Miz Scarlet and the Vanishing Visitor (A Scarlet Wilson Mystery) (4 page)

Kenny was sitting on one of the beds when I went back
into Kendra’s room. He wore a wry smile on his face.

“You do know you’re getting in over your head, don’t
you? You know next to nothing about this girl, Miz Scarlet.”

“I had to make the offer, Captain Peacock,” I said,
using his high school nickname. “She’s in dire need of supervision.
We can’t just send her off to Pennsylvania if her mother’s best
friend isn’t available for another six months.”

“No, we can’t. But you’ve forgotten something, babe.
The New Jersey state police might be building a criminal case.
Jenny might be a major witness.”

“So? It’s not like she won’t be available. And she
has to live somewhere in the meantime, doesn’t she? What better
place than the Four Acorns Inn?”

I should have known it wouldn’t be that easy. Of
course, if I had a premonition of what was to come, who knows what
I might have done differently.

Chapter Four --

“She’s a material witness!” Sarge bellowed. “We’ll
keep her safe here.”

“She’s a child,” I insisted, “who recently lost her
mother to cancer, her stepfather to stupidity, and I’m not taking
no for an answer!”

“Good God, woman! You’re worse than my wife when you
get your dander up!”

I’ll admit it. I was royally peeved. The hulking New
Jersey state trooper wanted to keep Jenny in state custody, as a
vagrant, all because she had no permanent address.

“I’m giving her a job, Sarge. I’m giving her a
permanent address. She will live with my family at the inn. Case
closed.”

“It’s not closed until I say it’s closed!”

“I’ve got news for you, bub! It’s
closed when
I
say
it’s closed. She’s coming home with me because she needs a family
atmosphere to help her heal!”

“And if I let her go home with you, she’ll never come
back to New Jersey to testify!” He was three inches from my nose
and I could smell the coffee on his breath.

“Want to bet? I’m putting her in nursing school and
sponsoring her tuition. If I say she comes back to testify or she
gets no money for school, she’ll testify!”

“What’s your proof she’s college material?”

“She had a 3.8 GPA in high school, and did it while
she took care of her sick mamma!”

“Well, fine! But if she doesn’t show up for court,
I’m going to hunt you down, Scarlet Wilson, and make your life a
living hell.”

“You do that, Sarge, and I’ll tell your wife!” One
minute he was glaring at me and the next, he threw back his head
and let out a loud guffaw.

“You and my Maggie are two peas in a pod! She’d think
you were a real hoot!” he told me. “You’re one tough cookie.”

“Yes, she’s crunchy on the outside and soft in the
middle,” Kenny informed him, “and sometimes even a little
nutty.”

“Very funny,” I retorted. That just made the men
laugh harder.

We were sitting in Kenny’s living room, the three of
us. Jenny was upstairs, trying on clothes that Kendra had stored in
the attic. Her father’s daughter, she took his call for action on
the Jenny Project and offered up her old cast-offs. “The only thing
I don’t have is underwear for her. But check Mommy’s boxes in the
corner. I haven’t had the heart to get rid of them yet.”

His wife’s decades’ long battle with multiple
sclerosis had taken their toll on the whole family, her most of
all, but her death was unexpected. Jillian suffered brain trauma in
a terrible fall down stone steps -- it turned out to be a fatal
injury. Kenny and the kids were devastated.

Decades after our teenage romance was crushed by
Kenny’s move to New Jersey, we were reunited by a troubling case at
the Four Acorns Inn back in late winter. My brother Bur called our
old buddy for his investigative expertise and he rode to the
rescue. The old spark of high school romance was rekindled, the
flame fed with a more adult passion. Now that we were dating, I was
actually glad that he had been happily married to his wife for so
long. He wasn’t some dope who jumped into bed with every
fanny-wiggling female. Even though I knew he still missed her, we
were enjoying the chance to rediscover each other.

After Kenny talked to his daughter, he and I had gone
upstairs with Jenny, ready to get to work. He had pulled down the
attic stairs, made his way up the wooden steps, and brought down
the plastic containers of fabric-covered memories. I could tell it
was tough for him to see those reminders of his past. There was
real relief when we left the teenager alone to assemble her new
wardrobe.

