Escape Route (Murder Off-Screen Book 1) (12 page)

Francine was in mourning.

Her dress—black. Eyeliner, mascara—black. She’d twisted her hair into a bun so severe, it made my teeth ache, and transfigured her penciled brows into bat wings. The phone clutched in her hand, however, was gunmetal gray. It was a cheap flip model, not an iPhone 3,856—or whatever number they were up to now.

Based on Aunt B’s observations of old money versus new money, I could expect one of two reactions for showing up at the mansion uninvited.

New money calls security, posts video of you being hurled off the dock and drives Dell’s car into the bay.

Old money invites you in for tea and strychnine.

Francine was old money.

“Ms. Shanahan. Jaqie. I wasn’t expecting to see you this evening.” She glanced over my shoulder to the drive. “I see you’ve not ridden your darling bicycle.”

“No headlight.” I’d parked behind a white van with a magnetic sign that read
Chatter
. “Should I move my car?”

“No need. The interview is almost over. Podcast, I should say. May I take your hat?”

“I won’t stay. I just wanted to pass on my condolences about your dog, King.” That was true enough, but I also didn’t feel right about keeping Doofus from the Cuthbarts if they indeed were heartbroken. If I’d been impossibly wrong about Abbott and Costello from the start.

Francine aimed the phone in her husband’s direction. “We’re fine. Geoff is sad, of course, but he’ll get over it.”

“And your children?”

She turned toward the living room where we’d sat early this morning, sipping our tea over crumpets and mass murderers. A boy in khaki shorts and a blue-striped tee hung over the back of the couch, studying the equipment the
Chatter
reporter had set up on the coffee table. Councilman Cuthbart wore headphones and was speaking into a microphone, answering the young woman’s questions. His face was drawn, and from where I stood, it wasn’t a vibrant interview.

Slouched along the curved chaise was a girl with the same dark hair as the boy. Her attention was on the cell phone six inches from her nose. She did not share her brother’s interest in podcasting equipment.

Turning back to me, Francine said, “We’ll have our closure Saturday evening.”

“What a nice gesture to invite the public to share in your private moment.”

Francine studied my face with white-hot intensity. I thought maybe my words had actually popped off my lips and were floating in the air between us. “It was Geoff’s idea. We’ll hope to see you there.”

That was the unspoken
Thank you for coming. B-bye.
She opened the door and waited for me to exit.

“One thing,” I said. “More accurately, two things, before I go.”

Old Money sighed, but stood with perfect posture and composed countenance while the annoying girl in shorts and a ball cap ignored the hint to get out of its house. Class always tells.

I slid my phone out of my unladylike shirt. “First, do you recognize this man?” I flicked through my pictures back to the park with Doofus and Avery, and held it up between us.

“No, I don’t know who that is. Why would I?”

I held up my finger, and went back to my phone. I’m sure she thought I was fishing for more pics. Instead, I hit the Call icon on the number I’d found on Avery’s cell.

The gunmetal phone went off in her hand.

“Excuse me. I have to take this.” She stepped away for privacy.

How would she know it was an important call on a closed flip-phone? She stared at me from across the way like I might make off with the silver, and answered the phone.

“Yes?”

“It’s me.”

She saw my lips move. Looked at her phone, looked at me. I waved.

Francine and her eyebrows flew across the foyer, but I held my ground. Because I was paralyzed.

“How did you get this number?”

“More to the point. I have your dog.”

She shook her head as if to clear her ears.

“Do you want your dog back, or would you like King to be
my
dog, and leave the state permanently before the newspapers get wind of his existence and the phony ash ceremony at the Choptank River?”

Francine was dumfounded, unblinking, mouth open, but speechless. Class always tells.

I stepped to her, shoulder-to-shoulder, and said quietly. “This in no way would interfere with our earlier conversation about using your home in my movie.”

Her eyeballs were a pinball machine. Dog face—dollar sign—dog face—etcetera.

As Francine stood with her brain whirling through the win-win proposition I’d just offered, the reporter from
Chatter
joined us while Geoff Cuthbart sat on the sofa, still wearing headphones, jotting notes on a legal pad.

“Excuse me for interrupting,” she said, extending her hand to me. “You’re Jaqie Shanahan.”

I shook her hand. “I am. And you are … ?”

“Gail Landry.” She pumped my arm for good measure. “I’m a reporter for a local podcast station. It’s not really a station, but you know.”

“They are the new thing.”

“Could I schedule an interview with you before you go back to Hollywood? I mean, it would be just great. Making movies. Working with movie stars. It’s just so … wow.” She offered me a business card.

“Thanks, Gail. I will give you a call next week.”

Francine snapped out of it, and said to Gail, “I’m sure you’ll want to conclude your time with Mr. Cuthbart, and Ms. Shanahan must have an engagement. Somewhere.”

