The Chocolate Falcon Fraud (13 page)

I pointed out that the previous day he had recognized it, but he just shook his head.

“I'm sorry, Lee. I don't doubt I said something like that. But any memory of it is gone.” He sighed and leaned back to rest his head on his pillow. He closed his eyes and looked slightly pained.

I stared narrowly at Jeff. Then I sighed more deeply than he had, sat down, and played FreeCell on my phone.

An hour crawled by. I walked to the waiting area. The off-duty cop offered me a game of gin rummy. I tried to play, but couldn't concentrate and wound up down by two hundred points. Luckily I had refused to play for money. Jeff kept napping. Joe called and said he was stuck at his office for a while. At eleven thirty Jeff's lunch tray came. I saw that he had a good appetite.

It was one of the longest mornings of my life.

The neurologist showed up at twelve twenty-two. He was youngish, with colorless hair and a thin face. He looked Jeff over and asked him if he'd ever had a head injury before.

Jeff said no. “When can I leave?” he asked.

“Tomorrow or the next day. If you keep having good nights.”

I could tell Jeff wasn't happy with that answer. He also didn't seem thrilled when I told the doctor my husband and I planned to take him to our home.

“Aw, Lee, I don't have to impose on you all,” Jeff said. “I can just go to a motel.”

“Nope,” the doctor said. “Jeff, you shouldn't stay alone for a couple of nights even after you leave the hospital. If you won't have someone with you, you're not leaving.”

Jeff's face fell.

I stayed in Jeff's room while the off-duty cop went to get some lunch. I liked Jeff fine, but I want to go on record as saying that he had lousy taste in television. Game shows. Yuck.

Joe finally showed up a little after one, and as soon as the off-duty guy came back, the two of us went to the hospital cafeteria.

Finally I got to discuss things with Joe. I told him that Jeff claimed to have no memory of the miniature falcon, the same one he'd appeared to recognize the previous day.

“I guess his memory has lots of gaps in it right now,” Joe said.

“I'm sure it does, Joe. But I'm also certain that Jeff is taking advantage of the situation.”

“How?”

“If he doesn't want to answer a question, everything just gets vague.”

Joe grinned. “You're one suspicious stepmom, Lee.”

I rested my head in my hands. “Jeff and his dad taught me to recognize sneaky. I can even act sneaky.”

“Hey! You're never sneaky with me.”

“With you it doesn't work. You respond better to honest and open. And actually neither Jeff nor Rich was sneaky with me very often. Oh, Jeff tried it, but I was smart enough to catch on to what he was up to most of the time. So he figured out that a frontal approach worked better, and we usually got along on that basis. That's how I finally handled the kidnapping threat.”

“Kidnapping? Oh. You mean your fear that Jeff would be kidnapped?”

“Yes. I couldn't get Rich to take it seriously. He'd just say, ‘Aw, Lee, there're lots of guys in Dallas who are richer than me. And Jeff's not dumb.' But of course Jeff was dumb. Not unintelligent. Just inexperienced and innocent. The way a thirteen-year-old kid should be. We finally did some role-playing about how and when to be suspicious. Being careful not to tell too much about your family at school, such as bragging about your dad's money. Jeff called it ‘pretending to be modest.'”

Joe laughed, and I went on. “But Jeff could manipulate his dad like a marionette. Classic behavior of the child of divorce. He played one parent against the other, and in those days Dina and Rich were still mad enough at each other for him to get away with it.”

“I remember that Jeff didn't act entirely thrilled when they got back together.”

“I remember that, too. I thought he was afraid that having parents who spoke to each other was going to limit his activities.”

We both chuckled. Then Joe spoke. “His folks aren't here now, Lee.”

“I know, but Hogan doesn't know Jeff as well as I do. He doesn't push him for answers. Or maybe he's giving Jeff lots of rope. Anyway, I think Jeff and Tess have some tricky little plan
they're still not telling any of us, and I think it centers on that miniature falcon.”

We both chewed on our lunch. “We can work on Jeff,” Joe said, “but I'd be afraid to push him too hard.”

“I agree. But maybe we could try.”

So when we went back upstairs, Joe and I sat down on opposite sides of Jeff's bed. I took the side near the window, closest to Jeff, and Joe sat next to the little nightstand, a typical piece of hospital room furniture with wheels, a little drawer, and room for a bedpan underneath.

