by Teresa Trent
“There she is,” I whispered into my iced tea.
“Who?” Maggie asked.
“Michelle Baldwin.”
“Who’s that with her?” Ruby’s question surprised me because by now I thought everybody knew who Crazy Eddie was.
“Crazy Eddie.”
Ruby’s head lifted slightly as she observed the couple. “Oh, that’s Crazy Eddie. He’s younger than I thought he’d be.”
I called to Birdie, who was on her way to seat them at a table. Looking annoyed, she turned and headed for us. I motioned for her to come closer then whispered in her ear.
“Could you put them in the booth behind us?” I asked.
Birdie looked confused. “And the reason for that would be?”
“Uh, no reason.”
Ruby stifled a cough into her hot chocolate.
Birdie, dressed in her light-blue waitress uniform fingered the order book in her apron pocket. “Listen, Betsy. We try to balance out our crowd. It makes the place look fuller.” It was obvious she had her own sense of feng shui going on in her diner. I gave her a little smile, imploring her to mess up her balanced seating just this once.
Finally, she gave in. “If you say so. Why don’t I just ask them to join you?”
“No,” I put my hand on her arm. “Don’t let them know anything about my request. I’m trying to keep an eye on them.”
Her eyes grew wider. “Now that makes more sense. Why didn’t you just say that to begin with? Okay.” She didn’t know what was going on, but now her curiosity was piqued.
She walked over to the waiting couple and quickly guided them to the table behind me. While all this was going on, Maggie and Ruby looked to be bursting with questions. Before they could blurt anything out, I held up a hand to quiet them. I mouthed, “Trust me. I have a plan.” Maggie gave Ruby a quick staccato nod.
Ruby had not been sitting around our table on Christmas day, but Maggie had. She gave me a knowing smile and put her hand over Ruby’s.
Michelle Baldwin and Crazy Eddie read through the large plastic menus that Birdie gave them. Michelle was sitting in the seat that backed up against mine, and I could feel her moving around nervously. If I had to guess, she was ready for her next fix. Of course, I could be wrong. Maybe she was excited about Birdie’ s signature double cheeseburger, but the first possibility was more likely. While they were quiet, I took the opportunity to set the trap.
Speaking a little louder than I normally would, I announced, “I just can’t get over it, Aunt Maggie. Leo giving me such an expensive diamond for Christmas. I’m not even sure where I’m going to wear it.”
Maggie nodded and took up the lead, “He must be doing really well at that Weather Bureau. Well, you will just have to find a place to wear it.” Maggie nudged Ruby.
“Yes, you will have to find a place. If you ask me, diamonds are always appropriate. Whether you’re at the car wash or the gala event, honey. How many carats did you say it had?”
For someone who had no idea what was going on, Ruby planted a nice opportunity for me.
“Two carats. That’s got to be worth several thousand dollars. Now I just have to get it off of my kitchen table and into a lockbox somewhere. It’s a pity the bank isn’t open this week. I guess I’ll hide it in the cookie jar.” It was true our town bank had closed for the entire week between Christmas and New Year’s. I was hoping my less-than-Oscar-worthy performance was enticing enough to tempt Michelle.
Ruby slapped the table. “You mean you have that highly expensive diamond on your kitchen table?”
“I know. It’s stupid, right? The thing is, I like to open it up and look at it when I’m cooking supper.”
“Why don’t you just put it on? If I had a diamond like that, I would wear it everywhere,” Ruby stated honestly. Ruby would wear a diamond necklace to the dentist if she thought it looked good.
“No, no. It’s the most precious thing I own. And worth so ... much ... money.”
Birdie came over with her order pad to Michelle’s table, breaking up our version of Pecan Bayou Community Theater.
“What can I get you folks today?” she asked.
As they placed their order, I whispered, “Good job.”
Ruby gave me a thumbs-up. The trap had been set.
After finishing my meal with Ruby and Maggie, I headed over to the police department to update my father on what had just happened. He was in the back office where my boss, Rocky Whitson, was just pulling up a chair. He plopped his feet on the other side of my father’s desk. Rocky and my dad had been friends for years—at times, their job responsibilities had made them adversaries. My father had made the news, and Rocky wanted to tell the rest of the town all about it.
My father grinned. “Hey, darlin’. Nice to see you.”
“I’m surprised with a mass of burglaries and a murderer on the loose you’re not busy at work trying to solve all these crimes.”
“Yes, well, even the hardest-working policeman deserves a break every now and then. Rocky stopped by to shoot the bull and plan our next fishing trip.” My father, just like the kids, had found his heart’s delight under the Christmas tree this year when he unwrapped a Super Fishing Rod 5000. He had dropped enough hints that I was surprised he resorted to putting a picture of it on my refrigerator.
“Of course, Rocky, here, will be terribly disappointed when he finds that my Super Fishing Rod 5000 catches all the fish and he’s stuck eating stale crackers for the rest of the day.”
Rocky shook his head. “It’s not the fishing rod, it’s the innate sense of the fisherman. I’ve been telling you that for years. Of course, you have no innate sense of anything.”
