Wrapped Up in Crosswords (7 page)

Gabby rolled her eyes and let out a low woof, thinking,
Oh, brother. What planet is this guy from?

Rosco had come to pretty much the same conclusion.

“I mean, even now,” Jones continued, “here we are in the van, waiting for Al, and Gabby doesn't know what the heck's going on … No offense, Gabsters, but you don't. Then, all of a sudden, Al opens the door and slides in behind the wheel; and the van mysteriously starts making noises. Then it begins to roll forward. How would Gab understand that Al is actually causing the movement?”

“I think you've got more time on your hands than you should, Abe. Either that, or you're sniffing too much formaldehyde down in the forensics lab.”

“No, I'm convinced my theory's right, Rosco. That's why Buster gets so anxious and excited when I pick up my car keys; he thinks the darned thing's going to leave without us if we don't hurry up and get out of there.”

Gabby hunkered down into Rosco's lap as if she were terrified she was sitting beside a madman.

“You see, Polycrates, your problem is that you accept things as they seem on the surface. You've got to dig deeper. It's like when I go to the video store with Buster and look for a movie. As far as he's concerned, I'm just staring at the wall as if I were some sort of idiot. How could he have any concept of reading? About making a choice? How would he know that I'm trying to decide between a Jennifer Lopez film and a Sandra Bullock film?”

“You're right, I'd find that scenario baffling, myself.”

“I can see I'm getting nowhere with you.”

“Well, here comes Al. Why don't you run the notion past him. He tends to be more open-minded than I am.”

“Right,” Jones said sarcastically. “By the way, how's the perfect gift for your own little lovebird coming along? You're all squared away on that?”

“I still have a logistical problem, but I'm working on it.”

“And …?”

“It's still a state secret.”

Lever slid in behind the wheel and started the van. Rosco and Abe looked down at Gabby for a reaction, but she opted not to give them the satisfaction of a response. Instead, she stared intently ahead.

“Where to?” Al asked.

“Papyrus,” Rosco and Abe said in unison.

“Got it.”

Lever eased the van into traffic, drove up the street for eight blocks, entered the interstate ramp, and headed north. The conversation between the three men revolved around how well the Pats might fare against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, while Gabby ignored them and concentrated on the passing scenery. After five or six miles, Al glanced into the rearview mirror and said, “We're being tailed.”

“Huh?” Abe said.

“We've got a Mass State Trooper on our tail.”

“You're kidding? How fast are you going?” Rosco asked.

“Sixty-five … maybe seventy.”

“This is a fifty-five zone, Al.”

“Everyone's going seventy, Poly—crates. Don't tell me you poke along at fifty-five on this stretch.” Lever looked again into the mirror. “Oh boy, here we go … he's got his flashers on. Did either one of you bring I.D.?”

“It's all back in my street clothes,” Jones said.

Rosco followed with, “Me, too. You mean you didn't bring your driver's license, Al?”

“There's no pockets in these costumes, all right?” He began angling the van over to the breakdown lane. “I don't see either one of you clowns with a wallet, either.”

“Huh,” Abe said with a laugh. “We can't even bribe this guy.”

“Don't worry, I can talk our way out of this,” Lever announced with a bit of false bravado. “I know how to handle these guys.” He brought the van to stop as the trooper's cruiser pulled up and idled thirty feet behind them. Al opened the door, but before he could step out, the state trooper was on his bullhorn with a commanding order.

“Sir, stay in the van. Do not exit the vehicle.”

Lever looked at Abe and Rosco, and shrugged. Then, ignoring the trooper's request, he popped out of the van, his red plush trouser legs flapping in the icy wind.

The cruiser's door flew open. The trooper leapt out and crouched behind the open window, his gun drawn and pointed straight at the lieutenant. “Get back in the van, fat man. You've got five seconds.”

Lever instinctively raised his hands, then did as he was told. “Fat man?” he said incredulously as he slid back into the driver's seat. “Fat man? Who's this guy think he is? Where's he get off with this ‘fat man' stuff?” Abe and Rosco were now chortling, which prompted Al to add, “Hey, he's twenty-three years old, max, and he has his weapon drawn. This is no laughing matter. We'd better find out what he's up to.” He reached down and turned on the police radio. “What's the Statie's frequency?”

