The Mastermind Plot (12 page)

T
HE DRIVER SHOOK THE CARRIAGE AS HE GOT
up out of the box, and I shoved my pencil, notebook, and pocket watch into my cloak pocket. The inside of Uncle Bruce's carriage was so dark I'd barely been able to see what I was writing. The early dusk and pulled curtains added to the gloom.

Will had successfully diverted Uncle Bruce's driver's attention with false concerns over the lead mare's front leg, and I'd been able to slip inside the carriage to await my uncle's return. It had been nearly a half an hour since.

“Good evening, Detective,” the driver called. It was finally time. “Are we waiting for Mrs. Snow?”

My uncle's answer came out gruff and weary. “No, she's staying with Mrs. Grogan tonight.”

The door opened. Uncle Bruce shook the carriage as he climbed in.

“To the Copley,” he directed.

I was in the seat opposite Uncle Bruce, and apparently drenched in shadows. He didn't see me until the driver had slammed the door.

“Who the —” Uncle Bruce slid forward onto the edge of his seat, looking ready to pounce.

“It's just me!” I cried. “Zanna!”

He sighed and fell back into his seat again. “What the blazes are you doing in my carriage, Suzanna? I could have shot you!”

He tucked his hand into his coat and I heard the distinct sound of steel coming to rest inside a hard leather holster. So he
had
been armed.

“I need to ask you some questions,” I said as the horses pulled away from the curb and into the street.

Uncle Bruce twisted in his seat, preparing to shout for his driver to halt.

“Please, it's important!” I quickly said. “It's about Matthew Leighton.”

Uncle Bruce stared back at me, his shout dying on his lips.

“How do you know that name?” he whispered instead.

I had him. The element of surprise was mine. I took an extra moment to revel in it.

“Is he really a thief?” I asked.

Uncle Bruce struck a match and lit the carriage lantern beside him. The red chimney glass bathed his face in a menacing light, shadowing the deep creases between his eyebrows.

“Yes.”

I took a trembling breath. “Is he really my grandfather?”

Uncle Bruce's shoulders dropped. He sagged back in his seat. I smelled the cigar smoke and brandy he'd been indulging in all afternoon to numb the pain from his loss. The smell somehow made him seem old and powerless. His palm swept slowly across his forehead, a tired gesture to match his tired appearance.

“How do you know about him?” he finally asked. It wasn't a straight answer, but an answer nonetheless. Matthew Leighton
was
my grandfather.

“Why did everyone lie to me?”

Uncle Bruce suddenly leaned forward. “Because he is a thief!” The whites of his bulging eyes looked pink in the red lamplight. “And not just any small-time pick-pocket, Suzanna. He's one of Boston's most wanted.”

Those last few words shook me more deeply than the clattering wheels of the carriage. My own grandfather —
my mother's father — was a criminal. How could it be? For a detective-in-training, this was a scandal. I looked my uncle in the eye, realizing that for a seasoned, well-known detective like Bruce Snow, it was more than a scandal. It was a travesty.

“No one knows you're related to him,” I whispered.

I recalled how he and Grandmother had both looked terrified when I'd almost announced my middle name was Leighton.

“No,” he replied. “And no one ever can, Suzanna.”

“But why?”

A small, humorless laugh erupted from Uncle Bruce's throat.

“I suppose I'm the one who has to tell you now,” he said with evident resentment. “Matthew Leighton was the mastermind behind the very first case I investigated thirteen years ago — the Red Herring Heists.”

I held my breath. Detective Grogan had told me a little about the unsolved case. To know that my own grandfather had been the mastermind behind it brought it much closer. I nearly felt guilty by association.

“Leighton left small clues to his identity at each crime scene, which we, of course, would then follow. Each time, the clue took us to nothing but a dead end. We soon realized they were red herrings, planted clues to lead us astray. To confuse the investigation,” Uncle
Bruce explained. He'd never explained anything to me before. Right then my mind was torn between paying attention to what he was saying and the wonder of being in a true conversation with him.

“But then he got sloppy — as criminals always do,” Uncle Bruce said darkly. “He made a trade on the underground market that one of our plainclothes traced back to him. We surrounded the building he lived in, and I went in first — it was to be my first big arrest, done single-handedly. But in addition to finding Leighton in his apartment, I also found a young woman I knew well: Cecilia Crocker, my brother's fiancée.”

