Don't Sweat the Small Stuff (20 page)

I really hadn’t considered that. The guy who was paying us, was bugging our private lives to find out what we knew. There was no other answer. James was right.

“The question is, do we let him know that
we
know?”

“No.”

“No?” I was planning on the confrontation. Had a speech already written in my head as to what I would say.

“Let’s go on with the investigation.”

“James—” I was halfway to a scream, “today is the last day we have. If we don’t turn in proof that the culprit is Pugh or Charlie and Bo, we are fired.” And I for one could not afford to lose the money that had been offered.

James took a deep breath, rolled his eyes, and held his coffee cup out to me. “Pard, pally, amigo, let me lead, okay? I’ll take the horns here. I don’t want Moe to know what we know.”

“He’s the one who’s paying us.”

“True, but we still hold the winning card. We know he’s bugging us. He doesn’t know that we’re aware.”

That made sense. We had the upper hand.

“Skip, we’re going to go to that meeting, and we’re going to play innocent. We’re going to pretend that we don’t know anything.”

“And James, right now there are two groups of people who may be guilty.”

“Yeah?”

“Somebody out there is a killer. And either one of them might want to kill us.”

He thought about that for a moment.

“Nah. We don’t know enough for them to want to kill us.”

“They don’t know that.”

“Let’s proceed.”

“James, as much as I need the money, as much as you need the money, we’d be better off walking out of here right now and chalking it up to experience.”

“We’re professional P.I.s, Skip. I’m not going to let Ken Clemens prove us wrong.”

The song says
You’ve got to know when to hold ’em, know when to bid ’em.
And we didn’t have that figured out yet.

I stepped outside the trailer, walked twenty feet away, and called Jody on my cheap cell phone. It was obvious I’d gotten him out of bed. Surprisingly he didn’t sound too upset, maybe because he knew he was making a sale early Sunday morning. Our mentor was still in bed, and here I was, up trying to solve a case. I wondered if maybe James and I had the wrong end of the business.

“Someone is bugging one of our trailers.”

“You’re not talking near the trailer?”

“No.”

“Smart. There’s really no problem, Skip. Here’s what you do.” He cleared his throat and I figured he’d probably been up late drinking and having a party. Unlike his protégés, who had been up analyzing computer screens.

“I’ve got a little handheld box. You walk around the inside and outside of your trailer. Every time that box detects a bug, a red light comes on. If someone is miking your trailer, you’ll know exactly where the bug is. Pretty cool, huh?”

“Then what?”

“You just remove the bug.”

“That simple?”

“That simple.”

“The only problem is, we need it like now.”

“
Now
now?”

“Yeah.”

He hesitated. “Tell you what. I can drop it off to you in maybe fifty minutes.”

“That would be great. It’s the Bayview Mall, but there’s no bay.”

“No bay?”

“Nope. And not really a mall. Just a string of cheap shops.”

He took a second. “No bay, no mall. Kind of like the garden spot of Carol City, eh?”

I smiled. “Exactly.” There wasn’t one of those, either.

“Let me get my coffee and I’m on my way.”

Glancing in the kitchen window I realized the coffee
I’d
made had disappeared. It was no longer sitting in a pan on the stove.

“Uh, Jody. How much is it?”

“It?”

“The box with the red light.”

“Price?”

“Yeah.” He had a way of dodging the subject.

“I’d have to check, Skip. Don’t know for sure.”

“Have you run the total on those other things I took?”

“No, but I’ll get to it.”

I was especially wondering about the pen with dog slobber on it.

“I’d kind of like to know what I’m spending here, you know?”

“Hey, Skip. If you need something, you need it. Can’t put a price on safety, my friend.”

I could picture Jody’s final bill. Hundreds of dollars, maybe
over a thousand. Being the trusting soul I was, I had thought he’d look out for us, but deep down inside I knew that probably wasn’t the case.

“We’re in the Airstream trailer.”

“Got it. I’ll just set my GPS. And Skip, see if James has that money he owes me.”

“I’ll be sure and check, Jody.”

As long as Jody Stacy was running an unknown tab on me, I figured we’d string out payment on his seventy some dollars.

Em stepped outside, walked down the steps, put her arms around my waist. “Who was that?”