“I’ll take her shopping this week and get those
clothes back to you,” I promised him as we headed down the
stairs.

“No rush,” he said tersely. When he reached the
bottom of the stairs and stepped into the foyer, his shoulders
slumped. For a moment, he seemed miserable, but then he let out a
sigh. “Jillian would approve, Scarlet. She’d say you’re doing the
right thing.”

“I’m glad, Kenny.” I thought about saying more, but
that seemed all he really needed to hear. His wife would have seen
the Jenny Project as a healing thing. Jillian had been an activist
and an advocate for MS patients. She understood both the need to
provide care and the need to receive it. Maybe that’s why Kendra
was so generous in sharing her attic treasures with the orphaned
teenager, especially after Kenny shared the details of Jenny’s life
with his daughter.

“Well, now what?” Sarge wanted to know. “You two
taking off with the kid this afternoon?”

“It depends. How soon do you think you’ll find
Richie?” Kenny was adamant that Jenny’s pursuer was a threat until
he was locked up, and he refused to allow me to leave until we knew
what the score was.

Of course, I couldn’t help but
wonder what we’d do if Richie continued to evade the cops. He had
assaulted a little old lady in Bay Head and stolen her 2006 Acura
after he crashed his truck into three cars while chasing us. The
local cops were on the lookout, stepping up their patrols in the
area, especially after the search of the house failed to yield any
significant clues in the case. The police had recovered Richie’s
truck, which was registered in his real name. A convicted felon who
worked construction after he did his time, he led an unremarkable
life. It seemed likely that the bars of soap Jenny delivered to him
in Point Pleasant were studded with jewels stolen in early 2013
from a store on West 47
^th
Street in New York. The New Jersey State Police
were working with the New York City cops to track down the rest of
the uncut stones.

“Richie was the hired muscle. He assaulted the
shopkeeper when the thieves snatched the diamonds. They had been
part of a shipment that had just been delivered by FedEx, so we
think the information was leaked, possibly by one of the sellers,
who then got to collect the insurance money.”

“Nasty,” I decided.

“Very. The old man may never fully recover from the
beating he took,” Sarge informed us. “We think that the soap ploy
was just the first effort to move the diamonds.”

“But why not just hand them over in a pouch? Why go
to all that trouble of sticking them in bars of soap?” I wanted to
know.

“Honestly? It’s got me puzzled. My best guess is that
they need to distribute the stones slowly, which means the thieves
can’t risk being caught with the goods, so they’re hiding them in
the bars. We made sure to keep it quiet that we recovered the
stones. We don’t want to spook anyone.”

“But why soap?” Kenny was still curious. “What’s the
game?”

“Beats me,” said the New Jersey state trooper.

“Unless....” I didn’t finish the thought. After all,
it was kind of silly.

“Unless what?” I saw my handsome boyfriend studying
me. “Give it up, Miz Scarlet.”

“It’s nothing. It’s just that...well, the only reason
I can figure that anyone would put jewels in bars of soap is that
they’ve got too many jewels to keep on hand.”

“Hence, they need to hide them safely in some way
that deflects suspicion and allows them to store the jewels
safely.” Kenny pondered the implications of this.

“Funny you should mention that,” Sarge grimaced. “We
think these thieves aren’t professionals. They don’t know how to
distribute the goods without getting caught. No criminal
connections. So, maybe they’re holding onto the uncut diamonds and
fencing them here and there. After all, folks know these stones
were stolen. Flood the market and someone tips off the cops. They
have to put them back into circulation a few at a time.”

“Hmm....”

“Hmm what?” Kenny asked me.

“Well, when I think fancy organic soap, I think about
gifts. Why did Richie want to meet the girl in Point Pleasant? Why
not just drive up to Dover and pick up the soap from Paolo? Because
Paolo is somehow connected to the diamonds? Or the soap? Or
Richie?”

“Maybe. Richie has a criminal past,” Kenny pointed
out. “The mastermind could be well known in the Bay Head area and
can’t afford to have people connect him or her to Paolo.”

“And what does this have to do with Hinson’s house?
Jenny said Richie was supposed to meet Hinson and give him
something. Maybe Hinson is the fence,” the investigator with the
billy goat whiskers decided.