My heart skipped at the mention of my mother. It nearly stopped at what Uncle Bruce said next.

“She knew what he was. Not that he was the one behind the Red Herring Heists, but she knew her father was a thief. It was the reason she'd taken a different last name years before — to set herself apart should he ever be caught.”

The horses whinnied and slapped at the pavement with their shod hooves as the carriage slowed. We must have been nearing the Copley. Uncle Bruce was too wrapped up in his story to notice or care.

“I had but a minute or two to make a decision. I could arrest her father, expose her as a criminal's
daughter, taint my family name along with her own. Or I could let him go, granted that he disappear from Boston for good. Cecilia demanded he give us both his word.” Uncle Bruce set his jaw and looked me in the eye. “He did. And I let them go.”

We stared at each other in silence. My mother had known her father was a criminal. She'd
known
.

“You undermined an investigation,” I said softly. “You jeopardized your career.”

“I had to … for Cecilia.” He twitched his mustache and cleared his throat. “Can you picture the headlines had I arrested her father?” He stretched his hands out into the air for emphasis as he mocked the imagined headline: “‘Red Herring Heists Detective Soon Related to Culprit.' I would have been a laughingstock.”

And he would have never grown to be the revered detective he was today. The best in Boston.

“How did they get out of the apartment building without getting caught?” I asked.

He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I distracted the other officers with a false chase toward another exit. Leighton was good to his word: He disappeared. Cecilia and Benny married and left for Canada, wary that perhaps Leighton would return and try to contact them. Or that someone Cecilia knew would somehow connect her to Leighton.”

My fingers ached from being clenched for so long. I uncurled each one, thinking of all the lies I'd grown up believing. Of the secret way my mother had given me a sliver of the truth through my middle name. She'd named me after her father — a thief she must have continued to love, despite his faults.

Uncle Bruce sat forward. “Now it's your turn to explain how you learned about Matthew Leighton.”

Uncle Bruce had been honest with me, and so I'd be honest with him.

“He's been following me around Boston.”

He sat back, startled. “
What?
”

“And I spoke to him today after the funeral,” I said. “In the cemetery. He told me who he was, but I didn't believe him. He said you'd tell me the truth.”

I still couldn't believe Uncle Bruce had actually told me all of this. Then again, he'd been holding the truth in for a very long time. It had to have been weighing on him.

“Are you telling me that Matthew Leighton is in Boston?” he asked, sobering up from his state of shock. He didn't give me a chance to respond.

“Xavier Horne's artwork. All those places destroyed, the art supposedly lost … stolen from the Philbrick home …” He trailed off, sounding like he was latching on to Adele's previously dismissed theory. And then he
recalled something else: “
The red herrings have returned
. So it was him.”

“But he isn't the one stealing the Horne collection,” I said. “He said it was someone else. That he was trying to find proof to present to me.”

Uncle Bruce snorted as the carriage came to a halt. “Of course he'd tell you that. But think like a detective for a minute, Suzanna, and you'll notice the connection between this and the Red Herring Heists. The warehouse fires are what?”

I expected him to answer his own question, but he didn't. He was actually waiting for me to answer it. My mind worked furiously.

“The warehouse fires are …” I felt hopeless for a moment. And then it struck me. “Red herrings. They're
giant
red herrings.”

He smiled and nodded, pleased. I wanted to be pleased as well, but if this was true, then that meant my grandfather had been lying to me.

I hated being lied to.

“Do you know where he's living? Did he say anything at all to you about where you could find him?” Uncle Bruce asked from the edge of his seat.

I answered no but that perhaps he'd continue to follow me. Uncle Bruce burst into action, practically kicking open the carriage door. His driver, who had
been about to open the door, leaped out of the way. Uncle Bruce jumped to the curb below.

“Return my niece to Knight Street,” he ordered the startled driver. “We'll go to the station as soon as you get back.”

Uncle Bruce started to close the door, but stopped.

“It would be best, Suzanna” — he leaned in and lowered his voice — “if you didn't mention Leighton in front of my mother. He isn't a topic she fares well with.”

