Lucky Stuff (Jane Wheel Mysteries) (27 page)

“The information about Dickie Boynton’s death? His body was found washed up from the river. Does the article you found say exactly where? Can you get that information?”

“It’s here, Mrs. Wheel. I printed the article. His mother was quoted. ‘Dickie liked to camp out by the river near his Uncle’s house. He liked it because it wasn’t a park and no people would come around. There was a garage where he could hide from the street, but he could get right onto an old concrete piling and be almost in the river.’ The location is given as next to the bridge near the dam at the intersection of…”

Jane finished his sentence for him.

“I’m standing here right now,” said Jane. She hung up after promising to call back as soon as she figured out what they were all doing there.

Belinda’s book was still open to the first page in the chapter.

Revisiting the site where something traumatic occurred is, of course, important. Perhaps even more vital to the experience of “recapturing” is a reenactment of the event itself. You say you don’t remember the event? You will be surprised what muscle memory can do. Once in the place, once in the mental space, you will know what to do. Embrace the pain, the rage, and the fear. Once you do, you will also embrace your past.

“Oh no,” said Jane, rushing to get out of the car. If Herman Mullet had actually done something to Dickie Boynton, Lucky could be about to do the same to Malcolm.
What exactly did Lucky do to Boing Boing?

Jane crossed the street, holding up a hand to stop the car bearing down on her. The driver laid on his horn, but Jane, paying no attention to the angry blast, just waved a thanks at him for stopping.

She skidded down the driveway and ducked right, where the bridge foundation hid people and activity from the busy street.

“What the bloody hell, man?” Malcolm was resisting Lucky’s pull on his arm to get closer to the river. “Look at my shoes. I’m going to be sucked into mud up to my knees in a minute. Take your loony walk down memory lane with somebody else.”

Jane could see that Lucky had that faraway look. He was either remembering something or trying to remember something and he wasn’t listening to any of the writer’s protests.

“Malcolm, stay calm. He’s in a kind of trance. Don’t let him get closer to the water,” said Jane, inching up behind Lucky.

“Don’t let him? He’s in charge here. What am I supposed to do?”

“He’s not going to pull you into the water, he’s just trying to figure things out. Stay calm. Lucky?”

Lucky Miller continued to stare out at the river.

“His childhood friend drowned and his body was found right here,” said Jane softly to Malcolm. “Lucky’s trying to figure out if he had anything to do with it, if he could have stopped it.”

Malcolm’s jaw went slack and he retracted his head, his beaky nose moving back and forth. “No, that didn’t happen. Lucky had a happy childhood here in Kankakee. Drinking those milk shakes, and bowling, and whatever else you young Huckleberry Finns did in those days.”

“That’s the kind of stuff you write about Lucky, but that’s not the way it was,” said Jane. “He lived here about a year and a half. His friend’s garage burned down and Lucky and his parents moved to Kentucky. Except Lucky never really made it there. He went to live with an aunt in Canada…”

“All wrong, Jane Wheel,” said Malcolm. “I have it that his parents died and Lucky started working in theaters, doing whatever he could, filling in…”

“I read the biography,” said Jane. “So has Lucky. Trying to live out the fake history while trying to figure out what really happened is what’s making him crazy.”

“Not crazy,” said Lucky.

Lucky didn’t stop staring out at the river, but he continued to talk to them as if they were sitting across the table.

“I told my dad that it should have been me. I should have drowned.”

“Why? Dickie ran away because he burned down the garage and his dad was mad,” said Jane. “Why should you be the one who drowned?”

“I did drown,” said Lucky. “I did die.”

Jane felt goose bumps on her arm and she saw Malcolm pale. Lucky’s voice sounded like it came from outside of his body. No longer was this trancelike voice hesitant, speculative. Lucky was as sure of this as he was of anything.

“I died,” he repeated. Lucky then shoved his cigar in his mouth and turned to face Jane and Malcolm. When he spoke it was present-day, fully inhabited Lucky Miller. “That’s it, kids. I died.”

“What the hell does that mean?” said Malcolm, beginning to extract his shoes from the mud.

“I can’t say. I just know I died here. That’s for you to figure out,” said Lucky. “More precisely, you Jane Wheel, since that’s the answer to this. I died,” he repeated matter of factly. “I don’t know what it means, but that’s the answer. You figure it out and explain it to me, Jane.”