“Or even the mastermind. What do we know about him?”
Kenny inquired of his buddy. The answer was disappointing.

“So far, the only thing we know about the
unidentified out-of-state owner of the property is that he bought
it two months ago through a real estate trust, had the place
gutted, and paid his construction crew through the law office of
Mather and Johnston. No one, it seems, including the real estate
agent in Bay Head, has ever met the guy. We’ve got the name of the
general contractor in charge of the renovation. He’s well-known
around town and seems legit, a plumber by the name of Lars
Weims.”

“Do you really think Hinson was going to meet Richie
that night?”

“Hard to say,” sniffed the man in
the club chair opposite me.
Bing!
We all heard the message arrive on his Smartphone
and waited for him to check it. “Oh, holy crapola. Guess what just
washed up in Mantoloking.”

“How could we possibly guess?” I challenged Sarge,
but then I took a stab at it. “Oh, wait. The backpack of soap!”

“I’ll give you a hint. What’s the worst thing that
could happen to our case?”

“I have no clue,” I shook my head. “Hit a dead end, I
suppose.”

“Dead is the magic word,” Sarge announced.

“In that case, my money’s on Richie.” Captain Peacock
solved that mystery a little too quickly. Did he know something I
didn’t? “Cause of death?”

“Gunshot wound to the temple.”

“Suicide?” Both men looked at me like I unexpectedly
sprouted two heads and had a future in a circus sideshow.

“Hardly. No, Richie was offed,” Sarge declared.

“Maybe there was a falling out among thieves,” Kenny
suggested. “Somebody was disgruntled. Maybe Hinson was mad the cops
got called in and served that search warrant.”

“Or Richie mishandled everything by letting the kid
get away,” replied the New Jersey state trooper. There was a long
pause as we thought that through. Finally I asked the big
question.

“What happens now to Jenny?”

“Well, it all depends on what she told Paolo about
herself. We’ll have to talk to her.”

“Hey, Scarlet....” Kenny gave me a funny look. I
wasn’t sure I liked it. It struck me that he was trying to get rid
of me. “Maybe you could go to Target and buy Jenny some underwear,
socks, that sort of thing.”

“Really?” I glared in his direction. I’m not a
complete idiot. I know when I’m being blown off.

“Please?” He said it nicely, pretty-please-style,
with a cherry on top. Bastard.

“Fine, but don’t you two dare bully that girl!” I
hissed my warning and let it hang heavy in the air. I groused my
way up the stairs, wanting the men to know just how unfair I
thought it was that they were sending me away. I should be here.
How did they know Jenny wouldn’t keep something important from them
out of fear? She and I had already developed a rapport. Besides,
they were leaving me out of the loop, and I deserved to be inside
that tight little circle. Without me, that girl would have been
murdered and the evidence would have wound up in some shark’s
belly, or as food for the bottom-feeders in the salt water pond. So
much for gratitude.

Jenny gave me her bra and panty sizes, color choices,
and even asked me to pick her up some shoes. That’s when I realized
she was still wearing rubber flip-flops.

“Just out of curiosity, where’s all your stuff? Back
at your stepfather’s place?” I wanted to know. She nodded. I
thought about that. The teenager had the right to her own
possessions, but without a home to store them, what was the point
in packing them up? We definitely needed to hire a good lawyer to
represent her interests.

I thought about that as I killed time, wandering up
and down the aisles at Target. I hit the sales racks and found
bargains. Ever since we recovered some of the Wilson family trust
money that was stolen in a Ponzi scheme, I was feeling more
confident about my future. I had spent decades putting money away
for my retirement, and when it was siphoned off, it just about did
me in. Getting some of it back went a long way towards soothing
those wounds, enough so that I felt I could spend some of it to
help Jenny.

Jenny...she needed so much. If she didn’t go to
college now, she might never get her degree. That would be a shame.
If she moved in permanently at the Four Acorns Inn, she could go to
the University of Connecticut and pay the tuition rate for state
residents. Even if she worked and took two courses a semester,
she’d be able to get her degree in five years or so. The commute
wouldn’t be much, maybe twenty or so minutes, plus time to park and
walk to class.