Miz Scarlet and the Vanishing Visitor (A Scarlet Wilson Mystery) (10 page)

“How long are you going to keep lying to Miz Scarlet
here?” Those dark eyes lit on the teenager and stayed put.

“What?” For one moment, she looked rather stunned and
the next, her face went white. Jenny looked like she was going to
throw up. The state trooper moved in for the kill.

“You’re keeping secrets from her.”

“I...I....” She looked at me, then back at Larry, and
once more at me. “Um....”

“Jenny, we can’t help you if we don’t know the
truth,” I said gently. Larry had no problem with me playing good
cop. She slapped her hand on the table for emphasis.

“I want the whole truth, girlie!”

“I...I...but....”

“Jenny,” I tried again, “we need to know. That man
didn’t just happen to come here today. He was here because of
you.”

“Oh, you’re going to be so mad at me!” That started
the waterworks. Larry wasn’t having any of it. She leaned in, her
face just inches from Jenny’s, and practically spit out the
words.

“We can do this here, or we can go down to the
station and get it done there. What’s it going to be?”

“I’m so sorry, Scarlet,” she sobbed. “I didn’t mean
to lie to you. It’s just that you said I shouldn’t hold anything
back, but I did, and then you said you didn’t want me to do
anything illegal, but I already had, so I just didn’t tell you
because I knew you’d be mad.”

“What the hell is she babbling about?” Larry
snarled.

“I don’t have a clue,” I admitted. As the
investigator moved in again, I reached past her, grabbed Jenny by
the hands, and pulled her towards me. And then, when I was sure I
had her complete attention, I spoke as softly as I could. The
sobbing girl stopped long enough to listen to me. “I can’t help you
if you don’t tell me what’s going on.”

“You know that soap?”

“Yes,” I nodded.

“I have four more bars of it.”

“Holy mother of pearl!” I howled. “You’ve got to be
kidding me!”

“What is she talking about?” said the irate woman
sitting at my side. “This is about soap?”

“There are uncut diamonds embedded in the soap,
Larry, from an unsolved jewelry heist in New York City.”

“Oh, looks like I’m really going to clean up on this
case, if you’ll pardon the pun. Let’s go get that soap. It’s
rub-a-dub-dub time.”

“Um....”

“Crap, are you going to tell me you lost it?” she
growled, glaring at the teenager.

“Oh, no. I’ve got the soap. I swear!”

“Then what?” The state trooper’s patience with the
teenager was wearing thin.

“You know that laptop I told you about?” Even as
Jenny asked the question, my heart was dropping into my stomach.
Hello, heartburn. “I tossed it in the bushes back in Bay Head, but
first I made a copy of the files on a USB stick.”

“You copied Richie’s computer files?” My mind raced
over the implications. She had the information. That, and the
diamonds, might be what the masked man was after, and he was
willing to kill to get them. Jenny’s eyes grew big, filled with
tears, and she pulled her bottom lip into her mouth, the teenage
equivalent of thumb-sucking, no doubt.

“Who’s Richie?” Larry wanted to know.

“The dead guy who washed up on the Jersey Shore.”

“I’m guessing someone whacked him.” That’s the
trouble with homicide cops. They can usually smell a murder a mile
away.

“You’re guessing right,” I admitted. Jenny’s eyes
never left my face. She was terrified. “Do you still have the USB
stick?”

“Yes.” Tiny voice, like she wanted to disappear under
the table until the adults weren’t mad any more.

“Jenny,” I said softly, kindly, “I’m not kicking you
out.”

“But you said....”

“I understand why you did what you did. Is there
anything else you haven’t told us?”

“Um, no.” She made eye contact, but then looked away.
I was pretty sure she was mostly telling the truth. As sure as you
can be with teenage orphans who are afraid their lives are
completely spinning out of control.

“Let’s go get that stuff, so Larry can check it all
out.”

“Is she going to arrest me?”

“Larry?” I chuckled softly and shook my head. “I
didn’t invite her here to grill you, kiddo. I invited her here to
keep us company until Kenny could get here, just in case that guy
came back.”

“But if you lie to me again,” Larry warned, “I might
just throw you in a holding cell until you come to your
senses.”