“Jeff,” I said, “it might be a big help to Hogan if you could remember where that little falcon came from.”

“Sorry, Lee. It's all a blank.”

I pulled my own falcon out of my purse. “Grossman gave me this one, and he told me he had had them made, and that this was the first one he had given away.”

“I'm sorry, Lee. I just don't remember.”

“So either he was lying or someone else had similar trinkets made.”

Jeff simply shook his head.

Joe, on the other side of the bed, leaned an elbow on the little bedside table. “It might be important,” he said. “After all, Captain Jacobs was working for Grossman. If Grossman had given someone else a falcon— What the—!”

Joe had suddenly exclaimed and jumped in his seat. He sat up straight, frowning at Jeff.

“What's wrong?” I asked.

Still frowning, Joe pulled out the little drawer in the rolling night table. He reached inside and took out a cell phone.

“Hmmm,” he said. “I thought Hogan kept your phone as evidence. This gadget just vibrated.”

Jeff's eyes were wide, maybe with horror.

Then Joe punched some button on the phone and whispered into it, “Yes?”

Jeff popped up in bed, sitting erect, all signs of illness gone. “Joe! Give me that phone!”

Joe put the palm of his hand in the middle of Jeff's chest and pushed gently, holding him back against the bed.

“Cool it!” Then he spoke into the phone again. “Hello. Hello?” He raised his eyebrows, gave Jeff a long look, and tossed the phone into his lap. “Nobody there. Maybe they'll call back.”

There was a long silence. Jeff pouted. Joe sat expressionless. I steamed.

It must have been a full minute before I stood up. “I'm ashamed of you, Jeff,” I said. “If something happens to Tess, it's on your head.”

“Nothing's going to happen to her!”

I turned and walked out of the room. Joe followed me. We stood just outside the door.

Another two minutes went by. I heard Jeff's voice. “Hi, Tess, I guess the whole plan is blown.” Pause.

“Yeah, they figured out it was you.” Another pause.

“Did you find anything out?” Pause.

“Well, Lee and Joe really are worried about you, and maybe they're right.” Pause.

“Tess? Tess! Damn it! Don't hang up!”

Joe and I went back into the room. Jeff waved the phone at us. “She hung up on me! I don't know where she is!”

Joe crossed his arms and gave Jeff a firm look. He appeared
close to angry. I tried to mimic his expression on my side of the bed.

“Okay, Jeff,” Joe said. “What was the plan?”

“Well.” Jeff sighed and his gaze bounced around the room like a searchlight. But Joe and I stood our ground, both of us glaring at him.

Jeff finally spoke again. “It was the miniature falcon. You're right, Lee. I can remember having it, but I really don't remember where I got it. So Tess volunteered to go out looking for the source.”

“Where was she going?” I asked.

“East of Warner Pier. She was supposed to take Big Pine Road.”

Joe and I looked at each other. He laughed. “I'll go look for her, Lee. You can stay here.”

“No! I can go. I don't care if there
are
trees.”

“Trees?” Jeff sounded completely mystified. “So what if there are trees?”

Joe was still grinning. “Surely you know Lee is scared of trees.”

Jeff shrugged. “I never knew that. But anyway, Tess isn't scared of trees. Heck, her dad worked in timber before they moved to Waco. She's been around trees all her life.”

“See?” I said to Joe. “I keep telling you Texas is full of great big trees. Only they're not in the part of the state where I grew up.” Then I turned to Jeff. “What did Tess say when you called her?”

“She wanted to know if I could remember any landmarks, any way she could find the place.”

Joe and I exchanged looks again. “It sounds like the place you and Aunt Nettie found yesterday,” he said. I nodded.

That alerted Jeff, of course. “Where? What did you find?”

I described Valk Souvenirs, but he shook his head. “I don't remember being there.”

“I suspect you were, however,” I said. “Now, what about the package?”

“Package?” Jeff looked a little too innocent.

“The package Captain Jacobs brought to our house last night. The package that disappeared at almost the same time Tess did.”

“Oh, the package was junk,” Jeff said. “Just a plastic falcon you can order from the Internet.”

Joe frowned. “So why did Jacobs bring it to
our
house? That's the real question.”

Using the cell phone from his bedside drawer—Jeff said it was a throwaway Tess had bought him the day before—he pulled up a Web site that sold Maltese Falcon souvenirs. And there it was. A fake Maltese falcon wrapped 1930s-style, in brown paper and packing material that looked like grass.

