Catering and Crime

by Danielle Collins

  “How about I call in a specialist we’re working with and he’ll do that portion while us ladies get to do the fun stuff.”

  Margot hadn’t expected this. “I suppose that will work. He works for your company?”

  “Yes, he’s been with us for many parties.”

  “Do you think it will take him a long time to get here?”

  “Actually, he’s in the car.” Roxanne grinned. “Let me send him a text and he’ll come in for me to introduce you.”

  “Sounds like you’ve already thought of everything.” Literally everything!

  “It’s why we are rated so well.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “He’s at the door,” she said the next moment.

  Rather than have the staff woman answer it, Margot took Roxanne to the front door. She almost lost her composure when she opened it to come face to face with Ben Anderson. At the last possible moment, while Roxanne was firing off another text, Ben looked between Roxane to Margot then back before mouthing, “What in the world?”

  Margot shot him a look that she hoped he read as “play along” and smiled sweetly.

  “Hello, I’m Wila Tharman.”

  “B-Bo Anders. Um, please to meet you, Miss Tharman.”

  “Missus,” Margot corrected. “My husband is out playing golf.”

  “Naturally,” he said, turning his gaze to Roxanne. “We’re going with the top-level security check?”

  “Yes, I think that will be best.” She turned to Margot. “It’s what we recommend to all of our clients. Bo here is certified and will do a great job—sometimes even better than your own security men to case, er, survey the place.”

  “I’m sure he’ll do just fine,” Margot said, shooting Ben a look. “And it’s only because I trust you,” Margot said to Roxanne, “and that you come so highly rated.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.” Roxanne flashed a smile at Ben, then waved him off.

  “Shall we get down to the fun details?”

  “Yes. Let’s.”

  They walked back down the hall and, as they were walking, Roxanne kept the conversation going on light topics until they were almost back. Then, as they came to the entrance of the room they’d been in before, she did what Margot had expected she would.

  “So, I realize we’re talking about themes here, but what about a date? I seem to remember you said you and Mister Tharman are heading up to New York soon?”

  “We are,” Margot said, adding nothing. She wanted to see how far the woman would go.

  “That’s wonderful. I love it up there. But, what dates exactly will you be gone? Just so I can put them in my calendar so that we won’t miss any of the planning or can make other arrangements in case our vendors need to see the site. Things like that.”

  Margot had to admit that the woman was good at what she did. She made it sound as if they were doing all of this for the care of the Tharmans. Everything was carefully spoken to showcase the right amount of sympathy, compassion, and clout from the other big-name parties they’d put on.

  Margot had to wonder if they really had done all of the parties that they’d claimed or if that was part of the ruse too.

  She shared the dates they would be gone, making sure to leave only one available night open when their fictional daughter wouldn’t be visiting from college, and was pleased to see her write the dates in her planner.

  They spoke at length and Margot took a small thrill out of re-planning the wedding she’d already planned but with another mind to help her think it through. Despite the fact that Roxanne was a criminal, she was actually very good at what she did, giving Margot a few ideas she hadn’t considered herself.

  When they were done, Roxanne said that Ben had texted and was ready as well. They said their good-byes and Margot watched as Ben drove them out of the estate.

  One thing was certain though, she had to talk to Ben Anderson—Bo Anders—before this go out of hand with more than one agency involved. Or to find out if he hadn’t been telling the truth. Whichever came first.

  12

  The sound of footsteps down the narrow alley was Margot’s cue. She waited a few more seconds before stepping out and coming face to face with Ben Anderson.

  “Gah! Margot!” He stepped back, clutching his chest. “You could have told me it was you who lured me to this back alleyway and not my father.”

  She offered him a sly smile. “You could have told me the truth about Roxanne Fox and that you’ve apparently been working with her for a while now.”

  “Okay, let’s get this straight once and for all. I have not worked with her before. In fact, this job is my entry point.”

  Margot frowned. “Entry point? For what?”

  “To their ring of thieves.”

  “You mean entry point for the FBI.”

  He cringed when she said it and looked around to make sure no one was listening to them.

  “Don’t say that so loudly. I’m a dead man if anyone—and I mean anyone—gets wind of this.”

  “But you don’t share information and look where that gets you? Face to face with someone you know, having to act like you don’t know them.”

  “How was I supposed to know you were Missus Wila Tharman throwing a big housewarming party?”

  “And how was I supposed to know you were Bo Anders coming to do a security check on the house,” she said, adding air quotes around security check.

  He shrugged and looked around. “Look, I agree that things are getting a little messy, but what am I supposed to do? I have a job to do.”

  “And I have a commitment to Jacqui Franco—an innocent woman who is currently in jail—to find the real killer behind that poor boy’s murder and then to find those responsible for the thievery of my friend’s necklace.” She lumped Ann in with this vendetta she had because it just wasn’t fair either.

  “I get it, I really do,” he said, rubbing his chin. He paced back for a moment and then came to stop in front of her. “Okay, if I help you and that fiancé of yours, will you promise to keep my cover intact?”

