A Dress to Die For

by Margaret Evans

  “Well, your fists did a good enough job on me. I’m just glad you listened to me in time,” Williams responded, rubbing his chin.

  “Was this a sting?”

  “Yes, I’m an undercover vice detective and today I’m just a worker bee, helping out DHS. Too many of their folks are too well known. I’m useful because I stay under the radar so much.”

  Laura was still in shock. Eric Williams—a vice detective?

  “And pretend to sell insurance.”

  “It’s not pretend.”

  “What happens now?” she asked.

  He pulled his phone from an inner pocket and called someone, putting a finger to his lips for Laura.

  “We have a problem. Yes, I’m sure she’s still waiting at the hotel trying to figure out what happened. They grabbed a civilian who didn’t know what was going on. She’s not hurt, but she’s here right now, and waiting for you to come rescue her. Can you arrange for that? Yeah, same room.”

  He turned to Laura after ending his call.

  “They grabbed the wrong person. We have a female agent—a brunette—who was supposed to be kidnapped. No idea why they took you instead. Really sorry, Laura. But your knight in shining armor should be coming in that door in about twenty seconds, give or take—”

  They both heard the buzz of a key card, and saw Connor shove open the door to the hotel room. He went straight to Laura to see how she was.

  “Are you hurt?” he asked, checking her over.

  She shook her head.

  “What’s all this?” he demanded, finding cuts and bruises on her arms and left cheek.

  “Being thrown into a car trunk and dragged back out. I’m fine. I’m just more than a little…surprised,” she finished, looking to Eric.

  “Did somebody get Ralphie Boy?” Williams asked. “He wasn’t very nice today.”

  “Yes, they got Ralphie Boy,” Connor responded, still looking Laura over. He found another small cut under her chin and spotted the scraped knee.

  “Is that the guy who took me?”

  Both men nodded.

  “He goes by the nickname ‘Ralphie Boy’?”

  “No, it’s his real name,” Williams said.

  “You’re kidding.”

  “It’s spelled ‘RALPH E. BOYE,’” Connor explained.

  “Why would someone do that to their kid? That’s worse than Dante’s sister being Lilian Lee Lelanley. Omigosh, I said it right without stumbling! If I ever have any kids, they are going to have short, sweet, simple, totally pronounceable and sensible names that fit with their last name.”

  “Like Eric? Eric’s a nice name.”

  Connor and Laura gave him a look and spoke in unison.

  “No.”

  “Did we get Covington?” Eric asked.

  “No, she and Joseph are in the wind. But the feds don’t think they’ll get far. They’ve traced bank accounts off shore and frozen them, plus anything they had here in the U.S. and frozen those as well, plus all of their assets and belongings,” Connor informed them.

  Laura looked thoughtful.

  “Who’s Covington?”

  “Mary Wilson from Eagle Junction.”

  “Yes,” Eric said. “She changed her name illegally years ago to Deirdre Covington when she opened up Regal Airs talent agency which they use, by the way, as a pathway to the stars and something far more lucrative and a whole lot worse for the girls.”

  “A human trafficking ring…” Laura commented sadly. All those girls and probably many more they didn’t know about.

  Williams’s phone buzzed and his face lit up like a Christmas tree on which all the bulbs worked.

  “Thanks! Great job, guys!” He put his phone back in his pocket, retrieved his badge from Laura’s hand, and looked about the room as if to make sure he wasn’t leaving anything of his behind.

  Laura stared at him.

  “You’re not going to share?”

  “Well,” he said sheepishly, “it is an ongoing federal case.”

  “Eric, it’s a solved federal case and will be in the newspapers tomorrow morning and on CNN, Fox, and MSNBC, among others, by tonight. Charlie Kovacs will have it in his headlines. I’m thinking you better duck out of here quickly if you don’t want your face on television. Just tell me very fast what the phone call was about and why it made you so happy.”

  Williams shook Connor’s hand rather gently and waved to Laura.

  “I’m off. They got ’em trying to cross the Canadian border. That shuts down this whole trafficking ring. One more, big checkmark for the DHS.”

  • • •

  More bidders and bids came to the silent auction than Jenna dreamed possible. She was so busy walking through the crowds, answering questions and directing people to the right items that it wasn’t until there was a very brief lull that she caught a worried glance between Kelly and Erica. She walked over to them and pulled them aside, each by an arm.

  “Okay, what’s wrong? And where’s Laura?”

  “Oh, nothing, Jenna. I’m sure she’s just out there in the crowd, you know, milling around, keeping everybody happy and in line—”

  Just then Corporal Brianna Broadmoor showed up and asked to speak with the three ladies in a quiet place.

  She explained what happened to Laura but everything was under control and she had been rescued and was fine.

  All Jenna heard was that Laura had been kidnapped.

  She passed out.

  forty-one

  Hear-tell she’s singing like a bird, trying to make the deal of a lifetime,” Erica said.

  “Maybe she’ll tell the FBI and DHS what happened to all seven of those girls,” Laura added.

  “I don’t think she should get any credit off her sentencing just for giving out the details of her horrible crimes,” Kelly put in.