Uncle Bruce shut the door, and the driver cracked the reins. I jerked forward and then back again, slamming against the high cushion behind me. He was right, of course. I'd already seen Grandmother's reaction to Matthew Leighton once before. She'd called him a scoundrel of the worst sort.

But what if Leighton wasn't the thief this time? Uncle Bruce had said he'd been good to his word. He'd stayed out of sight for thirteen years. Why would he decide to break that promise now? And to burn down Detective Grogan's home — to kill him. It didn't make sense.

I rode back to Grandmother's house, knowing I should have been writing everything down in my notebook before the details got fuzzy. But writing it would have made it real.

I didn't want any of it to be real.

M
ARGARET
M
ARY HUMMED AT THE STOVE
while flipping thick strips of bacon in a cast-iron pan. I'd looked forward to another Sunday breakfast all week. Margaret Mary made enough food to feed the entire Boston police department should they have all shown up at the door. But this morning, I could barely think about finishing the mug of hot chocolate in front of me, let alone the feast that she was busy preparing.

I'd been up for hours already, worrying and second-guessing. Uncle Bruce wanted to close this case more than anything and I'd practically handed Matthew Leighton over as a prime suspect. My own grandfather. Why would Uncle Bruce be fine with arresting him now if he hadn't wanted to thirteen years ago? My mother had changed her name twice now, had moved far away and severed all ties with her former life.
Perhaps she couldn't be reconnected to Leighton now, after all these years.

And back then the crime had only been stealing art. Arson and murder were crimes that Uncle Bruce could not turn his back on. Not even for family.

“Look lively, girl,” Margaret Mary said as she came toward me with a spatula heaped with crisp bacon. She set the bacon on a plate before me. “Little something to hold you over. Now, what's this? The chocolate too rich for you this morning?”

I sighed into my mug.

“I'm sorry, I'm —”

The doorbell punctured the rest of my excuse. My pocket watch read five minutes past eight o'clock. Too early for visitors. Margaret Mary scowled, but I could tell she was happy for the chance to serve more than just Grandmother and me.

I got up, restless. “I'll go see who it is.”

By the time I reached the foyer, Bertie had already answered the door and de-cloaked Grandmother's early morning guest: Uncle Bruce.

“She's in the kitchen, I believe,” Bertie was saying to him. Uncle Bruce started for the front receiving room but pulled up short when he saw me in the back of the front hallway near the kitchen door.

“Just the girl I needed to see,” he said, pursing his lips. It wasn't a frown, though. He looked purposeful, as if he was on a mission.

“Me?” I asked.

“We have work to see to, Suzanna. The department needs your help this morning.” He was already reaching for his coat and hat.

My help? The department — the Boston police — needed me? The words sounded so glorious I wanted him to say them again.

“Tell my mother Suzanna has come with me on an errand,” he instructed Bertie, who stood by the front door, clearly perplexed by the whirlwind visit. “I hope to have her back in time for luncheon.”

Bertie rushed to take down my cloak.

“But where are we going?” I asked.

Uncle Bruce opened the front door, letting in a brisk morning breeze. “To Boston Common.”

I followed him out to the waiting carriage and climbed in. There, seated on a bench, was Will.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, sitting beside him. He wore a dark expression.

“You're not going to like this, Zanna, but —” He bit off the rest of his explanation as Uncle Bruce climbed in and pounded on the roof to signal the driver.

I turned to Uncle Bruce, thoroughly confused now. “Why do you need me on Boston Common?”

I reached for my notebook, but realized it was still on Margaret Mary's kitchen table.
Blast
.

Uncle Bruce smoothed down his black mustache. “You're going to help the police obtain a criminal today, Suzanna.”

I straightened my spine, startled. “How do you mean?”

He smoothed down his mustache again. I wondered if that was one of Uncle Bruce's nervous tics. Will would know. I glanced out the corner of my eye at him. He still looked cross. Uncle Bruce spoke, and when he did, I pieced together that Will must already know about the Snow family secret.

“I gave him a chance once. A chance to go straight. I thought he'd made use of it. But it seems once a thief, always a thief.” Uncle Bruce's dark eyes flashed with anger. “Now I realize he is more dangerous than I thought. There are some things that are more important than my reputation. My partner deserves justice.”

