Miz Scarlet and the Vanishing Visitor (A Scarlet Wilson Mystery) (2 page)

“Dover, at a metaphysical healing center.”

“So, what aren’t you telling us?”

“Nothing.”

“The guy wouldn’t kill your dog for nothing,” Kenny
shot back. “What did you take out of the package?”

“I swear I didn’t....”

“Cut the crap,” said the former assistant director of
the Princeton University Department of Public Safety. “What did you
take out of the package?”

“A sample.”

“Of what?”

“Um,” she mumbled evasively.

“Um what?”

“Organic soap.”

Chapter Two --

“This is about soap?” Kenny and I asked in
unison.

“Uh-huh.”

“That makes no sense,” said the private security
consultant. “In all my years as a cop, I never heard of anyone
trying to kill for organic soap.”

“Do you still have it with you?” I asked the girl.
Nodding, she unzipped her fanny pack, pulled out a small
rectangular packet tied with raffia, and handed it to me. Turning
on the dome light, I took a closer look. It was wrapped in ordinary
white tissue paper, and as I pulled away the covering, I found a
dark purple, fragrant, lavender-scented bar, nothing particularly
unusual, at least at first glance.

“Kenny?” I put the soap up to the light. The opaque
bar seemed like ordinary glycerin soap, save for the little tidbits
suspended inside. “There are little doodads inside the bar. Looks
like gold flakes and maybe some crystals.”

“Paolo said it’s a healing soap, meant to cleanse the
aura. I only took it because I wanted to change my life and purify
myself.”

“By stealing?” I set my disapproving eyes on her. It
never fails to amaze me when kids miss the connections in life.
Then again, I know plenty of adults who miss them, too. “What is
your name, by the way?”

“Fern.”

“Fern?” What a crock, I thought to myself. This kid
was too used to lying. “Let’s see your license, Fern.”

“I...I don’t have it with me,” she stuttered. Not an
experienced liar, perhaps. Gaining expertise, but not yet a master.
There was hope for her, if only I could tap into it.

“Cough it up,” I insisted. She extracted her wallet
from the zippered case, flipped it open, and showed me. “Serena
Polk. 455 Bonny Meadow Lane. Fort Laramie, Wyoming.”

“Fake,” Kenny decided. “Must be a runaway.”

One look at that distressed face and I tossed out my
best guess. “Your stepfather took a liking to you.”

The sudden intake of air produced a whooshing sound
as the teenager swallowed hard. The eyes were fearful. That’s when
I noticed the gnawed fingernails. There had to be more bad news, I
thought, as I studied her. I took another shot at solving the
mystery. “Your mother got sick and your stepfather turned his
attention to you.”

“Are you psychic?” It was said with some awe, as if I
had some cosmic connection to her heart.

“Sweetie, I’ve been a teacher a long time. I’ve seen
some pretty rough stuff happen to my students over time.
Unfortunately, you’re not the only kid who’s ever been in this
boat. I wish it weren’t so, but there you have it.”

Big, wet tears rolled down her cheeks, and she wiped
them away with the back of her hand. The pain was still too raw.
This was a kid on her own, cut loose from blood relatives,
manipulated by those who should have protected her from harm. She
had escaped one devil, only to find an even bigger demon. There had
to be more.

“My, um...mom died two months ago,” she sobbed.
“Cancer. My stepfather promised her he’d take care of me, make sure
I went to college, but the day of her memorial service, he
tried....”

“What about your father?” Kenny broke in. “Where is
he?”

“My mom said he died after he went back to California
to visit his family, when his father had money problems and needed
help with the family business.”

“What’s your real name?” I asked. “I’m Scarlet
Wilson.”

“Jenny. Jenny Mulroney.”

“Well, Jenny Mulroney, we’ve got to get you some
help. We can’t have anyone trying to kill you, can we?”

“Scarlet!” Kenny said my name with great emphasis,
and I knew what was coming next, but I didn’t care. “Don’t
even....”

“Kenny, I’m not dumping an at-risk teenager at the
local police station, not if she has no family to look out for her.
I won’t do it. I’m obligated by the state, as a teacher, to report
abuse and to protect children.”

“You are not in Connecticut, Miz Scarlet,” he
reminded me bluntly.

“Be that as it may, this child is not going to get
hurt on my watch.” I looked at my companion, with those tear-rimmed
eyes, and I made yet another instinctive decision. “I’ll bring her
back to the inn, until we get this sorted out.”