Jenny quivered like a five-year-old who got caught
taking an extra lollipop from the candy jar, and suddenly Larry
reached over and patted her on the knees. “Buck up, kid. Take a
breath. You’re going to be fine. Now, show Auntie Larry the
goodies. I’m dying to see these diamonds of yours. Never seen uncut
diamonds.”

“Pretty rocks,” I assured her. “Worth a small
fortune.”

There were four more bars of organic soap, but they
weren’t all purple. One was pink, one was green, and one was almost
indigo.

“Who ever heard of dark soap?” Larry asked. “I mean,
I get the purple and the green. At least you can sort of see
through them. But indigo? Most people will feel dirty washing with
such a colorful bar.”

She had a point, I thought to myself. It did seem
unusual. We were up in my sitting room, the three of us. I grabbed
that midnight blue soap and went to the window. Holding it up to
the light, I thought I saw a glimmer of something shiny, a tiny
flicker of sunlight through the bar.

“Hold on,” I sighed. “I think these are cut
stones.”

“Let me see.” Larry took it from me to examine. Her
eyes narrowed as she turned it back and forth in the light, and
then they grew wide. “Well, slap my ass and call me Fanny! Who’d a
thunk it?”

“What?” Now Jenny was interested in having a peek.
“Wow!”

“Give me that green one,” the homicide investigator
directed me. I placed it in her hand. “See here? Check this out,
Miz Scarlet. Is that an emerald? Looks like about two carats,
cut.”

“It means they weren’t just embedding the uncut
stones in the soap. Were there other robberies?”

“Must have been. If I had to guess, I’d say these
four bars of soap are easily worth more than forty grand.”

“And Jenny had a full backpack of them.”

“Richie said he and his friends were going to really
clean up nicely.” That came from the peanut gallery, and Larry and
I immediately turned our attention to the teen. “It would make the
gift business a real success.”

“What gift business?”

“They were going to sell them in baskets with other
items. You know, like lotions, hand creams....”

“I thought you told Sarge everything,” I said with a
voice that dripped disappointment all over the girl.

“But I couldn’t, could I? If I had, I’d have had to
tell him about these bars.” Excuses, excuses.

“Sarge only thinks the uncut stones are in the purple
bars,” I informed Larry. “He’s going to be royally pissed when he
finds out.”

“You know, Miz Scarlet, it’s pretty significant that
the masked man tried to enter the Four Acorns Inn. That tells me
these stones are worth a pretty penny. But he came in the daytime.
Why?”

“I don’t follow you.”

“Why not sneak in at night, when everyone is
sleeping? Most jewel thieves are not violent, and normally, they
operate as lone wolves or with a single partner, and maybe a source
of information.”

“Okay. What’s your point?”

“These guys are either not experienced jewel thieves
or they’re up to some other game.”

“I’d guess not experienced jewel thieves. Richie was
the muscle. Jenny stole his laptop, trying to get him to pay her,”
I explained. Larry turned and studied the teenager a moment before
she leaned forward, balancing her fanny on the edge of the
sofa.

“Give me the blow-by-blow of what went down when you
took that laptop.”

“Richie said he’d kill me if I didn’t give it
back.”

“How did he even know you had it?” she shot back.
Jenny’s eyes grew wide as she wracked her brain for an answer and
came up with one that surprised her.

“I don’t know, because he didn’t see me take it.”

Chapter Ten --

“Was it turned on when you picked it up?”

“No.”

“Tell me about the house he took you to in New
Jersey.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say. It was big.
And the inside was all torn up. There weren’t any walls.”

“Why take the girl there? Why not just take the soap
from her?” Larry was talking to herself, thinking aloud. “Where did
he pick you up?”

“At the train station in Bay Head. I hitched a ride
because I had my dog with me and the Greyhound driver wouldn’t let
me on the bus.”

“You’re lying,” the state trooper announced.

“No, I’m not! I had my dog with me and the driver
wouldn’t let me bring Mozzie!”

“She’s lying, Miz Scarlet.”

“I am not!”

“Are too!” Larry shot back.

“Wait a minute,” I said, standing up. I needed to
pace as I thought this through. “You told us that you were dropped
at the train station in Bay Head because you missed your stop. Then
you said you were taken to this house by Richie. But why would
Richie even know about the house in Bay Head if he was in Point
Pleasant, waiting for you to arrive? I think you were at the house
in Bay Head and you called Richie to meet you there.”

“But....”