I shook my head, still not understanding what it was he wanted me to do on Boston Common.

“It's not justice to arrest the wrong man,” I said. “I don't think he's the one behind the fires or
thefts. There's a framer on Varden Street called Mr. Dashner —”

Uncle Bruce set his jaw. “I know Dashner. What of him?”

The carriage turned a corner sharply and I bumped into Will.

“Dashner would know the exact dimensions of the frames for each artwork,” Will said, his glower still in place.

“If he wanted to, he could have crafted replica frames of the artwork stored in Mr. Horne's warehouses,” I added.

“He had close contact with Mr. Horne,” Will threw in. “He could have memorized the safe-box combinations when he exchanged the stored art for the display art inside Mr. Horne's home.”

We spewed out our facts to match the speed of the rattling carriage, including how Mr. Dashner was on a curious holiday at the moment. Neither of us made mention of the rare Degas statue, but I couldn't help but think it was in danger as well. Uncle Bruce listened to it all without interrupting. And after we finished, he continued to remain quiet as he stared out the window.

“We have no evidence at all against Jonathan Dashner,” he finally said.

“There is no evidence against Matthew Leighton, either,” I shot back.

The carriage slowed, but looking outside I didn't see the trees of Boston Common, just rows of buildings on each side of the street.

“He was fingered for the Red Herring Heists thirteen years ago,” Uncle Bruce said, his temper rising. “With the similarities between the two cases, it is all we need to make an arrest.”

The driver came down from the box and opened the door. Uncle Bruce didn't move to get out.

“Are you ready to work for the Boston police?” he asked me, then looked to Will as well. My palms began to sweat inside my gloves.

“Yes,” I answered. “But —”

“Good. You two will leave from here to take a stroll through Boston Common.”

Uncle Bruce made room for me to exit. That was it?

“We're just … taking a walk?” I asked. There had to be more to the plan than that.

“The rest will be handled by more experienced members of my department,” he replied. “You will simply walk until you are signaled to return to the carriage.”

I exhaled, the wind having been sucked from my wings. What kind of police work was that? I met Will's
dark eyes and saw impatience there. He wasn't very good at hiding his anxiety. He had something more to tell me.

I hopped down to the curb. Will followed. With a tip of his brimmed hat, Uncle Bruce drew back inside the carriage and shut the door. Will took my elbow and started off down the sidewalk.

“What's really going on?” I asked.

Practically glued to my side, his hand still tight around my elbow, Will answered, “Nothing you're going to like, that's for sure.”

I glanced over my shoulder, back at my uncle's carriage. “I know he wants to arrest my grandfather.”

Will and I turned the corner onto the next block of buildings. We'd parked far from the Common.

“But why are we strolling through a park?” I asked.

Will let go of my arm at last. He swiped off his cap and took a nervous look up and down the street.

“Because you're the bait,” he answered.

Bait! So I wasn't doing police work after all. Uncle Bruce had been patronizing me the whole time. I clenched my hands into fists. I should have known.

“What makes him think my grandfather will approach me on Boston Common?” The trees and lawns of the Common came into view beyond a neat row of brownstones.

“I don't know that part,” Will admitted. “Uncle Bruce didn't think I
needed
to know. Big surprise there.”

We waited for a trolley car to rattle by on a set of steel tracks, and then crossed toward the park entrance.

A man seated on a nearby bench lifted his gaze from his newspaper and made eye contact with me. It lasted a few seconds too long. Will guided me past him and onto a set of stone steps that led down to the grassy lawns.

“That man back there,” Will whispered, still stuck to my side. “I've seen him before. He works with Uncle Bruce. Another detective on the force.”

As soon as Will confirmed my suspicion, I spotted three more men within sight. One feeding ducks, another pretending to sketch something while leaning against a tree, and the third smoking a pipe on a park bench.

“The fools. They might as well pin their badges to their foreheads,” I hissed. “As if Matthew Leighton would come within a hundred yards of me when the police are lurking about.”

And who was to say he was even here watching? We'd finally met face-to-face the day before. He might not feel the need to follow me again.