“I think you already figured it out. You didn’t need to come back to Kankakee because you lived here. You came back because you died here,” said Jane.

“You’re one hell of a fat foul ghost, Lucky,” said Malcolm. Now that they were headed away from the river and back to the parking lot, Malcolm was recovering some of his bravado. Jane noted that the closer they got to the car, the louder he got.

“Or maybe you’re one of those vampires that are so popular. They’re all dead aren’t they?”

“Or maybe I’m a fucking zombie who isn’t going to sign your next paycheck,” said Lucky. “Shut up and get into the car before I scramble your brains for my lunch.”

Malcolm did as he was told. Lucky turned to Jane.

“It’s the key to everything,” said Lucky. “I just don’t know where the lock is.”

Jane noticed he was wearing a sterling silver four-leaf clover on a chain around his neck. Each of the leaves was inscribed with a name. James. Linda. Thomas. Elaine.

“Who are the people named here?” asked Jane.

Lucky shrugged. “I bought it at a thrift store somewhere. I can’t resist a four-leaf clover or a horseshoe. My aunt’s farm in Canada was called Lucky Acres and I…” Lucky broke off, then smiled at Jane. This smile was unlike the mugging he did on camera and in front of a crowd. “See? It’s coming back. I haven’t thought about that farm for years. And the name just came back to me. If I can hold out a few more days, it’ll all come back,” said Lucky.

The Lucky Miller Roast was scheduled to be taped at the end of the week. Jane reminded him that he had more than a few days.

“Yeah, well, we’ll see,” said Lucky. “Brenda’s schmoozing some money in Las Vegas and if that goes as planned … well, we’ll see.”

“Have you heard anything more from the blackmailer? The one who left you that note?”

Lucky fished in his pocket with one hand and with the other, rapped open-handed on the window as if slapping Malcolm in the face. Malcolm flinched and stopped staring at the two of them.

“Just because the bastard writes my life story doesn’t mean he’s got to know everything,” said Lucky.

Lucky handed Jane a crumpled piece of paper.

I KNOW WHY YOU’RE HERE.
I KNOW WHAT YOU’RE HIDING.
MY SILENCE WILL COST MONEY.

“Maybe I ought to just let the guy tell me what I’m hiding and why I’m here,” said Lucky. “Instead of paying for silence, I pay him to spill it to me. Whatever it costs, it’s probably cheaper than throwing this damn shindig.”

Jane thought Lucky might be right. If the blackmailer or whoever the mischief maker was—hard to call him a blackmailer when there weren’t yet any demands to be met—would just meet with Lucky and tell him what he knew, Lucky would gladly pay for the information. If he was renting the old stone factory and paying for all the production costs involved in taping
Lucky Gets Roasted,
being blackmailed would be much more cost-efficient for Lucky Miller Productions.

“Got your bowling shoes, honey?” said Lucky, moving around to the driver’s side of the car.

“We were going to meet, Lucky. Remember?”

“And so we did,” said Lucky.

Jane remained sitting in her parked car after Lucky and Malcolm took off for the bowling alley. She called Oh and when she heard his voice-mail message, she said, “What kind of blackmailer leaves notes without asking for a specific amount of money? Without instructions? To call this man or woman an amateur is generous, right?”

Jane heard the beep and saw that Oh was calling her back. When they connected she repeated her question. “What kind of blackmailer never gets to the point?”

Before Oh could offer a suggestion, Jane answered her own question. “I’ll tell you. It’s somebody who’s still deciding whether or not to do the deed. Someone trying to work up the courage to blackmail Lucky. Someone who was serious, even if he or she was an amateur, would ask for too much money. Or too little. Someone who wanted to chase Lucky away or drive him crazy would be specific and try to make Lucky crazy. Whoever is bothering to hang upside-down horseshoes and leave these vague notes is someone trying to work up the courage to actually commit a crime.”

“A reluctant blackmailer?” offered Oh.

“Or,” Jane continued, “someone who isn’t sure of what he or she knows. Perhaps the would-be blackmailer is only a could-be?

“Perhaps someone is still gathering the facts?” said Oh.

“Like Lucky,” said Jane.