“Jody.”

“Oh?”

“He’s going to drop off a little black box that tracks bugging devices.”

“So you can check out the trailers?”

“Yeah.”

“God, Skip. Sometimes I feel like I’m in a Nancy Drew novel.”

“Somehow Bradley is getting inside information.” It was a Hardy Boys mystery, but I didn’t want to correct her.

“It makes sense. He’s probably using the same type of equipment that you are.”

We were about to find out.

“Did you really want some of that stuff you had on the stove? The stuff you asked me to watch?” Her voice was sweet and sounded like sugar.

“No. Angie made some really good coffee and we had a cup at her place.”

She pulled her arms from me. “Oh? Angie served you? Well good. I’m glad you had a nice cup of coffee. I didn’t have any coffee. I took the crap you made and threw it down the toilet. I think it ate right through the porcelain.”

I had a feeling she wasn’t happy. I’d left her out of the meeting, and on top of that I’d had a decent cup of coffee. She had nothing. I owed her, and as soon as we made our money from this case, assuming we ever made any money at all, I’d treat her. I didn’t know exactly how I’d treat her, but I’d treat her.

Pulling on a collared shirt with my jeans, I found James halfway to Moe Bradley’s trailer. He’d thrown on a worn, wrinkled Transformers T-shirt and cutoffs. After all, this was a business meeting.

There was no conversation. I was going to leave this strictly in James’s corner.

Moe opened the door before we got to the landing.

“Boys, come on in.” He spread his arms as if glad to see us, and motioned us into the spacious trailer.

“Moe, we’ve got a suspect.” James waded right in.

“Have a mimosa boys.” He handed us glasses of orange juice and champagne, guiding us to the leather sofa.

“Did you hear me?”

I wasn’t sure Moe even cared.

“Okay, you’ve got a suspect. And you realize that suspecting someone is not solving my problem?”

James took a sip of his drink and said, “Then let me rephrase the statement. We know who the guilty party is.”

“You do?”

“But before I tell you who it is, I should alert you that someone is working from the inside.”

As he sat down, Moe said, “What do you mean? Inside?”

“Someone from inside the Show is telegraphing possible suspects.”

“You’ve lost me, James.”

I couldn’t believe James was leaking our information. He’d spilled the beans. We’d agreed to keep that a secret.

“Someone from the Show is calling people who work for you, Moe, and telling them that we are private investigators.”

“No.”

“Yes. And also giving a heads-up to these people. Telling them that Skip and I,” he nodded toward me, “are considering them as the possible saboteurs.”

Moe leaned forward and took a gulp of his mimosa. “So who do you think it might be? This insider? Did someone tell you this? Tell me. Come on.”

I hadn’t seen this side of the man. Usually calm and cool, Moe was flustered. He was obviously worried that his cover had been blown.

“Who? Who told you there was an insider? I want to know.”

It occurred to me that he hadn’t been interested in who our suspect was. James had opened up the conversation by telling him that we knew who the guilty party was. All Moe cared about was who was leaking the information to the suspects. And he already knew the answer. Very strange.

“Don’t have a clue.” I saw James glance in the blank big screen and run his fingers through his hair. “We picked up this information from a third party who was reluctant to tell us how they found out.”

“Skip? You don’t know who this person is?”

“You know, Moe, James is calling the shots on this one. I’m just along, sort of—”

“For the ride.” James finished the sentence. “It’s the best I can tell you now. But we do know who is sabotaging the rides, Moe.”

It was obvious the man already knew who the suspects were. He tried to rally some interest but wasn’t very convincing.

“Yeah?” A big scowl on Moe’s face. He wasn’t sure that we hadn’t found him out. “Well, that’s what I’m paying for. Although
there’s been no problem so far. No one has tried to sabotage any of our rides this trip. So who is this suspect?”

Moe moved right along. He didn’t have to know who we thought was calling people in the show. He already knew. It was him. And we had it on video, we had it on audio.

James glanced at me, hesitating for a moment. He took a sip of his drink, then shook his head. “Too early.”

“What?”

“It’s too early to announce who it is.”

Moe took a sip as well. He studied James for a moment, then stood up.

