Miz Scarlet and the Bewildered Bridegroom (11 page)

“Exploit?” Those were
fighting words. “You think Miz Scarlet exploits me? That woman
saved my life, you moron!”

It was true. When a
violent fiend chased her down the street in Bay Head, New Jersey, I
actually hit him with my car to prevent him from butchering the
poor girl. By the time he picked himself up from the pavement, I
was already pulling her into my Ford Focus and driving like a
maniac down the street. Jenny’s biggest complaint at that moment in
time was typical. She thought I should stop for the red light, but
with the killer hot on our trail, running a traffic light seemed
the least of my problems.

What Carson didn’t
realize was that Jenny actually has some money in the bank. Her
single mother socked away every spare dollar for years, so her
daughter could go to college, but the teenager almost lost the
opportunity, thanks to a con artist who tried to rob her blind. We
helped her recover her inheritance and then Bur guided her through
the steps to set up a trust that provides a small monthly stipend.
Her salary at the inn helps to cover almost all of the rest of her
expenses. And as long as she is enrolled in classes and getting
good grades, I have promised to pay fifty percent of her tuition at
the University of Connecticut. Why shouldn’t I? As that twit,
Carson, so indelicately pointed out, I never did marry. I like to
think of Jenny as the child I never got to have.

“Someone’s flashing
headlights at us,” she announced, bringing me back from my musing.
A moment later, the Central Street Garage flat bed truck slowly
rumbled past us and pulled up ahead of the Volkswagen. Two men
hopped down from the cab and joined the group huddled around the
car. We watched them walk around the compact car, kneeling at every
tire to examine the damage.

“Oh no!” Jenny suddenly
sat up in the passenger seat, turning around as blue lights flashed
into Kenny’s SUV.

“Oh no
what?”

“There’s a police car
pulling up.”

“Honey, the cop is
stopping to make sure we’re all safe. Consider this a good
thing.”

Sure enough, the state
trooper nodded as he passed us and continued on to the cluster of
men surrounding the Golf. Once he personally inspected the damage
to the tires, he insisted on making out an official report. Kenny
briefly popped his head in the window to update us on the
situation.

“Listen, I’ve invited
Michael to stay at the Four Acorns tonight. I hope you don’t mind,
but until we get this sorted out, I’d feel better if I knew he
wasn’t in harm’s way.”

“No problem. He can
sleep in the library. Jen can help me make the bed up when we get
back.”

“I have a better idea,
Miz Scarlet. He can sleep on the trundle bed in the Red Oak Room
next to me.”

I admit I was surprised
by Kenny’s suggestion. Did he suspect Michael Sharkey was somehow
involved in this mess, either as a target or a
culprit?

“That’s fine too,” I
agreed.

“Good. We should finish
up here shortly,” he told us just before he turned around and
headed back to the group gathered around the disabled Golf at the
side of the road.

“Wow.” That was all
Jenny said.
Wow.

I waited, expecting
more. When she didn’t come through, I pursued it. “Wow
what?”

Glancing over at her, I
could see she was overcome with emotion. I sat quietly, giving her
time to compose her thoughts. The flashes of cobalt blue pulsed on
and off, keeping a steady rhythm that was somehow comforting in all
this darkness. Traffic was light at this time of night, and there
was only the occasional tail light to break the endless black
horizon on this lonely stretch of I-384. At last my companion
stirred. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly before she
spoke.

“I haven’t felt like I
was a part of a real family since my grandparents were alive. I
never realized how much I missed it.” She sighed wistfully. “After
they died, it was just my mom and me. My world got a little
smaller. And then, when she died....”

“That’s what happens
when there isn’t enough family to go around,” I told her. “Whether
it’s by death or divorce, too many people end up alone and
disconnected. Family is important, Jen.”

“I have a confession to
make. I thought you’d be mad I caused you guys so much
trouble.”

“Oh sweetie, you have
no idea what an important role you play in the lives of the
Wilsons. Even when we worry about you, it’s because you matter to
us. We’ll get through this, Jen. Besides, what did you do to cause
this mess?”

“I don’t know,” she
admitted, “but I still feel guilty about it.”

“Don’t. For all we
know, it’s got nothing to do with you. I have a few skeletons of my
own in my closet, kiddo.”

“Yeah, right,” she
snickered. “You’re a real wild woman, Miz Scarlet.”

“Actually, Jen, I might
have had a bad relationship...or two....”

“You?”

“Yes, me. You don’t
need to know the gory details, but let’s just say I didn’t always
pick the right men to love.”

“But I thought Captain
Peacock was the guy you had the hots for in high
school.”

“Honey, I’m long out of
high school. When Kenny moved to New Jersey twenty plus years ago,
I still had a life to live. Do you really imagine I spent those
days and nights like a cloistered nun?”

“Well, actually I kind
of did.” She paused a moment, mulling that over. “You dated
guys?”

“More than
one.”

“Huh.”

“This probably isn’t
the time or the place to tell you, but I’m going to anyway. There
was a guy who wanted to destroy my family. He even tried to kill
me.”

“To kill you?” She
laughed. “Come on! Why would some guy want to kill you? That
doesn’t make any sense!”

“He thought Randolph
and Wallace Googins ruined his family, so he wanted ours to suffer
a similar fate.”

“No way!” There was
disbelief in her voice.

“It’s true. And just so
you know, we don’t talk about this in front of the Googins girls.
It upsets them.”

“Hmm....” There was
another long pause before Jenny spoke again. “Does this mean it’s
your fault the tires were flattened?”