  “Of course,” Margot said.

  “We’ll try,” Adam said, stepping from the shadows.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.” Ben shook his head, hands up as he backed away from Adam.

  “You don’t think I’d let Margot be out here on her own, do you?”

  Ben shook his head. “Maybe. I don’t know. Either way, I answer to people a lot higher up than you and—”

  “I know who you answer to. I’ve cleared this with them. We’re a go.”

  Ben’s eyebrows rose and nodded slowly. “In that case, let me tell you everything.”

  Margot smiled, liking the sound of that. “First, let’s actually get into the bakery. It’ll be safer there.”

  They all agreed and continued on to the bakery, where she made them fresh coffee and brought out day-old chocolate-filled croissants that still tasted good. He began by filling them in on his limited knowledge of the operation.

  “There’s certainly someone who is calling the shots beyond Roxanne and Zachary,” Ben began, “They are a crucial part in all of this of course, but there’s someone else who knows more…or at least has some type of decision power.”

  “Like who?” Margot asked.

  “Not sure exactly.”

  “Someone like Jacqui?”

  “You’re not serious,” Margot asked, shooting Adam a glance. “That young girl?”

  “I don’t think it’s her,” Ben asked. “In fact, I can be positive it’s not since we’ve gotten instructions from this person since that young woman was put in jail.”

  “Interesting,” Adam said, making a note in his notebook.

  “You can’t act on any of this information—yet,” Ben said, giving Adam a look.

  “What I can and can’t do isn’t up to you,” he replied with a pointed look.

  “What else can you tell us about what’s going to happen when Mister and Missus Tharman are gone?” Margot tried to
bring them back to the subject at hand.

  “When I was getting information for their supposed security setup, they were really just having me case the place.” He shrugged and made a face that meant he knew Margot already knew this. “It’s so that they can get in any time they want.”

  “To do what? Steal from me?”

  Ben looked uncomfortable. “You may not believe me on this, but I actually don’t know.”

  “You’re kidding.” Adam all but rolled his eyes, and Margot tried to stifle a laugh at his dramatics. It was clear he didn’t like or trust Ben.

  “So this whole thing I’m doing? It’s basically a big test. When Margot saw me at dinner with Roxanne, that was like an interview.”

  “Pretty chummy interview,” Margot said.

  “She’s a beautiful woman. I use the charms I have available.” He flashed a look at Margot that she knew was purely to aggravate Adam, though he didn’t rise to the challenge. “She agreed to bring me on knowing that I had the right connections. A bit of a resume, if you will. Before she’ll bring me in on their whole scheme, she needed me to do one job without knowing the full picture.

  “Believe me, I tried to get her to include me as much as possible because no one would be all right working like that, but she was pretty firm.”

  “What do you know then?” Adam asked.

  “They are going in at night and they need the systems down for an hour.”

  “That’s it?” Adam looked surprised.

  “That’s what I said, but Roxanne merely said she’s good at her job.”

  “So she’ll be the one there?” Margot said.

  “I’m not sure if it was a personal thing or what, but that’s what she said.”

  “Are you supposed to go with them then?” Adam folded his arms across his chest. “Because we don’t need anyone getting hurt.”

  “I’ve devised a plan that—with your cooperation—will alleviate any need for violence of any kind. I told Roxanne the same and she was all right with it. Actually, she said it was not an option. There was to be no violence. It’s to be as if we were never there.”

  Margot bit her lip as a picture began to form. They only needed an hour. She demanded no violence. As if they were never there…

  Margot gasped. “I know what they are going to do.”

  Margot waited outside the estate she had borrowed from her friend and waited with Adam sitting next to her. They had just watched Ben go in, using the access codes he’d put in earlier. He’d signaled behind him and then two figures crossed the road to follow him in the side door.

  By their builds, Margot guessed them to be the Fox siblings.

  “You’re sure everything is set up inside?” Margot asked, biting her lip. She trusted Adam and his team, but it was her friend’s house and Jacqui’s innocence on the line.

  “Yes, Margie.” Adam squeezed her hand then returned to the night vision goggles he’d pulled from a bag in the back. “I promise that I’ve thought of every angle.”

  “Okay,” she said, leaning back.

  “You going to tell me about your theory on the ‘other man’ that’s in on this job?”

  She smiled, knowing he’d wanted to ask her about this since the day before but had respected her wish to do a little more digging.

  “I was hoping you’d ask.”

  “Were not,” he said, not pulling his goggles down.

  “Anyway, yes,” she went on, knowing they couldn’t do anything until they got the call from his men inside. “It was when Ben was talking that I started to think back to having someone behind it all.”

  “There are a few options.”

  “Yes, but I think only one that makes the most sense.”

  “Lindsay.”

  “Exactly.” She smiled. She’d had a feeling Adam would have come to the same conclusion.

  “You trust what Jacqui told you about her, don’t you?”

  “I do,” Margot agreed, “but it’s more than that. I did some digging into Roxanne and Zachary’s past and it turns out that, before they were left as orphans, their father married a much younger woman. This was several years ago and the marriage wasn’t heavily announced, but what was known was that she was younger and said to be a bit of a gold-digger.”