Gail grinned at me, spun on her heel and returned to her spot on the couch.

We waited—Francine and I—until Gail’s full attention had re-focused on her interviewee.

Now, Francine was a ventriloquist. Through unmoving lips, she said, “The truth is simple. Geoff’s children are terribly allergic to dog hair.” She took me by the arm and steered us toward the door. “My husband was unable to come to grips with this unfortunate situation. I felt compelled to take the burden off his shoulders.” She glanced back to the living room. “The man in the picture? You caught me. I paid him to give the dog a new home in another state.”

“What about the ashes ceremony?”

“Mr. Mann, from the humane society was quite sympathetic that our dog was gone and, for the children’s sake, closure for them was my primary concern. He was beyond helpful in making the arrangements for the ceremony.”

What I was hearing made sense. Pretend the dog ran away—the smoke screen for her husband. Sad announcement about the car accident, public ceremony. The kids stop sneezing, Geoff Cuthbart’s backers are guaranteed to vote for him again, dog has happy new home. No divots in the grass.

There are no swearwords permitted under the Shanahan roof. Balderdash and hogwash, when things get heated. Idjit—for special circumstances.

This soliloquy of idjit Francine’s was more hogwash than balderdash.

“So it won’t matter to you that Doof—
King
will be with me instead? I’m sure.”

“Promise to keep him out of sight.”

“He’s with me where no one will find us. And you’ll agree to disable Avery—the guy in the picture?”

“Agreed. Avery and his assistant are headed home.”

Tomorrow, they would be. Tonight the two men were awash in purple haze at Peep’s, but that was the fine print. She’d called off her dogs, and Gertie had attested to that earlier when she said the men’s uptight demeanor had vanished.

I tipped my hat, turned toward the still open door, ambled across yards of polished tile. “Francine?” I faced her to ask one more question. Her veneer was beginning to crack, so I made it fast. “Did a man named Joe call you tonight?”

“Joe? No. I don’t know anyone by that name.”

That concluded the evening’s festivities.

I made it down the steps without breaking into a flat out dash to the car.

When I was sixteen, Uncle Frank taught me to drive a stick shift. ‘You best know how to drive anything with an engine,’ he’d said. That didn’t mean I was any good at it, especially with Medusa glaring at me from the front door. I rolled up the Jeep’s window to give myself an added false sense of security.

The key hit the ignition on the third try. I ground through a couple of gears, lurched forward nearly rear-ending Gail Landry’s van.

I stomped on the clutch, found the R and chirped backward around the circle, battled the shifter into First and headed out of Dodge.

Provided the gate keeper had not locked me in.

They’d been open when I arrived, so I crossed my fingers and floored it before Francine could change her mind, and throw whatever switch controlled the Cuthbart security system. Suppose she told Deputy Beatty I’d stolen her dog? That would make no sense, except that I had stolen her already stolen dog. Franklin Beatty would be delirious—two cases in one day.

The brick columns were lit up like the Lincoln Memorial.

The gates were still open.

“Come on, Jeep, get me outta here.”

And he did.

It.

And it did.

“Ed Mabry?”

“Friend or family.”

“No.”

“Now, Jaqie, friend or family?”

Mildred Dross was a sweet, old lady with powder-blue hair who played the ponies by day, and volunteered at the hospital by night
.
Like the rest of Oakley Beach, she knew the whole Ed and Jaqie and Dianne saga, so she probably felt I should answer, one way or the other, in case the police asked her later on.

“Friend, Mrs. Dross. Ed and I are officially friends now. I just completed some excellent therapy.”

She pulled her glasses down to the end of her nose and gave me the once over. “You’ve been out in Hollywood. You’re not a druggie, are you?”

“Vitamin C, but that’s as bad as it ever got. Right hand up.”

She pointed the eraser end of her pencil down the hall. “He’s behind curtain number three.”

I stepped inside Ed’s cubicle, took off my hat, hung it on his foot and got situated on the visitor’s chair. “How are you doing?”

“Hey, Slugger.”

Ed looked pretty much the same as the last time I’d seen him, rolling around the blacktop in the middle of the road. “How long have they had you in this cubicle?”

“1987.”

“Have the doctors been in?”

“I think so. The swelling makes it hard to tell.”

“What about Joe and the kids?”

He lifted his finger and jabbed it like he was pushing a button. “Pretty sure they are gone. Said he had some calls to make. Gave me twenty-five dollars, though, for our romantic dinner. He’ll give you the rest when he picks up the dog.”

“About the dog—”

“Hey, Jaqs, Dianne’s on her way in. Her mom’s bringing her, and I don’t think it would be such a good idea—ya’ know what I’m saying?”

“Gotcha. Call me tomorrow?”

“Will do.”

I knocked on Mrs. Dross’s desk as I passed by. “Have a nice night.”