“Tess didn't say how she got hold of it, but I told her I hoped she didn't pay much. They're all over the Internet.”

We stood over Jeff while he used the cell phone to call Tess. Her phone immediately went to the voice mail function. “She's not picking up,” Jeff said.

I turned to Joe. “Maybe it would be smart to go out Big Pine Road and look for Tess.”

We made sure Jeff's phone was charged. Then we headed out. As soon as we were on the road, I called Hogan to tell him what we had found out about Tess' activities. He okayed our plan to check at Valk's Souvenirs.

Then he kept talking. “Hey, we think we've found where Jeff had the wreck.”

“Sure. Out at the end of Big Pine Road.”

“That's where the car was. But that's not where Jeff had an accident.”

“It isn't?”

“No, I think he had the accident much closer to your house. That's a much better explanation of how he got where you found him! I imagine he was shoved off the road over on Lake Shore Drive. I think he was able to get out of the car, and he ran for your house.”

“That makes sense, in a weird way, Hogan. If he knew someone was after him, and he recognized the neighborhood . . .”

“Sure. He would have snuck into your house.”

“And if he thought they were still after him, he would have hidden in the attic.”

“I guess the bad guys finally gave up looking for him. But they took his car, drove it back to Big Pine Road, and tried to hide it by sending it off the road there. And it nearly worked.”

I laughed. “One mystery solved.”

Joe and I didn't drive as fast going back to Warner Pier as we had driven when we followed Hogan into Holland, but we didn't waste time. In twenty-two minutes—eight minutes short of the usual time—Joe was turning his truck onto Big Pine Road.

Almost immediately we were swallowed by trees. But I didn't complain once. I just kept looking ahead as we drove east. Of course, we were going to look for the turn into Valk Souvenirs, but I also kept an eye on the road, just in case Tess' little red Ford came toward us or was parked on the narrow shoulder.

The turning into Valk's was hard to find. I pictured Tess someplace ahead of us, driving up and down Big Pine Road, edging along slowly, looking for the entrance.

I'd guess my imaginary picture was what made me so surprised when we did meet Tess.

Because Tess wasn't looking into the woods carefully or even driving carefully. She was driving like a Texas tornado. She was wheeling down the narrow gravel road at no less than seventy miles an hour. Maybe faster.

“Joe!” I yelped his name. “I think that's Tess coming toward us. Why is she going so fast?”

“I imagine it has something to do with the guy right behind her,” he said. “It looks like he's trying to chase her down!”

The red car tore toward us. Its horn was blaring a continuous blast, which grew louder as the car came nearer.

Joe slowed down and pulled far to the right, nearly off the road. The car flashed past us, the sound of its horn echoing weirdly against the trees. I got only a glimpse of the driver, but I was sure it was Tess. She was concentrating on the road and didn't look in our direction. At least she was doing something right.

Behind her by maybe a hundred yards was a huge black Jeep SUV. It looked like a dinosaur chasing a little red bug. Its grille had shiny chrome teeth—teeth so fierce and frightening that I expected it to snap the smaller car up, chew it into strips of tinsel, and spit it out on the roadside.

By then Joe had stopped the truck completely, throwing up gravel. He began to turn, swinging the truck's steering wheel in full circles, jamming the transmission into reverse, backing up a few feet, then pulling forward a few inches on the narrow road. I knew he had to be cautious. If he backed into the ditch, we could be there until a wrecker came, and we'd be no help to Tess.

As he whirled the wheel and stamped on the clutch, Joe yelled, “Call Hogan! Call the state police! Call somebody and tell them what's happening!”

I already had my phone in my hand, and I began to punch its keys. At least we were in an area with cell service. And at least we had told Hogan where we were going. I wasn't sure why that comforted me.

By the time I had alerted the authorities to the chase, Joe had turned the truck around. He floored the accelerator, and we took off after the scary black SUV.

The road was perfectly straight; I couldn't tell if Tess was even still in front of the SUV, since the larger car blocked our view of her, but I didn't see how she could fail to be.

“I'm not sure I can catch him,” Joe muttered. “This diesel-burning sucker was built to haul boats, not chase panthers. He has more speed than I do.”

“If you catch him, at least you have the power to kick his rear end.”

“If he doesn't have a bazooka.”

A chill ran down my body. Looking at the fierce black SUV, I thought it seemed only too likely that the driver of such a threatening vehicle would be armed. But we couldn't abandon Tess.