Ignoring Rocky’s comment, my father said, “But enough fish talk. What brings you in this morning?”
“You know that thing we were talking about on Christmas? Well, I just wanted to tell you that it’s a go.”
Rocky sat up in his chair and put his feet on the ground, not unlike a predator zeroing in on its prey. “What plan? What do you two have going on? Something that the ever-vigilant media needs to know about?”
“Rocky! Down, boy. This is not a big deal. Betsy’s trying to smoke out her thief. That’s all.”
Rocky slapped his knee. “Well, I’ll be damned. Betsy, my dear, you are a blessing in a slow news week.”
Six robberies and murder? This was what he considered slow?
“Don’t you have enough to write about?”
“Never enough.” He leaned closer. “Tell me about your little plan.”
My eyes searched out my father’s. He nodded. Unbelievably, he was going to let Rocky in on our little trap. I quickly explained everything. As I spoke, Rocky pulled out a tiny notebook he always carried in his pocket and wrote it all down.
“I think that’s going to be awfully tough. I also cannot believe that you got Karen Baldwin in on this. What did you have to do to get that woman to help us catch her daughter?” Rocky asked.
My father hit his forehead with his palm. “That reminds me. I’m going to have to cut this short. The Feds gave me some personal mail to deliver that was in Joe Nelson’s garage. There wasn’t a lot, but that letter from Karen’s daughter was indeed there. Joe was holding onto it. Now that I know what a mess Michelle is, I can’t blame Joe for what he did.”
“Even though it was breaking a federal law?” I asked, surprised that my father would side with someone withholding mail.
“Did you read it?”
“They did. Most of it has to do with her asking for money. Michelle plays her mother like a violin. Still, though, I think it’s time I delivered it to her.”
He opened the file and pulled out a plain white envelope with Karen Baldwin’s name printed on the front.
“What’s that they say? Through sleet or snow ... nothing stops the mail?”
Chapter 26
After visiting my dad, I decided to stop by Crazy Eddie out of curiosity. Surprised to find the door unlocked, I stepped inside. The rent
ed store space looked vastly different from the way it had on Christmas Eve. Most of the shelves were empty, and Eddie was boxing up other items.
“Are you closing shop already?”
Eddie looked up, the morning sun hitting the blue streak in his hair. “Crazy Eddie is what you would call a pop-up store operation. You know, like those Halloween stores you see every year?”
The Halloween stores never set up in our town, but I had seen them in some of the larger cities. They would normally set up two months before Halloween, boasting bright-orange signs and an incredible stock of macabre merchandise. By a week after Halloween, they were gone for another year. I had taken Zach into one when we were in Houston, and the place was packed. I had never seen so much gory stuff in my life.
“So where will you go next?”
“Not really sure. That’s what I love about my life. I just go where the wind takes me. I have a few more business matters to clean up in town, but after that, I’m on my way.”
“I see.”
He taped the box closed and set it on top of another box that had a flyer taped to the front. It was the same one from the newspaper, the one that had attracted my son so quickly. It seemed direct mail and newspaper advertising were a big part of his business. Those flyers had created the most disruptive Christmas we had ever had in Pecan Bayou.
“This has certainly been quite a holiday season. That poor man being shot before Christmas. I just hope New Year’s won’t be so wild.”
“New Year’s Eve in Pecan Bayou is pretty quiet. We usually just go over to my aunt’s house and watch football.”
“I couldn’t help but overhear that you got a big rock for Christmas.” He smiled, and I saw his pink bubblegum peeking through the side of his mouth.
I tried to hide my nervousness. My bait was working better than Dad’s Super Fishing Rod 5000. “Oh, yes. Can you believe it? I have a really wonderful husband.”
He nodded. “You must. I’m surprised you didn’t show it to Maggie and Ruby.”
Eddie knew who both of the women were? He might have known Maggie because of me. But how did he know Ruby, if Ruby didn’t know him?
I walked over and tapped on the box. “You certainly do a lot of mailing.”
“It’s surprising, isn’t it? In this day and age of email, we find that direct mail seems to have as good an effect on our target audience—sometimes better.”
Crazy Eddie looked like he was fresh out of college. I was surprised by his depth of knowledge about marketing. “What kind of audience is that?”
He looked at me like he had said too much. “Oh, you know, people who live in houses.”
Truly an insufficient answer, but it looked like it was the only one he was going to give me. My sons had been attracted by his merchandise, but they were the Internet audience. It seemed to me that ad campaigns printed on paper would be secondary to what they could do on the Internet. Crazy Eddie was a confusing man, but luckily, he had just confirmed that he and Michelle Baldwin had heard about the diamond and that the trap was set and well underway.
“I saw you at lunch with Michelle Baldwin. I didn’t know you two were friends.”
He gave a knowing smile. “Michelle and I have been friends for years.”
“Where did you meet?”
“I shouldn’t be saying this, but at rehab. The cure took for me. Not so much for her, poor kid.”
I recalled the scene at the Christmas festival. “I know her mother would love to have her sober more than anything. She really loves her.”
Eddie’s face was blank. “I know. I wish my mom had been like that.”
“She wasn’t?”