She tapped her pencil against the side of her computer monitor. “Scoot,” she whispered, pointing her pastel hair toward the main door. “Don’t look. Go out the side door.”

Dianne’s unmistakable profile muffled the traffic noise behind her as she waddled into the lobby.

I scooted.

~~^~~

Uncle Frank and Dell sat huddled on the floor with Doofus when I got back to the marina. I set the keys to the Jeep on the counter. “How were my boys?”

“This is one good dog.” Uncle Frank scratched Doofus between his eyes. “Don’t know enough about lizards to make the call. Funny how they get along.”

José had his legs wrapped around the dog’s thick tail, and was riding it like a mechanical bull.

Dell beamed at Doofus like a favorite child. “I ran out and got a bag of dog food. I put it on the boat with two bowls and a jug of water, and I picked the liveliest worms out of your cup and put them in the critter’s jar.”

I hugged everybody in the room. “You are the best.”

“But,” Dell said, “I’m still not sure this is the right thing.”

I sat down next to Doofus. “I had an interesting conversation with Francine, just now. Trust me. It’s all good.”

“What about this Joe person?” Uncle Frank said.

“I’ll talk to him when he calls.”

What I was going to say to Jimmy’s dad when he called—I didn’t want to think about that. I did know I could not live with myself, keeping this dog from that boy. I pushed that conversation as far away as I could. For tonight, Doofus and José were mine.

~~^~~

Big Brother
’s full name was
Ovation’s Big Brother
.

Uncle Frank and Aunt B were very protective. When I began sailing solo,
Big Brother
was always breathing down my neck. Within shouting distance. Sinking distance.

I pretended to complain, but it was nice to know I could anchor, and dinghy over to
Brother
for something to eat other than tuna in a pouch. Which suddenly sounded pretty good, since Doofus and José had dinner to eat and I didn’t.

Half-an-hour, the pizza guy promised.

The three of us toured both boats while we waited.
Ovation
was tied up next to us to port, a narrow plank walkway between the boats.
Brother’s
dinghy was tied aft, but floated sideways in the empty slip to starboard.

Uncle Frank’s boat was bigger than mine, but then he’d been sailing three of us around, so he needed the room. It had a bigger galley than most. Aunt B’s idea. And a hand-held shower in the head.

Like always, when his boat was docked, the bottom of
Brother’s
mast was ringed with a heavy chain that draped over the safety rail and trailed down to the water. His lightening-strike security. I could bet he’d done the same to
Ovation
.

“C’mon. I’ll show you where I’m going to live.”

Doofus, with José clamped to his collar, followed me across the walkway and hopped aboard my boat. The deck was clear, but that didn’t fool me. I knew the cabin would look like a hurricane had blown through.

After we’d sniffed our fill topside, we trundled back to
Brother
for pizza and bugs.

~~^~~

Pizza delivery time has its origins in dog years. But that was okay. We were comfy on the sofa. I’d pulled it out to full queen-size mattress mode and thrown a sheet over the top for Doofus. I was no gecko expert, but José didn’t strike me as having anything to shed. I piled pillows behind my back.

Brother
was plugged in at the dock, so I turned on one sconce and picked a book on sailing technique off the built-in shelf behind me. “Couldn’t hurt to brush up.” I slid my phone in the slot where the book had been, half-hoping I wouldn’t hear it ring when Joe called. But after what Doofus had been through yesterday and today, I wasn’t about to let one more bad thing happen to him.

Jimmy would be a good thing. If his dad would agree to add another mouth to feed to his household.

My parents were gone. Jeep was gone. Those missing pieces of my life were out of my control. But Doofus? We’d have a quiet evening. I’d take a million pictures, and tomorrow he’d start a new life with a family that would appreciate him.

At some point, I fell asleep. A car door slammed and brought me half-awake. The parking lot was only feet from the dock.

“Pizza’s here, guys.”

I fumbled around for my bag, figuring out the tip with extra thrown in for the added mileage to get to the marina. Even if the cheese had turned to penicillin by now, I didn’t care. I was starved. I heard heavy footsteps on the walkway, but no
permission to come aboard
call out. The familiar sound of bumpers squeaking between the boat’s hull and the wood dock did not come from
Brother’s
bumpers.

Whoever was out there had boarded
Ovation
.

Without asking permission.

If this were the old west, that person would already be swinging from a tree. Boarding a boat without permission was right up there with stealing horses or your parking space.

I eased myself off the sofa and slipped Doofus a hand signal to stay. As I stood,
Brother
dipped to port.

We’d been boarded.

Before I could make a move, an enormous figure filled the open hatch at the top of the steps. I doubted it was Mrs. Maloney.

Costello.

I hollered across the cabin, “I’ve got a gun! Get off this boat. I’ve called the police.”