Jones raised an eyebrow. “You're asking me? I'm the lab guy, remember. That's your department.”

Rosco reached down and moved the receiver's dial to the Massachusetts State Police frequency. “How do you guys get anything done?” he said, still chuckling.

The radio crackled, and the young trooper's voice echoed through the van's speaker system. He was calling for backup. “I have the suspects … locked stationary … I-195 at the thirty-eight-mile marker. Canine present in vehicle. I.D. positive. Two Caucasians. One heavyset. One African-American. All dressed as Santa Claus.” A burst of static was followed by, “Backup on the way. Sit tight.”

Then the radio barked out further orders. “All units, switch to isolation frequency. Delta-Blue.”

“So much for our eavesdropping.” Al turned off the radio. “Who comes up with these names? Delta-Blue; sounds like a stripper, if you ask me.”

“Mr. Heavyset
weighs
in,” Abe gibed.

“Ho, ho … At least the guy didn't refer to you as a buff African-American.”

Within thirty seconds, all traffic on both sides of I-195 had been shunted off the roadway, making the busy interstate resemble a deserted airport runway. After another thirty seconds, four more state police cruisers appeared in the southbound lane and came to a lurching stop beyond the separating guardrail. Two troopers jumped from each of the vehicles and positioned themselves behind the front and rear fenders, guns drawn and ready for action. Three more cruisers had joined the officer behind the van.

“What do we look like, Bonnie and Clyde?” Lever complained. “I'm going to get out and talk to these guys. Whoever they think we are, they're wrong.”

“Hold on, Al,” Rosco said, reaching across Abe and placing a hand on the lieutenant's red sleeve. “These guys look serious. Drawn weapons isn't about doing seventy in a fifty-five zone. I'd hate to see someone get nervous and make a mistake. Let's wait them out. Sooner or later they'll run our plates through their computer and realize they've got the wrong guys.”

Abe Jones shook his head. “The Staties don't have any record on these being NPD plates—just like we don't know the Blue-Delta frequency. You never know when you'll need to keep official business to yourself.” He let out a rueful chuckle. “One big, happy Massachusetts family, right?”

Eight

I
F
the day hadn't started well for Abe, Rosco, and Al Lever, things had begun in an equally hairy fashion at Lawson's Coffee Shop. Kenny, Lawson's head chef, who liked to refer to himself as “a fry cook,” but whom regular patrons called “King Kenny” because of his commanding height and demeanor, had arrived at five-thirty
A.M.
on the dot—just as he had for nearly three decades. Martha, also as usual, had reached the establishment at five-forty-five; and the other waitresses and kitchen help had begun filing in shortly thereafter. But all appearances of normalcy had ended there, because not five minutes after Kenny had unlocked the exterior basement door, it became clear to him that someone had broken into the coffee shop's building.

He was in the midst of suiting up in his whites, an immaculately pressed pair of white cotton trousers and matching jacket, and hanging his street clothes in his locker, when he noticed a curious fact: the basement was icy cold. He crossed to the furnace and checked it, but he found the machine running at a comfortable level. He then turned around in his deliberate and methodical manner and started to survey the entire room. In the still-dim light—Kenny didn't believe in wasting electricity—his dark skin resembled polished jet against the starchy sheen of his uniform, and his stance was princely and authoritative.

“Hi-dee-ho, your majesty,” Martha called as she breezed in through the basement door. She stopped and shivered slightly, and Kenny greeted her with a sonorous:

“Something's wrong, Marth. Someone's been in here.” He and Martha had worked together for so many years they'd developed a number of nicknames for one another. “Marth” or “Madam M.” were favorites of Kenny's, but they took on a somber formality when expressed in his rich baritone.

Martha began flipping on light switches. “Place looks the same to me, Dr. K.”

“It's cold, Marth.”

“So? It's frigid outside. It's a December kinda thing. The
Almanac
says—”

“The basement is never this cold, doll.”