“You cannot transport a minor across state lines,
Scarlet, especially if she’s been involved in a felony of some
kind!”

“Oh, I’m not a minor,” she piped in. “I turned
eighteen two weeks ago.”

“How convenient,” Kenny cut in. “Not that it matters
all that much. Now, let’s try again, Jenny Mulroney. Where were you
living with your mother before she died?”

“Pelham, New Hampshire.”

“Mother’s name,” he demanded tersely.

“Vivian Lorraine Mulroney.”

“I’m going to check on that, so if there’s anything
you need to correct, this is the time to do it.” There was a long
silence, so I glanced over at Jenny. She was shaking her head, a
detail I quickly shared with Kenny.

“She says no.”

“You two come and meet me in Princeton. I mean it,
Scar. We do this by the book.”

“I don’t know that we can.”

“I don’t know that we can’t,” was his reply.

“But, Kenny, you should have seen that guy before I
lost him on Johnson. He was a complete maniac!”

“Do tell.”

By the time I recounted the narrow escape, Kenny,
sensible man that he was, wanted to take a chunk out of my hide.
Even I had to admit to myself that running the red light and
zipping through the traffic was out of character for me. I was
bold, but I wasn’t bananas. But striking the man with my car? That
was madness. Kenny sounded like he was having serious doubts about
me. Not good for such a tenuous point in our relationship. This
weekend was supposed to be a chance for me to finally meet his
kids, so we could move forward, to the next level -- monogamous
dating.

“Do you have a screw loose in that head of yours? You
could have been killed. Or killed someone else!”

“I didn’t have a lot of options,” I insisted. Open
moon roof and a maniac with a knife? Not good odds, but Kenny
didn’t care. This was a side I hadn’t seen before, the professional
law enforcement guy. Despite all the jokes about him being a campus
cop, he was a serious advocate of public safety, and therefore, my
bad behavior earned me his scorn. I would have to work hard to get
back into his good graces.

“Get here and we’ll sort it out. Let me give you my
address, Scarlet, so you can Tom-Tom it.”

“But....” I started to protest, thinking about the
fact that the inn had three guests arriving tomorrow. As innkeeper,
it was my responsibility to prepare for them. My brother, Bur, was
currently holding down the fort at The Four Acorns Inn, our family
bed and breakfast.

“I’ll call the colonel and warn him that you won’t be
home tonight. You be careful on the road. Drive safely. And if you
notice anything, anything at all, you call the New Jersey State
Police first, and then me. Got it?”

“Got it.” The moment I agreed, the call ended.
Kenny’s way of letting me know he was royally ripped with me.

“Boy, he was pretty mad,” Jenny stated the obvious.
“Is your brother really a colonel?”

“Bur? Oh, heavens,” I shook my head and snickered.
“That’s his nickname. Colonel Grey Poupon, like the snooty mustard.
Oh, you’re too young to know about that.”

“I thought you were going to tell me he was a
soldier. Or a cop.”

“My brother, the troublemaker? Let me put it this
way. Bur is the guy who was always pulling pranks in high school.
He was a regular wise guy who always seemed to manage to sweet talk
his fanny out of hot water.”

“Kenny sounds mean. And mad.”

“Kenny takes the law seriously. He’s a straight
arrow, expects people to behave.”

“He’s going to hate me.” That little plaintive voice
suddenly seemed to care what the former campus cop thought of her.
Was it daddy issues or a good kid who fell off the beaten path when
her stepfather gave her too big a shove? I contemplated this as we
got back on the road.

“You mentioned college. What do you plan to
study?”

“I can’t go now. There’s no way Steve will pay my
tuition.” Sadness. Jenny was pushed out the door and into adulthood
a little too soon.

“Oh, that can’t be right,” I told her. “If your mom
made arrangements for you to be cared for by your stepfather, she
must have set up a college fund for you. That would mean he’s just
got control of it, but it’s your money.”

Even as I said that, a terrible thought occurred to
me. What if Steve had a motive for being a bastard to his ward?

“How long was your mom married to him?”

“Eight months.”

“Oh. That’s not very long.” I calculated the chances
that Steve was a cunning creep, taking care of a dying woman, not
because he was a nice guy, but because he was a predator, and from
where I sat, the odds were good. What if Jenny’s mother named him
as executor and the teenager just assumed the money went to Steve?
Maybe the wicked stepfather did what he did to chase the child away
and keep all the money for himself. “Did your mom work before she
got cancer?”