“Well, Uncle Bruce is counting on him being here, watching you,” Will replied. “And I'm just supposed to stroll you through the park until he shows himself. He's already met me…. I think Uncle Bruce is hoping your grandfather doesn't see me as a threat.”

There were scores of people strolling through the Common this morning. Men and women, arm in arm, children dressed in their Sunday finest, nannies pushing prams along the brick walk that wound throughout the park, a grouping of older ladies settled on a bench underneath the limbs of a maple tree. And, of course, plainclothes policemen. But I didn't see my grandfather anywhere.

“He won't come near me,” I said again as Will and I curved around a small fountain. I hated that I was being used as “bait,” as Will had called it. Nothing more than a worm pinned to a hook, cast out to lure in my uncle's prime suspect.

“What do you think?” I asked.

“About what?”

“My grandfather. Do you think he's guilty?”

Will tucked his chin toward his chest and exhaled loudly. He shoved his hands deep into his pockets and came to a standstill beside the bubbling stone fountain.

“Zanna, he's guilty of something one way or
another.” His honesty stung. “But I think our uncle has a target and he can't see beyond it.”

I defied my orders to keep walking and sat on the edge of the fountain. The stone was cold, not yet warmed by the morning sun.

“That's what I think, too,” I said.

Just then, a man in a rumpled coat and crushed hat stepped up behind Will and shoved him forward.

“What do you think you're —” Will started to say. But the man took a swift jab to Will's jaw. I leaped from the fountain just as Will went stumbling, stunned by the unexpected blow.

“What are you doing?” I yelled at the man as I reached for Will, who lay on his side at the base of the fountain. The man grabbed hold of my wrist and jerked me away.

Alarmed, I finally stopped to take a good look at his face. He wore beggar's clothing, but his face was shaved smooth and he smelled of talc and cologne. Beggars didn't wear cologne.

“Who are you?” I asked. The man started away from the fountain, dragging me with him.

“Hey!” I heard Will shout from behind me. When I craned my neck back, I saw two other men crouched over him. They were blocking Will from getting up and
pursuing the beggar and me. And they were both my uncle's policemen.

You're the bait
, Will had said. What would draw my grandfather out from his hiding spot amongst the Common's trees or monuments? A rogue man threatening to harm me, that's what. This man wasn't a beggar — he was a policeman! And if he was indeed here, my grandfather might reveal himself any second now to come to my rescue.

I hadn't wanted my uncle to arrest my grandfather in the first place, and I certainly didn't want to aid him by playing the damsel in distress. I had to do something.

I brought the plainclothes policeman's hand to my mouth and sunk my teeth into his skin. He released me with a yowl, and I kicked him in the shin. I then darted in the opposite direction, up a knoll toward a small bridge that ran across a pond.

If I could prove to my grandfather that I could escape on my own, perhaps he wouldn't come out of hiding. I remembered the time he'd come running across the back courtyard of the academy when I'd been dangling from the fire ladder, and I ran faster toward the bridge. But at the top of the knoll, I heard the huffing of the injured policeman climbing up after me.

There was a slight dip of the land after the crest of the knoll and I hurried down it. But I couldn't go across the bridge — I needed to get out of sight, fast. Oh, how furious Uncle Bruce was going to be!

I spotted my perfect hideaway: underneath the bridge along the banking of the pond. I slipped down and scooted under, heart hammering inside my chest.

“It seems great minds do think alike.”

I clamped down on my scream and wheeled around. Matthew Leighton was behind me, crouched in the narrow space between the muddy banking and the cross-beams of the bridge.

“Or perhaps the adage should be
desperate
minds think alike,” he said.

“You can't be here!” I hissed. He only grinned.

“I realized that, once I'd entered the park and saw Bruce's minions scattered about. So much for my hoping you and your friend were taking an innocent stroll,” he whispered. “I'd wanted to see how you were dealing with —” He stopped and pressed a finger to his lips. The pounding of feet on the knoll behind us sent my stomach up into my throat. I crouched even lower, but my boots and the hem of my dress and cloak were already submerged in the soft, wet banking.

“This way, come on!” someone yelled, and then the pounding feet carried off into the opposite direction. They weren't going to cross the bridge, thank heavens.

“— how you were coping with everything I told you yesterday,” he finished.