Hullabaloo and Holly Too ( A Cozy Cash Mystery Christmas Novella) (The Cozy Cash Mysteries) (5 page)

Sometime during the night, Roman must have tucked me in, then put on his sleep apnea mask. Yep, my prince still suffers from sleep apnea and uses a C-Pap Machine.

But you know what? Now that I’m used to the soft hisses and gurgles the machine makes, it almost lulls
me
to sleep too. And at least I don’t have to worry about Roman and whether or not he’s getting enough oxygen.

In fact, now that he’s about to experience a Witherspoon Family Christmas, I should probably crank up the oxygen setting on his machine. In order to deal with all of my family’s hullabaloo and holly-fodder too, he’s gonna need all the straight O2 he can get.

Speaking of my family, I suppose we should get up, get going and head out to my dad’s workshop. We’ve got to figure out what the hell is up between him and Father Time and their cell phones.

At this point, I’m not sure who’s hacking who. But what I do know is that something’s gotta be done. Those boys don’t play nice when they’re not getting along, which is now becoming more and more the norm.

How a reindeer diet food formula could be their final undoing is beyond me.

Following one of Wanda Lu’s wonderful breakfasts of green eggs and ham – yes, meals in the Witherspoon house always had a dramatic and very artsy Dr. Seuss flair – we were just about set to venture out into the blizzard and beyond.

Mom and Wanda Lu not only raised me on Dr. Seuss books, but also basically made my life one giant Whoville extravaganza after another.

Roman and I headed out into the snow white wonderland towards my dad’s workshop.

“God, isn’t this great?” I asked, happily plodding through snow that reached clear up to the tops of my knee-high Ugg boots.

“Indeed it is,” he said, looking so darn cute blowing on his red wool mittens.

He wrapped his matching scarf higher around his neck. I’m sure he was hoping to block the gusty winds coming off the lake. Good luck with that around here. When Mother Nature decided to blow some deep freeze fury in this neck of the woods and dunes, she didn’t hold back anything.

As we traipsed through the backyard then down the snow-packed path leading to dad’s workshop, I couldn’t help but get lost in the big-snow magic covering every exposed surface. Tree-tops and branches, trunks and fence posts too, all sparkled with loads of heavy fresh crystals stacked upon them in substantive inches.

The forecast was calling for two feet by nightfall, and I’d say we already had at least a good foot toward that total accumulation.

“Do you have any good hills on your property?” Roman asked. “I’ve always wanted to go sledding.”

“You haven’t seen good hills till you try out snow-covered dunes. Now that’s one helluva ride I can’t wait to take you on,” I said, making a mental note to grab two of my favorite toboggans from the workshop.

Reaching Dad’s shop, Roman, ever the gentleman, pulled open the heavy wooden door. We quickly ducked into the heated paradise before a deluge of drifts, dangling precariously over the door-frame, had us buried.

I never got tired of hanging out in Dad’s workshop. The place was full of whimsical delights for little boys and girls and us big ones too.

Each wooden workbench had been handcrafted by my dad’s elves and was covered with whatever wonderful toys, tools, paints and supplies were necessary to create the item that table was used for.

We passed toy train tables, gorgeous stations where hand-painted wooden blocks were created, wagon and sled tables and more.

Next were the china, cloth and fancy chatty doll tables. Seeing the doll parts all laid out and ready to assemble took me back to the year my dad first invented the chatty dolls. He had me record tons of funny sayings like “Can I have some applesauce?”, “Oopsy, I made a mess,” and “I love Santa Claus and Mrs. Claus too.”

And, oh my gosh, how I’d missed working side-by-side with my mom and her crew at the gift wrapping stations.

Piled as high as possible toward the ceiling were stacks and stacks of gorgeous packages, wrapped in glossy paper in all the colors of the rainbow and beyond, each with hand-made bows and ribbons and faux jewels adorning them.

In fact, somewhere behind those pillars of packages, my dad was hard at work on who only knew what.