  The Fab Four was a Fab Three today as they met briefly to plan next week’s Easter Egg Hunt. Jenna was exhausted, was still counting up money, and had a bazillion details to oversee before she could sit down and do something mundane, like planning a town-wide children’s event.

  “There’s so much to do!” Laura thought, in distress. “To pull this together on short notice, we need a white board, a schedule with task deadlines and maybe even some meetings. Omigosh, I’m turning into Rina Holm,” she finished, referencing the organizer of the recent St. Patrick’s Day events who was well noted for her OCD and checklists.

  “No, you’re not,” Kelly replied. “You’re just organizing an event from scratch.”

  “Did I just say all that out loud?” Laura asked, watched her two friends nod. She shook her head sadly. “I am so out of control.”

  “Here you go,” Kelly said, pulling a notebook from her oversized bag and spreading it open on the coffee table in Erica’s apartment. “Let’s start with this.”

  “Okay,” Erica began. “Who’s wearing bunny ears and tails?”

  “Not Connor Fitzpatrick,” Laura announced, and they all laughed.

  “Have you convinced him to do the dunk tank this summer at the Fourth of July and Founders’ Day celebration?” Erica asked. “He’ll bring in a heap, all the teeny boppers have crushes on him, and we could sure use the money for the brass railings in the police station. It’s a disaster waiting to happen. Think about it. What if a blind person who can’t see the ‘danger’ sign, grabs the railing, it comes out of the wall halfway up the stairs, and—I don’t want think about it.”

  “Not yet, but I haven’t given up. And they have a guard chain and a warning sign in Braille there, too. Now let’s plan this thing.”

  A few bullet points were added to the notebook, but that’s as far as Laura got.

  • Laura – wood/nails, drilling stuff/bunny clothes

 
• Kelly – paint/design of bunny/details/stuffing for the bunny

  • Erica – big piece of fluffy white material

  “Jenna made a bundle yesterday, didn’t she?” Erica asked.

  “That’s what I heard, but it will be a while before they add up all the money. They sold almost every item, including the ugly brooch that Chief Mallory’s wife inherited but hates.”

  The other two stared at Laura, and she realized too late she had let something slip.

  “Oops. Can you two un-hear that? It was supposed to be another thought.”

  They nodded and went back to work on drawing the parameters of the hunt and its activities. But the pair had other questions related to Laura’s kidnapping and graze against the trafficking group.

  “Who was the guy they sold you to?”

  Laura shrugged.

  “Some guy who was pretending to be someone else. They got him, too. Hey, when do you want to start the face painting, Kelly? Before or after the littlest kids go egg hunting?”

  “Probably before and again after the hunt is over. Erica, your thoughts?”

  “I think Deirdre Covington or Mary Wilson or whatever she called herself deserves everything the judge and jury throw at her. It’s despicable what she did. And we still don’t know where those girls are or if any of them are still alive.”

  Laura continued silently working with Kelly on the sketch of the gigantic bunny, making a pattern for Erica to cut out the front half of the fluffy material.

  “Erica, be sure you thank Torrey for me, in case I miss him, for his help with the frame design of this monster rabbit. I can drive a nail, but I never thought about the chicken wire to hold everything together across the back of the two-by-fours.”

  “Will do. He was happy to help, although he did ask why we four seem to be the only people in this town who do anything. I pointed out the Rina Holm St. Patrick’s Day thing, but I did have to share how far back we go, like the fall fairies we did for about five years. Your mom made those costumes, Laura, didn’t she?”

  “Yes, and my dad made the wings that Mom covered with this real thin, webby material. I think she sprayed glitter on them.”

  “I remember those simple, simple days when our biggest problems were if we passed or failed a math test or someone wasn’t speaking to us!” Kelly added.

  “Hey, did either of you know Emily Macchio?” Laura asked.

  “I knew of her, but not directly,” Kelly said.

  “She was a total snot,” Erica pronounced.

  “How did you know her?”

  “From a class that Torrey was taking about three years ago. She was a high school junior who somehow got selected to attend a graduate class at the University of Minnesota. Yes, you explain to me how that happened, with her GPA of Two-Point-Five. Money or favor? Anyway, she kept acting like she knew more than the professor and the students, kept correcting everyone to her way of thinking. Torrey said it was very distracting and annoying. I mean, graduate students are really focused so they can get their Masters’ or their doctorates and launch their careers. After about a month of that nonsense, the University asked her to go back to high school. It was supposed to be a mentoring program, but not in the direction she wanted it to go.”

  Then Erica looked up, sobering.

  “I’m sorry something bad happened to her two years ago. Nobody deserves that, no matter how annoying they are. I hope they find her and she’s okay.”

  All three worked in silence a few minutes.

  “How about creating the form like this? I think if we do it this way, we have enough wood scraps and duct tape,” Kelly suggested. “Laura, are we asking you to do too much today? I mean, you’ve been through a lot in the last twenty-four hours.”