  “You had Dexter do some digging, didn’t you?”

  “Yes and no. He did nothing illegal, but I did put him on the trail of Roxanne and her brother. Turns out that their father married Lindsay Aims. She was written into the will, to the chagrin of the siblings, and they were left with much less than they would have liked. When their father died, they blew through their inheritance, but so did Lindsay.”

  “Very interesting.” He held up a finger to pause her while he checked in with his men. Reassured by their reports, he asked her to continue in her findings.

  “This is speculation,” Margot admitted, “but I think they got together after they all became destitute and came to some consensus. Lindsay seems to be in for the long haul, making partnerships with Chef Franco and using Roxanne and Zachary to plan parties using their company—maybe her long game is to woo Franco into marriage like she did Mister Fox, but either way, she’s being smarter with her money than the siblings are. They need these gigs more than she does, for one reason or another, and I think she could be holding that over them.”

  “That’s a lot of conjecture.”

  “True, but their spending habits seem to prove my theory in part. They buy a lot of expensive stuff to keep up appearances and then run out. Then, as I’d assume, they keep coming back to their gig with Lindsay because it’s easy.”

  “What about the murder?”

  “I think that the boy who was killed got in the way…somehow. He was a new hire and maybe he saw something he shouldn’t have or something, I’m not sure, but I think Lindsay killed him and then Jacqui provided the perfect way out.”

  “So, then what are they doing now?”

  “That, we’ll have to see.”

  He smiled at her. “You don’t have this figured out too?”

  “I have an assumption about what is going on, but I want to know for sure first.”

  “Well.” Adam touched his earpiece for a moment. “It sounds as if you’ll get that information in just a short time.”

  They waited for a few silent minutes and then Adam nodded. “Okay, we’re a go. Let’s go inside.”

  “Me too?” she asked with wide eyes.

  He winked at her. “You are dating the lead detective.”

  They drove inside as the gates swung open to permit them and several other police cars to enter. Adam pulled up under the large overhang and they stepped out. An officer greeted them at the door and immediately ushered them inside.

  Everything looked the same to Margot as it had before, something she was thankful for, but her fears began to rise as they went upstairs to the bedroom.

  “What do we have here?” Adam said, walking into the room with confidence.

  “You—you’re supposed to be gone. And where is your moustache?” Roxanne asked.

  Adam grinned. “It was fake. And we’re not the Tharmans. So now that the truth’s out, want to tell us what you were doing up here?”

  “Now, that… Wait, what is this?” Zachary asked, looking at his sister.

  “Caught them literally red-handed,” a younger officer said. “They had this on them.” He held up a necklace almost identical to the one Margot had worn.

  “That makes sense,” Margot said, stepping forward. Then, feeling emboldened by all of the eyes on her, she went on. “It’s all part of the plan, isn’t it?” She looked to Roxanne. “You get friendly with someone in a position of wealth, something you can do easily through your parties and elite status, but then you take it a step further. You get invited to their home, you get pictures of their valuables—or just jewelry, I’m not sure the total extent of your operation—and then you find time to make the switch.”

  Roxanne stood there mute, her gaze going to her br
other then back to Margot.

  “I think that’s how you switched my friend Ann’s necklace. After talking with her, we found out that she decided to plan her autumn party with your company, shared her security information with you since she trusted you, and you broke in to make the switch.”

  Margot circled around to hold up both pieces of jewelry, now in evidence bags. Roxanne gave her a look that shot daggers while Zachary merely ground his teeth and kept his gaze downcast.

  “The only thing you didn’t count on, and maybe because this was a rush job without your usual accomplice—” Margot watched Roxanne’s response. “—is the fact that Adam and I were not who you thought we were and my jewelry is nothing more than a very good fake.”

  “You’re kidding me,” Zachary said, rounding on his sister. “You couldn’t even tell it was fake?”

  “I had no way of knowing. I’m no jewel expert, Zach. I just line up the clients. That’s all I’m good for.” She spoke with spite and Margot knew they had them, even if they didn’t have the rest of their crew—yet.

  Adam stepped in at that moment and read them their rights. His officers cuffed them, but right before Roxanne stepped through the doorway, Margot asked, “Who is in with you on this, Roxanne?”

  “Like I’d tell you.”

  “Telling the police could help your own sentencing. You do realize you’ll go to prison for this whole operation.”

  “You have next to nothing but breaking and entering on us. I’d like to see you try.”

  Margot’s head tilted to the side and all she said was, “We’ll see about that.”

  13

  Margot and Adam walked down the hallway at the police department. It was the next day and, while she still felt exhausted from their late-night escapades interrupting jewel thieves, she still felt invigorated and ready for tying up the loose ends.

  “Morning, Margie,” Adam said, squeezing her elbow and directing her toward the hallway.

  “Did you think about my suggestion?”

  He grinned. “I told the chief about it and he wants to go through with it. If you’re right, then we’ll have a really big win on our side.”