George, the dishwasher, appeared at that moment. Like Rosco, he was part of the city's large Greek-American population; unlike Rosco, he spoke heavily accented English. “Window broke,” is all he said, pointing up the cellar stairs he'd just walked down.

Kenny, followed by Martha, who perpetually came to work already attired in her “Lawson's pink,” went outside to investigate. The dishwasher followed; a newly arrived waitress, Lorraine, joined them.

Sure enough, a crawlspace window had been displaced. The foursome—which had now grown to five—returned to the basement where they found the lost glass panel. The framing hadn't been broken; it had been merely pushed in—not a difficult task since the putty and wood had grown spongy and useless with age. But the single pane of glass had been shattered when it fell onto the cellar floor.

“Someone did this on purpose,” Kenny announced. “It didn't happen on its own.”

“But nothing looks disturbed,” Martha observed.

The crowd—which was now six—moved upstairs into the restaurant proper where they found the chairs piled upside down on the tables as they always were at the end of a work day.

“Someone other than the cleaning crew was here last night,” Kenny stated.

“What's this? E.S.P., Dr. K.? Got your crystal ball fired up this early in the morning?”

“I feel what I feel,” was the philosophical reply. “Whether the furniture was disturbed or not, someone marched through here last night. I'll give you odds on that.”

Martha raised an ironic eyebrow, but she and the other employees fanned out to investigate. The cash register was checked, although no money ever remained from the day before. The safe appeared untouched, but Mr. Lawson would be the one to confirm that. Kenny and Martha then walked into the kitchen and examined the commercial refrigerator and freezer. Nothing appeared disturbed there either.

“We'll have to call the cops,” Kenny said. “And the boss. How to ruin your day off in one easy lesson.”

“Enough of the NPD will be here for breakfast the moment we unlock the door,” Martha wisecracked. “We'll describe the situation while they're wolfing down their hash and eggs. The boys and girls in blue always work better when their bellies are full.”

“It's our duty to report any suspicions of wrongdoing,” was Kenny's stern response. “Do you want to call nine-one-one, or should I?”

“Nothing's missing, Dr. K. Maybe it was only the wind last night—or the Ghost of Christmas Past.”

“The police should decide that.”

“Whatever you say, your majesty. Knock yourself out. As for me, I'm going to get that coffee brewing. It's never a pretty sight when these caffeine fiends turn rabid.”

“This is not a joking matter, Marth,” Kenny said in admonition.

“And facing a roomful of java-deprived cops who've spent all night on their ‘dogs' is?”

T
HE
break-in was duly reported, and the two police officers who responded to the call were then treated to Lawson's enormous breakfasts while several groups of regular patrons speculated as to the perpetrator and cause of the crime. As far as anyone could assess, nothing was missing, as Martha had asserted. The assumption was that Kenny's early arrival had forced the culprit to flee before completing whatever felony he or she had intended.

“All I can say,” Martha concluded as she poured a third round of coffee for a table of regulars, “is that whoever had the gall to break in wasn't from around here. There's nothing down in the basement but canned beans and coffee.”

“I'll bet you can find more to say if you put your mind to it,” one of her patrons quipped.

“You want your coffee in your cup or you want it in your lap?” was her swift response, but another of the group interrupted.

“What makes you think it had to be a stranger, Martha? We have our fair share of shifty folks right here in town.”

“Anyone who knows Newcastle knows that Kenny's a nut for punctuality. Come this summer, he will have been here for thirty years. Thirty years of arriving at half-past five, rain or snow or sleet or whatever other muck the Bay State throws at us … That's why I'm saying the perp wasn't a local. Plus, who'd mess with Dr. K.? The guy's six-foot-four, for Pete's sake. He might look and act like an emperor in disguise, but he's one tough hombre.”

W
HEN
the breakfast rush had died down and the official police visit had ended, Kenny left his post in the kitchen and ensconced himself at one of the banquette tables where Martha served him coffee and juice accompanied by a running account of that morning's news and gossip. This was their longstanding tradition, but this time Kenny didn't return her bantering tone. “Why are you always joking around?” he asked instead. “You can't laugh off every incident, you know. This could be a very severe situation.”