“Yeah, she was a human resources specialist at a
rehab center.” Probably made a decent living, I decided. If she
raised Jenny by herself all those years, it was likely she put some
money away for her daughter. That’s what I would have done.

“What does Steve do?”

“He fixes computers. He’s a real tech geek.”

“Does he have a shop?”

“No. People come to the house.” I absorbed that
information and then changed the subject.

“
What makes you think your mom
didn’t leave you anything in her will?” Might as well poke the bear
while I had the opportunity.

“Steve said so. He told me that all her money went to
pay for her cancer treatments.”

Even I had to admit it was possible. And yet, if
Jenny’s mother worked in health care, she probably had pretty good
insurance.

“You know what, kiddo? I think you need to talk to a
lawyer, someone who will look after your interests, someone who
will check to make sure Steve’s telling the truth.”

“I don’t understand. They were
married. I thought married people
had
to share their money.”

“Good heavens, no. That’s not always how it works,
especially for a parent who has a dependent child. For example, if
your mother owned her home before her marriage....”

“How did you know that? Are you sure you’re not
psychic?” Hardly. More skeptical than mystical. I was beginning to
feel like I wanted to dig all the way through this ugly little
set-up. “Steve moved in with us about a year ago, just after my
mother met him.”

Steve apparently moved fast. And no doubt, he got
power of attorney when her mom got sicker. Talk about
convenient.

“What’s Pelham like?” We spent the rest of the trip
talking about her life before Steve and cancer.

By the time I pulled into Kenny’s driveway, there was
a New Jersey State Police sedan and an unmarked SUV parked on the
street. Not good.

“Are they going to arrest me?” Jenny wanted to
know.

“For all we know, they’re here for me.”

“Because you ran that red light?”

“Yeah, something like that. Come on, kiddo. Let’s
take our lumps and get it over with, once and for all.”

“Maybe we can share a jail cell,” she suggested. I
glanced over at the teenager in the seat next to me. A little smile
played across her face. The unexpected sense of humor surfaced, a
sure sign of a lifetime of mother-daughter moments. I could imagine
Jenny confiding in the woman who raised her alone, sharing a joke
or a gripe. Confidants. Conspirators. Chums. As we exchanged
glances, our eyes locked for only a few seconds. As reluctant as I
was to look away, it pained me to see what Jenny unintentionally
revealed about herself. Those eyes were still tinged with sadness.
She had lost her mother only two months ago. I was a poor
substitute, I decided, a fill-in for the real deal. For the first
time since I passed my thirtieth birthday so long ago, I regretted
not having kids. I could have had a daughter like Jenny, someone
who counted on me through the tough times. And then I remembered
her mother had died. Was the girl angry about that, or did she know
it wasn’t her mother’s choice to leave her?

“What?” One word uttered by an eighteen-year-old
brought me back to reality. I turned away, busying myself with my
pocketbook.

“We should go in,” I admitted lamely, not willing to
acknowledge my sense of powerlessness to comfort Jenny. Whatever
she was feeling now, I had no doubt it would only grow worse with
time. She was on the run, cut off from whatever family she had left
in this world. There’s only so far we mortals can run before our
legs give way and we crash to the ground.

Chapter Three --

“Let’s have it,” said the gruff, middle-aged billy
goat with the chin whiskers and the blue eyes below a tuft of
graying hair. Kenny introduced him as Sarge. Jenny looked at me for
direction, so I nodded affirmatively, encouraging her to hand over
the evidence. In his enormous fist, Sarge held a magnifier, and
used it on the opaque soap.

“Lookie-here,” he said to his three
colleagues. They all leaned in over his shoulder as he sat at
Kenny’s kitchen counter under a very bright pot light. The former
assistant director of Princeton University public safety leaned
against the refrigerator, arms crossed, glaring at me. I felt my
face burn. Had it really only been four hours ago he was kissing my
lips and telling me how much he would miss me when I was back in
Connecticut? I flashed back to the early morning, when all was
right with the world. Kenny’s daughter, Kendra, and her fiancé,
Duff, went off for a run just after sunrise. Kenny and his
youngest, Jake, went fishing. Knowing everyone was due back at the
rented cottage by eight, I had read the
New
York Times
front to back, swept the sand
from the front porch, collected shells on the beach, and then
wandered into town for a trip to the bakery. I should have known
that glorious feeling would have to end.