  “No, I’m good, thanks. Just didn’t get a lot of sleep last night. DHS takes their time, asks tens of thousands of questions, is very thorough, and I didn’t get home until after two in the morning. Otherwise, I’m okay. Hey, the FBI gave me a list of all the girls who went missing. Can I show it to you and you guys let me know if you knew any of them? I’m just curious. These are the other five besides Brittany and Emily.”

  “Shoot,” Erica said.

  Laura pulled out the list but checked Kelly’s sketch first.

  “Yes, I like that design. We just need some fluff to stuff the bunny with and a piece of fabric that he can wear for a vest.”

  “Is it a boy rabbit?” Erica inquired.

  “No! Let’s make it a girl,” Laura said. “I’ll get a fabric remnant to look like a little dress.”

  “And we’ll need a little more fluff for the front, then, right?” Kelly finished.

  “Okay, then,” Erica continued. “I have all the white, fuzzy material I need to design the body shape, head, ears, arms, et cetera. I’ve got yards and yards of it. Just waiting for your pattern. By the way, make it a girly tee shirt and shorts so none of the little boys try looking up her skirt.”

  “Remember,” Laura said when she stopped laughing, “it’s only half a bunny, against the backboard. So we don’t have to worry about backing. Okay, I’m giving you a name of one of the other five girls, but she’s from Iowa: Tanya Swanson.”

  They both shook their heads.

  “Hannah Barbery who’s from Eagle Junction.”

  “I’ve heard the name, but don’t know anything about her,” Erica said.

  “Me, neither.”

  “Alyse Starr from Mapleton.”

  “Now her I met at one of our dances. Seemed nice, but some of her classmates who were also at the dance said to watch out because she couldn’t be trusted,” Kelly threw in. “I was told to keep an eye on my date. I didn’t personally witness any of this, or any problems with her trying to steal my date.”

  “Why are we doing this?” Erica inquired.

  “Just a theory I had. Testing it. Malinda Hurley from Mapleton.”

  They both shook their heads.

  “And the last one is Sharona Bannon, but she’s from Michigan.”

  They both shook their heads again.

  “Well, that makes two from Mapleton. Why do you think?”

  Erica snorted.

  “Because they’re richer and snottier there?”

  “I think rich and snotty can happen anywhere. It just has to be fostered.”

  “Okay, Kelly, I expected that to come from Laura whose mother was a psychologist, but not from you.”

  Kelly rolled her eyes.

  “Just getting everyone’s thoughts on this,” Laura said. “So, our goal is to have the bunny put together by Friday, okay?”

  “You’re the wood expert because your dad taught you how to hammer a nail, so you’re making the frame, Laura. I’ll do the fuzzy white front-half-body shape, and Kelly will stuff everything and put on her clothes. Oh, and Laura, don’t forget to cut out the face.”

  “And don’t forget the wiring to hold the ears up,” Kelly put in.

  “And don’t forget to give me all the right dimensions! I need numbers!” Erica finished.

  “Sounds like we have a plan. Do we have all the dimensions settled?” Laura asked.

  They both nodded.

  Laura did wonder what the final bunny would look like and hoped the kids would like it and that their parents would take lots of pictures of their little kids poking their faces through the hole in a giant white bunny’s face.

  • • •

  It was now Monday evening and Laura was again over at the Fitzpatricks’ home, practicing dancing with Connor in spite of minor bruises and sore muscles where she’d been dragged in and out of the trunk. With every practice, she saw improvement. They’d never make the show, Dancing with the Stars, but they would certainly hold their own on the floor in front of the teens at the pro
m and not look stupid.

  When they took a break around eight o’clock, Connor asked his father to explain to Laura about the Kovacs brothers. Michael Fitzpatrick sat down with them in the basement. He began by telling the well-kept secret of the triplets’ grandparents in Hungary helping with the underground to get Jews out of Poland and Hungary, as well as other neighboring areas, before they could be captured by the Nazis during World War II. The grandparents paid for the passports and visas for their son and his wife and infant triplets in an altered set of names, fearing for their safety should the grandparents ever get caught. After the family of five made it to Ellis Island, passports and visas in yet again different names awaited them, as the grandparents had also arranged, well in advance. Their strict instructions were that once they were settled, they needed to start using the new names, in this case, Kovacs. The parents did fear the worst when they stopped receiving letters from Hungary, sensing the grandparents were eventually caught and executed. The parents settled in Maine with their babies, and after the boys grew up, they all moved to a small town in Minnesota called Raging Ford.

  Laura swallowed hard, remembered the story of her own ancestor, Samuel Rage, and the Freedom Tunnel he established to help African slaves get to Canada. She thanked Michael for sharing their story with her and promised that no one else would ever hear it.

  “Okay, then, I cross them off the list as okay.”

  When Laura and Connor resumed dance practice, Laura posed the question of whether he thought the silent auction robbery was supposed to be a distraction from another planned abduction at a prom this year.

  “The FBI checked the system on that and found similar incidents happened within two weeks before the other abductions took place. So it’s likely that it was intended to be a distraction, and there might be another abduction in the works that nobody needs Deirdre or her gang for, something that was set up and paid for in advance.”