“Zoey, is that you, my dear?”

“It is, Pops. I brought Roman to check out your workshop.”

“Oh good, good. Very good. Give me a minute here to mix up this latest batch of holly fodder and I’ll be right with you.”

Oh boy. More reindeer food. If Rudolph and Company didn’t asphyxiate themselves on their cabbage-based emissions, they’d for sure OD on holly fodder by the time Dad had perfected his formula.

No more than a minute later, Dad appeared from behind the towers of wrapped boxes. With holly branches, leaves and berries stuck in his snow white, Albert Einstein-wild hair and beard, he was a completely loveable mess.

“Can you hold onto these pieces for just a minute while I clean-up a bit?” He asked, not waiting for my reply before handing me his cell phone, battery removed, along with other pieces of the dismantled device.

“Dad?”

“I know what I’m doing, Sugar. There’s a program, you know, that can pick-up your cell phone conversations even when you’re not on a live call. If you’re battery is in and the phone is on, your conversations can be monitored.”

I looked at Roman, who shrugged his shoulders and made a face in a way that led me to believe this might or might not be possible.

“I do know there’s a program and device R developed that can actually determine if you have been hacked,” Roman said, his eyes sparkling like the pillars of packages reflecting the workshop lights, but with
much
more mischief.

“That’s it! That’s exactly what we need to do. I knew you were the perfect man for the job,” my dad said, holly still caught in his beard, despite his clean-up attempt.

“Yeah. Unfortunately, I am the perfect guy for this,” Roman said, the mischief vanishing from his eyes and tone almost as soon as it had appeared.

I felt horrible for bringing phone hacking back into Roman’s life. He’d told me the stories of how he and his brother Ross had been two of the first victims of tabloid-directed cell phone hacking in Europe, primarily from London-based tabloids run by the Murtledoch Multi-Media Empire.

The Murtledochs had made a cozy cash fortune printing tabloid news they’d obtained by hacking into Roman and Ross’s voice mails, as well as the accounts of many celebrities. They’d also paid private investigators to hack into all kinds of live calls. Then, once they were busted, they paid off police to hide the evidence for years.

“I’m sorry to have to bother you kids with this, but that crazy-ass Father Time is out of control,” my dad said. “The bastard may claim he’s never directed anyone to do any specific hacking, but the ethos he’s established for his workers guarantees they will resort to any and all methods to get the scoop on all my inventions.”

“I don’t get it. Why you? Why are you his target?” Roman asked.

“The jack-ass is always in a hurry to find the next big thing. I think he feels left out. Time flies so fast and all he’s remembered for is his passing on of each new year to Baby New Year. People never take time to stop and appreciate the time they have the rest of the year,” my dad said, a faraway look glazing over his normally animated eyes.

Not a bad philosophical argument. I had to give him that, although, I know my dad. He was worried about much more than the philosophical aspects of Father Time’s actions.

Roman cleared his throat.

I’m sure he was concerned not just about getting himself into another phone-hacking frenzy, but also now fully realized that his fake wife comes from a bunch of schizoid-crazy paranoia.

“Don’t you worry about a thing, um, Dad,” Roman said, again clearing his throat before continuing. “I know just what to do to save your holly fodder from Father Time.”

Before I could respond, I heard a knock on the workshop’s door.

That’s odd. No one ever knocks around here. They just come on in.

We all went to the door together.

When I opened it, Dad, Roman and I were blasted back by the ice cold, powdery residue of a huge snow drift falling from the shop’s gabled roof.

And guess who was peeking out from underneath the snow heap?

I counted at least three Mom Squad Members, and I had the feeling Grams was also buried under there somewhere.

Why would I think that?

Because her trucker-talkin’ mouth was somehow still goin’ strong even though she was buried beneath the snow dump.

I’ve never heard my Dad laugh with such a robust and jolly ho-ho-ho.

Roman and I couldn’t help but join in the ruckus.

