he’d agree to a visit from me. I showed my ID, signed some forms, and was led into the waiting room. It hadn’t changed any since the other times I’d been there, visiting Tyrone and an old classmate. It still had the same awful green walls and uncomfortable plastic chairs they probably inherited from a school cafeteria.
I wondered how Chris would react to my being there. Would it be, as Aunt Kit and Tyrone said, a relief for him to have company, or would he be resentful of having an older sister thrust into his life?
I
took a seat in the cubicle assigned to me and waited for Chris to appear on the other side of the glass.
A door slammed, and I looked up to see Chris take a seat. Dressed in an orange prisoner uniform, he looked so unlike the man I’d recently met. His expression was rather sheepish, and he appeared drained of the liveliness I’d seen in him before.
“This sure is awkward,” he said. “When we first met and you told me your family name was Channing, I sure didn’t think it would lead to this.”
“It was a surprise for me as well,” I said.
“So where do we go from here? I don’t know about you, but I’m not sure what to say.”
“Same here. I’m still trying to register that my…our father isn’t dead, which I thought all these years.”
He frowned. “Have you come here to check out your new convict brother?”
I studied him, wondering how all of this was affecting him. “I wanted to see if you were okay. I know it must be difficult for you to be in here and so far away from your home—and family.”
He seemed to be considering that. “You might as well ask the question you’re probably dying to ask.”
I played dumb. “Which is?” I hoped he was referring to how we had the same father and didn’t know it before.
“Whether I killed Beth.”
I was afraid that is what he meant. I gulped and didn’t say anything.
“I’ll save you the discomfort of asking me that. No, I didn’t. You don’t know me, so there is no reason you should believe me. But I hope you will take my word that I didn’t.”
“Why don’t you tell me what happened. That is if you want to talk about it.”
“Sure. I have nothing better to do at the moment.”
“How did you and Beth meet?” That might be a good opening topic.
A smile briefly crossed his face, as though he were picturing a happy memory. “We met working on another production crew. One that involved food competitions. At the end of filming each day, we got to taste some of the prepared food. After sitting under hot lights, most of it we didn’t dare touch. But dishes made later in the day were usually okay. On one occasion, Beth and I reached for the same plate at once. It was one of those you take it, no you take it things. Since it was the last one, we decided to split it. After that, we got to know each other better, as you do when you work with the same people day after day.
Upstaged by Murder Page 12