Joe drove on, aiming the big blue truck down the road like an arrow as he tried to catch up with the other two vehicles. And we did draw closer to the SUV. Tess had quit holding her horn down. Maybe she had done that only when our truck was coming toward her. But the three of us—the red Ford, the massive black SUV, and Joe's even more massive truck—kept pouring it
on, roaring down a gravel road that wasn't safe even at normal speeds.

It made our terrifying trip from Warner Pier to Holland earlier that day seem like a Sunday afternoon excursion.

There wasn't a curve in that road until it reached Warner Pier. Maybe that was lucky. There were a few intersections; all we could do was pray no car came through one at the same time we did.

Joe's pickup was roaring toward the SUV. But the big black car didn't seem to know we were there. The driver must have been completely concentrated on Tess. He seemed to be ignoring the truck behind him.

And that was why Joe almost got him.

He pulled up within a few feet of the SUV, gunned his motor to its utmost, and tried to tap the black car's back bumper.

But just as he nearly managed it, the SUV suddenly swung out into the left-hand lane. If Joe had been moving at ninety miles an hour, now the SUV reached a hundred. The huge black car shot ahead, pulling up even with Tess' red Ford.

The SUV was in the ideal position to shove Tess off the road. And when her small, light car hit the thick underbrush and the giant trees, it would be torn apart. And there was nothing Joe could do to stop the SUV.

So Tess pulled out a gun and shot it.

•   •   •

Twenty minutes later—after cop cars from three jurisdictions had arrived—Joe was sitting sideways in the driver's seat of his truck. His elbows were on his knees, and his head was in his hands. I was standing beside him.

“Damn it, Lee,” he said. “Why didn't I remember we were trying to rescue a Texas girl? Naturally Tess had a gun.”

“You can't generalize about these things. I'm a Texas girl, too, and I never pack.”

“Yes, but on one occasion . . .”

“So my dad's a deer hunter,” I said. “So I know which end of the barrel the bullet comes out of. So forget it. Is there anything we could have done differently if we'd known that Tess had a pistol under her front seat?”

Joe gave a short, humorless laugh. “Not a thing. But I doubt I'll forget seeing that gun come out of her window anytime soon.”

“I'd just like to know where that SUV went,” I said.

Because Tess had apparently not injured the driver of the SUV. She had hit the big car—all of us were sure we'd seen glass shatter—and the driver had swerved slightly. But the SUV had been traveling faster than Tess' little car. And Tess had been smart enough to hit the brakes and slow even more.

Between the gun beside it and a big blue truck behind it, the driver of the SUV apparently realized that he wasn't going to wreck the little red Ford on that trip. The SUV leaped into hyperspace and took off down the road.

Joe hadn't tried to catch it. He had swerved to keep from hitting Tess, moving into the left-hand lane—if it was possible to divide that narrow road into lanes. Tess continued to slow. I lowered my window and began to wave. Both of our vehicles pulled over to the edge of the road. Then we got out, had a big group hug, and Tess and I began to cry.

“But I didn't do anything!” she said. “Why did that guy chase me? Why?”

About then we heard the sirens, way off, but coming toward us. Michigan State Police, Warner Pier cops, and Warner County Sheriff's deputies all converged on us.

The first question, naturally, was what was the license number of the black SUV?

“I couldn't read it,” I said. “I think it had been smeared with mud or something.”

“Well,” the state cop said in a snide voice, “it's not as if there are a lot of black SUVs around here.”

He was sarcastic, but right. Our resort community was full of SUVs, and for some reason black was probably the most popular color.

Tess kept repeating her theme song. “I didn't do anything!”

Hogan was calm but firm. “Why were you out here anyway, Tess?”

“I just thought that Jeff must have been here, because of his car being found in the bushes, right up the road. Then Lee and Aunt Nettie found that business, the one that sells film memorabilia, and that obviously had something to do with Jeff. So I thought I'd take a look at the place, ask if they'd seen Jeff.”

“We already did that,” Hogan said. “The girl there said she hadn't seen Jeff.”

“I thought I might talk her into telling the real story. I'm sure she was lying. But when I got there, nobody was around. But I'm sure Jeff must have been here!” Tess was almost tearful. “Anyway, the trip was a water haul, so I left. I had gone less than a mile when here came that big black car! First I thought he just wanted by, and I pulled over and slowed down. But he slowed, too. And I realized he was trying to shove me off the road! So I dug out!”