The Mom Squad gave the concept of snow angels a slightly twisted turn. Let’s just say, without a doubt, their halos were more than slightly crooked.

Back inside our gingerbread house, The Mom Squad sat around the roaring family room fire, drying out from their abominable snowwomen adventure, while Roman and R demonstrated their latest super-cool gadget.

The Cellebite was apparently about to become Santa Claus’ savior…and Father Time’s hangman.

“Did you say, Celebrex?” Grams asked, while cranking-up her hearing aids. “I thought that was some kind of wienerschnitzel cure-all.”

Kat, the original Mom Squad Member, who was also my BFF Roxy’s soon-to-be mother-in-law, burst out laughing. Joining her was Roxy’s mom Lily, Mom Squad Member Number Two. And not to be left outside of the laughin’ out loud circle of mischief was Mom Squad Member Number Three, Aunt Tulip, who was my BFF Jules’ closest thing to a mom.

“Celebrex is for arthritis, Grams. Cialis is for erectile dysfunction.”

Aunt Tulip, a semi-retired sex therapist, attempted to clarify Gram’s confusion.

“Well now, I don’t know why you couldn’t use Celebrex for wienerschnitzel issues. Those bad boys suffer swelling and pain too.”

Even my dad, ol’ St. Nick himself, choked on my mom’s cookies.

Leave it to Grams.

Quarter Master R, ever the gentleman, just like Roman, cleared his throat and tried to steer the conversation back to phone-hacking gadgets.

“As I was explaining, Cellebite is a portable device that can quickly extract data from any cell phone,” he said, holding up a gadget that looked like some sort of radiation monitor you might expect to see metro police using for bomb detection.

“Cell phone data can now show which towers have been accessed. To or from whom a call was made or received and when. Plus locate any texts sent and show all stored GPS signals,” Roman added. “It’s the best mobile forensics solution available. And it will also allow us to get a complete high-speed dump of a particular phone’s memory.”

“Who’s gotta take a dump?” Grams cut-in.

“Oh for God’s sake, turn up your damn hearing aids,” Lily squawked at Grams.

The rest of us struggled to clear our airways of cocoa or cookies or both.

“We’ll know Father Time’s user lock codes, deleted information and call history. We’ll also be able to gain access to his phone’s internal application data and see his pictures and videos,” Roman continued, as if we weren’t dealing with Grams’ outbursts at all.

“So all we have to do is get this thing plugged into Father Time’s cell phone, right?” Kat asked, taking her turn checking out R’s latest dream machine.

R leaned over her shoulder, a little too close for just bein’ friendly, if you ask me. But quite frankly, I liked the idea of R and Kat getting to know each other on a more personal level. I didn’t know two savvier, or lonelier, people than them.

Anyhoo…

“That’s it exactly. If one of you can get me about eight minutes with this thing plugged into Father Time’s phone, we’ll have it made,” R said, a conspiratorial grin flashing across his lips.

“I can do that. No problem,” Kat said, without a bit of hesitation. “Let me have a go at the bastard. I’m an ace at distracting men, right Lily?”

As we all chuckled, Lily nodded her head.

Who could forget Kat and Lily taking on Music City’s Tomato King while trying to save Kat and her son Zayne’s hybrid tomato farm? Kat and Lily had done a ton more than bootscootin’ to save Zayne’s farm and Roxy and Zayne’s place on the dance floor.

“Are you sure about this, Kat?” My dad asked. “Father Time can be quite the asshole.”

“Well, so can I,” Kat said. “R, you just hook me up with everything I need to know about this little beauty, and I’ll get the scoop we need.”

“I knew from day one you were my very own Charlie’s Angel,” R said, giving her a nice Italian kiss-kiss, one sweet peck on each cheek.

And, oh boy, was Kat’s face redder than my dad’s Santa suits.

“So what’s your plan to get to Father Time’s phone?” I asked, hardly able to stand the wait to hear what The Mom Squad was cookin’ up.