20

Jane had to make two stops on the way to the bowling alley. First, she swung by her parents’ house to take Rita for a short walk. Lately, she felt like she was ignoring her shaggy friend, or feeding her hollow round-the-block promises of longer walks to come. Rita looked at her with hope, as if she wanted to believe, but Jane knew by the droop of the tail that the dog was not buying the milk bones her mistress was selling.

Don and Nellie had gone over to the bowling alley already. The EZ Way Inn–sponsored team’s shirts were delivered that morning and Nellie wanted to make sure each bowler had one of the red T-shirts with the EZ Way name emblazoned in black.

“If they look like a team, maybe they can keep the ball out of the gutter,” said Nellie. She didn’t say this with a great deal of hope. “I got too many XXL’s in here,” said Nellie. “The more XXL shirts you got, the less chance you got to win.”

Jane poured a glass of ice water and flipped through her notebook. On the first pages, she had written all the information about her own missing stuff, the name of the insurance company Tim had used, the policy number Tim had given her. On another page, she had written down her brother Michael’s flight information. In the middle of the notebook, she had devoted two pages to listing the furniture in Carl’s apartment. That reminded her to take out her phone and send a few of the photos she had snapped there directly to Tim.

Finally, Jane got to the section of notes that concerned Lucky. She had been hired to be Lucky’s assistant and to find out who was making mischief in the studio, who was tampering with his collection of Lucky tokens, who was leaving him those vague threatening notes, but her job had become more psychological detecting than the nuts and bolts of who was doing what. She had been spending most of her time trying to uncover what Lucky had forgotten from his childhood. So what was it she had become? An investigator of lost minds? There
had
been a death, and although everyone in authority agreed it had come about through natural causes, Jane had heard Sluggo talk about being murdered. She had written down what she overheard Sluggo Mettleman say in the hospital. Was that part of this? She opened the folder in her bag that had the addresses and e-mails of everyone connected to Lucky Productions. She ran her finger down the page until she saw the name she heard Fran and Lucky mention as Slug’s ride from the hospital. There was, thankfully, only one Mickey listed among the crew members and without thinking through what she would say if and when he answered, Jane dialed the number.

“Yeah?”

“Is this Mickey McBride?” asked Jane.

“Yeah.”

Jane fumbled through her name and her temporary title as Lucky’s assistant and without telling a direct lie, implied she was calling on official follow-up. As she spoke, she realized she didn’t even know if he had decided to stay with the production or leave town after Sluggo died in the car he was driving. If she asked where he was, she would give away how little she knew and how tangential her employment with Lucky Productions was.

“We just wanted to check on you, see if you’re doing okay,” said Jane.

“Why wouldn’t I be doing okay?” asked Mickey.

“Sometimes, when you’ve experienced an emotional or traumatic…” Jane desperately tried to conjure her inner Belinda St. Germaine.

“Look, I mean, thank you and all, but I’m okay,” said Mickey. “It was an ugly sight, Sluggo gasping for air like a fish. I felt terrible there was nothing I could do. I got him right back to the hospital.” Mickey paused and took a breath. “He wasn’t exactly my friend. I mean we weren’t buddies in the trenches or anything. Us guys were all playing basketball that day at lunch and I lost the coin toss to go pick him up at the hospital. I can still remember how the car keys felt in my hand when Sal threw them to me. Slug was a mean little shit, but just ’cause you’re a jerk and nobody likes you, that doesn’t mean you’re supposed to die, does it?”

Jane was no Belinda St. Germaine and she was in over her head. She shouldn’t have called and dragged all this up for Mickey.

“You did everything you could and we just wanted to make sure you were doing okay. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you talk about it all,” said Jane, feeling less and less like the kind of ethical detective of whom Oh would be proud.

“It’s okay. I’m supposed to talk about it. I been talking to a therapist Lucky set me up with and I’m supposed to tell the story, get it out, and make it part of my life’s fabric.”

Jane could guess the therapist.

“Mickey, you said Sal tossed you the car keys?” Jane was a beat late in hearing it, but once it registered, she had to ask. “Weren’t you driving the car you always did?”

“I put on my sweats and didn’t have the keys to the van with me, so Sal said I could take one of the better cars, the one he usually used to drive Lucky.”

“But there was a peanut candy bar wrapper in the car?” asked Jane, more to herself than Mickey.