“Nope. Never around. Now she’s in lockup, so we don’t touch base too often.”
Crazy Eddie was so young, but in his eyes I could see he had lived lifetimes more than I had.
“Well, I should go. Even though my boys never did get that PlayStation, no hard feelings.”
“Sorry about that. First come, first served. I was just pleased that our sale was such a success. There was a time where it seemed like we couldn’t get the word out. We had to double our efforts—distributing flyers by hand and as newspaper inserts.”
“However, you did it, you certainly made an impact around here.”
As I left, Crazy Eddie’s parting words spun around in my head. I joined Dad for his trip to give Karen her daughter’s letter, still thinking over the conversation.
“I really appreciate you coming along with me on this, Betsy,” Dad said. “I just figured if you were with me, it might be easier for her.”
I was surprised by my father’s invitation, but since the kids were occupied with their Christmas toys, I was happy to go along. Besides that, I wanted to let Karen know the plan was in motion. When we drove up, Karen was not in the garage as she had been on my last few visits, so we rang the doorbell. She answered, wearing a faded blue bathrobe and using a towel to dry her shoulder-length hair.
“Is everything okay?” she asked immediately. This was the behavior of a mother of an addict—always afraid of the next arrest.
“Yes,” my dad cleared his throat, a little embarrassed. “We’re sorry to interrupt you. It’s just that I have the letter I think you’ve been waiting for. You were right. It was in Joe Nelson’s garage. I know this meant a lot to you, so I wanted to deliver it personally.”
“I knew it. I always knew it. She always sends me a card at Christmas.”
Karen opened her screen door. “Want to come in? Let me just go put something on.”
We walked past an ornately carved rocker, an oak fireplace mantel, and a dining room table that would have sold for thousands in the city.
“Give me a minute to change, will you?”
When she returned to the living room, Karen wore a blue chambray shirt and faded jeans. My father extended the letter to her.
“It’s opened,” she said, sounding surprised and a little angry.
“Yes, it is. I’m afraid your friendly federal government did that for you.”
“Why?”
My father joked, “I’ve learned that it’s not ours to ask why—we can only hope they leave soon.” Unfortunately, Karen Baldwin didn’t share his dry humor. She also didn’t wait until after we left to read the letter. Her eyes began darting through the lines and then they moistened.
“Is everything okay?” I asked.
She crumpled the letter in her hand as her face reddened. “No. Everything is not okay. I wanted to see this letter so badly I attacked my friend Joe. He ended up being nicer to me than my own daughter.”
Was this a confession? Had Karen killed Joe over her daughter’s missing letter?
“He was one of the few friends I had in this world. I’m so sorry that in Joe’s last few days I was angry at him. When am I going to figure out she’s not worth it? I gave up so much thinking I could finally get her back.” She crumpled up the card and threw it to the ground.
“Oh, come on now, Karen. Betsy and I go round and round from time to time, but I’ve never felt like she wasn’t worth it.”
My father’s compassion was heartfelt, but I couldn’t wait. “Do you mean you were the one who fired the gun?”
Karen stiffened. “Of course not. I wanted to beat the living daylights out of Joe, but I didn’t want to kill him. I can’t believe you even asked me that! I think it’s time you left.”
As we were pushed out onto the street, my father muttered, “Rule number one: no matter how driven you are to ask the question, it’s better not to ask it directly. It seems obvious to me that Karen didn’t kill Joe. I wish it had been as obvious to you. She’s hurting enough right now.”
Chapter 27
After setting my trap so effectively at Birdie’s Diner, I knew all I had to do now was wait for a break-in. The only problem was this was the week between Christmas and New Year’s. The kids were usually in the house, relishing their free time before returning to the dreaded educational schedule. If someone was goi
ng to rob us, it would have to be in the middle of the night or at a time when we all left the house. The only night we would all be gone was when we reported back to Aunt Maggie’s house for a New Year’s supper and celebration.
We had never been a family to stay up to watch the ball drop on TV, but we held our own version of ringing in the new year, which included Maggie’s famous list of family resolutions: Zach would make straight A’s. Coco would learn her alphabet. Tyler would score the first touchdown in the fall. I would stop finding bodies. There was always plenty of champagne for the adults and sparkling apple juice for the kids. I was pleased that Rocky had opted to come over this evening, partly because he knew about what was going to happen at our house concerning the diamond that wasn’t there. He was on a story even though he didn’t have his press badge on for the evening.
“So, did you leave it on the table?” My father asked, referring to Maggie’s necklace.
“Of course, I did.”
“Good. We have a patrol car about a block up, and Boyle is in his unmarked car right across the street. Hopefully, they won’t see him.”
“I’m surprised Boyle didn’t ask for Christmas off. He must have family somewhere,” Maggie said.
“If he does, he isn’t acknowledging them. No. I gave him a subscription to a movie streaming service, and it sounds like he’s spent most of this week watching old movies. That is, when he isn’t waxing that old car of his while listening to KNUT, the home of Central Texas country music.”
Boyle loved to listen to that old twangy country music, and I just had to hope that Waylon and Willie were not wailing in the car that night.