“Fault isn’t something
we assign to victims of crime, Jen. If you’re asking me whether
it’s possible that Ned Sorkin and his creepy half-brother, Jeremiah
Wellstone, are behind these incidents, the answer is maybe. But the
situation has to be investigated.”

“What if it’s not
related to what happened to me in Bay Head or what happened to you
with that Ned guy?”

“Then we have another
mystery to solve,” I shrugged. “After all, every crime has a
purpose, doesn’t it? A drug addict might steal because he needs
money for his next fix. A killer might kill because he wants
revenge for some perceived injustice or he has a desire to profit
from the crime. A stalker harasses because he wants to terrorize
his victim.”

“Whoever it is, he’s
got a bird’s eye view of the Four Acorns Inn,” she pointed out. “He
knew I wasn’t downstairs when he broke the pane of glass on the sun
porch. And he must have been watching when I invited Hammerhead
inside.”

“You might be right
about that,” I agreed. Michael Sharkey had no idea he’d be invited
into the inn to meet the gang. Why would he have punctured his own
tires just before picking Jen up? That didn’t seem very likely.
What would he have used as an alibi? That probably meant Shark Boy
was off the list of suspects unless he had an
accomplice.

“Why pop the tires like
that? Why not just unscrew the caps?” she wanted to
know.

“Contrary to popular
belief, that won’t cause the tires to go flat. The caps just keep
road salt and other gunk from damaging the valves. The tire-popping
creep must have known that.”

“I didn’t. But then, I
don’t know that much about cars,” she admitted.

“Still, you’re right
about the act itself,” I decided. “Puncturing the tires was a
rather dramatic thing to do, wasn’t it?”

“Kind of scary,” she
confided, biting her lower lip. Neither of us was happy about
that.

“Someone is hanging
around the Four Acorns Inn for the chance to cause problems for us.
I think whoever it is wants us to be terrified,
Jen.”

“But why? What’s in it
for him?”

“I wish I
knew.”

A short time later,
things wrapped up on the side of the highway. Danny loaded the Golf
onto the flatbed truck and secured it for the trip to his garage.
The state trooper waited until our caravan pulled onto the highway
before he pulled into the fast lane, bleeped his siren a couple of
times as he passed us, and sped away. The rest of our caravan
exited the highway at the next ramp. Bur went back to the inn to
stand guard. He didn’t want to leave the Googins girls and our
guests unprotected. Kenny and I, meanwhile, drove the kids to
Hammerhead’s apartment, so the teen could throw some clothes and a
toothbrush into an overnight bag. We got back to the inn just after
ten, all four of us rather rattled by the turn of events. I
couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more to come. If only I
could figure out what this was all about, maybe I could find a way
to stop the situation from spiraling out of
control.

I knew the where, the
what, and the how -- someone wanted all of us at the Four Acorns
Inn to be very, very frightened and he was willing to do some very
nasty things in furtherance of that goal. Frankly, it was working.
But who was doing this and the reason why escaped
me.

Bur insisted on
spending the night with us, just in case there was another
incident. He didn’t make a big deal out of it. I was in the
kitchen, just before eleven, setting up for breakfast. The Wilkies
had to leave by seven to catch their flight home, so their eggs had
to be on the table by six thirty.

“Listen, Scar,” my
brother said softly as he leaned in, “I’m on the sofa in the
library tonight. Mum’s the word, okay?”

“Okay.” I noticed the
concern etched on his face. “Are you expecting
trouble?”

“Expecting? No.
Preparing? Yes.”

And prepare for it, he
did. Sneaking into the library with a flashlight, he pulled the
wooden blinds and velvet drapes, to prevent any light from warning
an intruder of his presence, and then he sat up watching television
into the wee small hours of Monday morning.

Just after two, I heard
the dogs whimpering at my bedroom door. Throwing my bathrobe over
my pajamas, I hurriedly tucked my cell phone into the right pocket
and tied the sash. I hushed Huck and January as I left my bedroom,
pulling the door shut behind me, and tiptoed into the sitting room
I share with my teenage suitemate. Standing motionless, I paused,
straining to hear any unusual sounds. There was nothing outwardly
wrong, so I moved on. Quietly opening Jenny’s door, I peered
through the darkness. In the faint moonlight that crept in through
the third floor window, I could see she was sleeping soundly in her
bed, her little spaniel beside her. That was a good sign, I told
myself. Mozzie wasn’t worried. I pressed on, still trying to find
the source of the noise that upset the other two dogs. The bathroom
was empty. So was the storage room by the stairs.
Should I just go back to bed or keep
looking?

On a normal night, I’d
have returned to my room, but this was anything but a normal night.
What choice did I have? Too much had already gone wrong at the Four
Acorns Inn. I crept down the stairs and listened at the door to the
second floor hallway for a few seconds. Everything seemed okay.
Hand on the knob, I silently turned it and pushed the door open
before stepping into the hall. I paused, straining to hear any hint
of an intrusion. Everything seemed normal enough. Maybe the dogs
heard Kenny checking the locks as he made the rounds or Bur
rumbling around downstairs on a midnight raid of the kitchen
fridge.

A part of me wanted to
believe it was just my overactive imagination at work, but another
part of me resisted the inclination to bury my head in the sand and
ignore reality. Someone was, at the very least, harassing
us.
What choice do I have but to
continue down to the first floor? ‘Better safe than sorry’, as the
old saying goes. Maybe I’d better have a look first, just in
case
....

Resigned to my
unwelcome task, I padded softly down the hallway and leaned over
the railing, searching the dark foyer below. Was that a movement I
saw by the front door?