“Where did you get the pistol?”

“Well . . .” Tess dropped her gaze. “Well, my daddy bought it for me after that stalker threatened me my freshman year. To be honest, I almost forgot I had it. But when that big black SUV caught up with me—and I thought he was going to shove me in the ditch and I was going to be killed—after all, someone was shot at Lee and Joe's house last night! I was scared!”

Hogan nodded. “Yes, that was the time to use a pistol. But it would help if you'd let me send it to ballistics.”

“What for?”

“Like you said, someone was shot and killed last night. At the house where you were staying.”

Tess almost pouted. “But I had nothing to do with that. And, Chief Jones, you didn't ask me if I had a gun.”

“You're quite right, young lady. I was remiss. I knew Joe and Lee don't normally keep firearms in their house, so even when a guy was found shot to death on their porch, I didn't ask them about weapons. But I should have asked you.” Hogan glared at Tess, his arms folded. “Do you have any other weapons?”

“No, sir.” Tess looked as innocent as a prairie flower. “I'm not going to be in trouble, am I? I mean, over shooting at the black car? All I did was try to protect myself.”

“No, Tess. I've seen your concealed-carry permit. Texas and Michigan have a reciprocal agreement. You had a right to have the gun, and you had a right to use it for self-defense. Joe and Lee were witnesses, and they back up your story.”

“Then can't I have my gun back?”

“Sure. As soon as we check to make sure it wasn't used to kill Captain Jacobs last night.”

Tess relaxed visibly. “That's okay. As long as I get it before I go back to Texas. My daddy took me to classes—you remember,
Lee—back when that creepy guy stalked me. He would not be happy if I were to lose that pistol.”

I didn't bring up the fact that the stalking episode had happened when Tess was eighteen, too young to get a concealed-carry permit. I'd let Tess and her daddy worry about that. She had one now.

“I just hope the guy in the SUV wasn't hurt,” she said. And, I swear, she batted her eyelashes.

Hogan melted. Right there in front of me. “Now, now,” he said. “I'm sure he's all right.”

His comment made me have trouble keeping my lunch down. I'd guess I was jealous. I could never get that reaction. I'd been told I was an attractive woman, and I even had a few pageant trophies to back that up. But I was nearly six feet tall. Tess was almost a full foot shorter than I am. She could get away with batting her eyelashes.

For a moment I was so jealous I could have shot Tess with my own gun, if I'd owned one. Then the ridiculous side of the whole thing hit me, and I snickered. Hogan glared at me.

After a few more minutes Hogan told Joe and me to take Tess to our house. “Just wait there,” he said. “I'll be by to question her.”

But Tess batted her eyelashes again or otherwise turned loose her little-girl charms on Hogan. “Chief Jones,” she said timidly, “instead of going to Lee and Joe's, could we go back to the hospital? I need to talk to Jeff.”

Hogan folded his arms and considered before he answered. “That's not a bad idea,” he said. “After this maybe we could get a straight story out of you two.”

He turned to Joe and me. “But don't let those two kids talk alone.”

Tess gave a put-upon sigh. But she didn't say anything else.

As we left, a wrecker was hauling Tess' car away. It had paint on the back bumper and on the left side, further proof that someone had tried to shove her off the road.

Joe drove back to Holland at five miles an hour under the speed limit, I'm glad to say. That awful chase on a narrow gravel road had unnerved both of us.

As soon as Tess saw Jeff she burst into tears.

The two of them sat on the edge of the bed. Jeff put his arms around her. She cried, and he kissed her forehead, then said, “There, there,” and similar helpful things.

If they were “just friends,” Joe and I had a purely platonic relationship.

After a few minutes, I handed Tess a wet washcloth, easily found in a hospital room. She washed her face and blew her nose and said, “I must look awful.”

Actually she looked darling. Even Joe—who had so far seemed fairly impervious to Tess' particular charms—was looking at her with sympathetic eyes.

“Okay, you two,” he said, “what the heck is going on?”

“I did tell her not to go out there,” Jeff answered.

Joe didn't let up. “So what's going on?” he said.

Jeff gave a big sigh. “I guess it's all my fault.”

Tess nestled her head into Jeff's shoulder. “It's all my daddy's fault,” she said. “If he hadn't acted like a horse's patootie, none of this would have happened.”