“Mr. Lessor, I’m the one who is paying you for information. You tell me right now who you think it might be. I don’t understand this little cat-and-mouse game you’re playing, but if you know who is behind this—”

“We’re pretty sure.”

“Tell me, James. Or you’re fired. Right now.”

And again, Moe already knew who we thought it might be. He’d called Pugh and told him. He’d sat Charlie down, on this very couch and told him.

And I didn’t want James to do it. I didn’t want him to open up to this distinguished, gray-haired man. I wanted him to clam up. Or maybe just pull a name out of the hat and totally surprise—

“Ken Clemens.”

All three of us were silent. Moe sat back down. We all took a sip of our mimosas and listened to the sounds of morning slipping through the open windows in the showman’s American Eagle. A whisper of fresh breeze, carrying the sound of a mockingbird. The faint sound of a radio coming from one of the trailers down the way and muffled conversation as carnies walked by outside, talking about the dawning of the last day.

Finally, Moe spoke. “How do you even know who Ken Clemens is?”

“Moe, we’re professional private investigators. We’ve been working on this since you first hired us.”

He was confused. Hell, I was confused. Moe had called Linda and told her that we suspected her boyfriend, Winston Pugh. He’d talked to Charlie right where I was sitting, on the leather sofa. He’d told Charlie that we thought he and Bo were “persons of interest.” And then, when he’d confronted us—

“Ken dates my sister.”

“I know.” James sat there with his arms folded. “We know.”

“He’s your suspect? He’s it? Ken Clemens?”

“He’s the only one we’ve ever seriously suspected.”

So Moe Bradley had erroneous information. He’d been led to believe that we had other suspects. And when I found the plants, the bugs in our trailer, James would have to explain that, well, yes, we’d suspected Pugh, Charlie, and Bo. But for now, Moe sat there with his eyes closed. Trying to make some sense out of this.

And I tried to make some sense out of it. What the hell was James trying to prove?

“We’ve still got until nine tonight, when the Show closes. Right?” James looked him in the eyes.

“You’re going to prove to me that Ken is the guy who’s trying to destroy the show?” Moe shook his head. “Ken Clemens is the one who sabotaged the rides? Who is responsible for one, maybe two deaths?”

“Give us until the show closes, Moe.” James stood up and motioned to me.

“If you weren’t so serious, I’d laugh. Out loud. Ken Clemens is a lot of things, but he’s not a killer.”

The same had been said of Winston Pugh. By me.

I could read the confusion on Moe’s face. He had no idea where we were going with this.

Neither did I.

“Okay. Till nine.”

“Thanks, boss.”

“But James, you’ve got to get me evidence by nine. Understood?”

“Of course.”

“Because if you don’t,” Moe stood up, moved to the door and opened it, looking out on the dusty, dirty show arena, “you’re fired.”

“I understand. You’ll find another investigator, right?”

“And another marketing director. You will be history, my friend. You’re going to blow a pretty good job, possibly a career. Either you prove to me that Ken Clemens is guilty or you’re gone. Please, take that not as a threat, but a promise.”

“You constantly surprise me.”

“Hell, Skip, I constantly surprise myself.” He was taking big strides, pumped up after the meeting, and I was struggling to keep up.

“Ken Clemens?”

“I could have mentioned one of his sisters, but that would have been stretching it.”

“Why Clemens?” Breathing hard.

“Because as far as we know, he hasn’t called Clemens and given him a heads-up. Moe Bradley is trying to bury us, and I figured throwing him off would help our case.”

“You didn’t just throw
him
off. I had no idea where you were going with that.”

“Sorry, bro. You played it well. The bit about ‘I’m just along for the ride.’ He bought that.”

“James, where the hell do we go from here?”

He stopped, looked at me, and in dramatic fashion said, “Amigo, we’ve still got one weapon.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. You’ve got a program that infiltrates someone’s computer, remember?”

I did. And my assumption was that we were going to tap into Pugh’s laptop. We were going to see what kind of prescriptions his pig had to take. What kind of feed the goat needed on a daily basis, besides those pressed brown pellets. And if James and Em were right, we were going to find evidence that Pugh was the one who was sabotaging the rides at the Show.