“I think you stole that laptop in Point Pleasant,
brought it to that house in Bay Head, and downloaded the files
there. Why, Jenny?” Hands on my hips, I faced the girl on the sofa,
waiting for her reply.

“That’s where there was supposed to be more soap. I
thought I could take some and sell it, to get gas money to get to
Pennsylvania.”

“Who was with you?” Larry demanded. Jenny
cringed.

“Bobby, a kid from Ohio, who had a car. I met him and
his friends at the campground in New Hampshire. He drove me to
Point Pleasant, to the meeting. When Richie found out I didn’t take
the bus, he was really pissed. He started counting the bars of
soap, and when there were five missing, he went after me. Bobby got
out of the car, to make him stop beating me, and that’s when Mozzie
started barking. Richie wanted Mozzie to shut up, so he slit his
throat. And then,” she sobbed, “he tried to kill Bobby, too, the
same way.”

“So you took the laptop to make him stop?” I asked as
gently as I could, knowing she was already miserable about what she
had witnessed. She nodded. “What happened next?”

“I told him that if he ever wanted to see the laptop
again, he had to leave us alone. I swear I didn’t know there were
jewels in the bars of soap!”

“And you promised Bobby you wouldn’t tell anyone he
was with you because he’d get in trouble.”

“He’s got a full scholarship to Ohio Wesleyan, and if
he gets into trouble, he loses it.”

“This girl is a terrible liar, Miz Scarlet.”

“No kidding,” I sighed. I sat down on the sofa next
to Jenny, leaned back, and closed my eyes. I was still missing
something. “You broke into that house with Bobby after you stole
that laptop. You said you threw the laptop into the bushes outside.
In Point Pleasant or in Bay Head?”

“Bay Head.”

“How come Richie killed the dog in Point Pleasant?” I
wondered. “Is this what you told the state troopers? Where was the
dog’s body?” Something smelled very fishy.

“Am I missing something here?” Larry demanded.

“Jenny was covered in blood the first time I met her.
She told me Richie killed her dog.”

“Man, when she digs herself into
that hole, she
digs
herself into that hole!”

“Meaning?” Now I directed the conversation to my
friend, mostly because I was furious that Jenny had the audacity to
continue lying to me. But even as my head was spinning, I kept
thinking there had to be a logical explanation for her really bad
behavior. Larry summed it all up in a neat little package.

“She’s building a lie upon a lie upon a lie, one
right after the other. Pull out one, and the rest all crumble.”

“That’s it!” I cried. “Bobby didn’t give her a ride
because he was a nice kid. He was the kid who was supposed to
transport the soap. He let Jenny and the dog go along for the ride
because Jenny wanted to go see her mother’s best friend in
Pennsylvania, and since he was going back to Ohio, he could drop
her off on the way.”

“Now we’re getting somewhere. So, you’re protecting
the boy with the fancy scholarship.”

“Larry, no one ever claimed to have found that dog’s
body. I didn’t see any mention of it in the newspaper account.”

“Maybe that’s because the dog ain’t dead.”

“You mean Bobby took the dog for safekeeping? To make
sure Jenny kept her mouth shut about his criminal activities? How
can Jenny be sure she’ll get Mozzie back?”

“She can’t, unless she has a way to get in touch with
Bobby, Miz Scarlet.”

“Like a new phone?”

“Yup.” Larry nodded her head enthusiastically. Jenny
seemed to sink deeper into the sofa.

“And if Bobby was the guy who was supposed to bring
the soap to Richie, and if he was four or five bars short, Richie
would have wanted to kill him for stealing the soap. Hence, Bobby
took the dog as collateral,” I suggested. Larry’s dark eyes flashed
a warning at the girl as they locked on and tried to bore a hole
right into the teenager’s forehead. Jenny crumbled and fell apart,
no longer able to maintain the fiction.

“Which would explain why that guy showed up in your
house today and tried to snatch the girl,” the experienced homicide
detective decided. “Bobby knows where you’re staying.”

For a long moment, no one spoke. It was the end of
the road for the teen, the last chance to save her soul. She took
it.

“
That man wasn’t trying to kidnap
me. He was giving me this note.” Trembling fingers withdrew a piece
of white paper from her pocket, folded over into four sloppy
squares. As she flipped it open, Larry snatched it from her
hands.