Geared for the Grave (A Cycle Path Mystery) (18 page)

I
wanted to think I was getting better at climbing the death steps, but in truth they kicked my butt every time. All the locals around here must have the constitutions of rhinoceroses. Moonlight lit the bluff, a few carriages were out and about, one pulling up beside me. Fiona leaned down and gave me a closer look. “Evie? If you had pointy ears, you’d look like Catwoman. Holy cow, dressed like that, you’re up to something.” She jumped from the cart, then glanced at SeeFar. “You’re sneaking around there? Why? Not that I’m complaining.” Fiona’s eyes danced with excitement.

Great! Fiona’s investigative reporter radar was on full alert. There was no getting rid of her now. “I saved Angelo’s Meatball and he’s helping me sneak into Bourne’s house. I think maybe someone paid Bourne to knock off Bunny,”

“Bourne? Angelo? Meatball? This gets better and better.”

“Let’s hope Angelo thinks so.” Fiona tied her horse and cart to a bench and we tiptoed around to the back of SeeFar. Angelo was waiting by the door in a black suit, white shirt, yellow silk tie and matching handkerchief in his breast pocket. Uh-oh. Breaking and entering goes
GQ
?

“I can’t make it tonight,” Angelo said to me. “Rosetta wants to go dancing at the Grand. I told her I had business, but she’s not buying it. Said we were retired and she didn’t take all those Author Murray classes for nothin’, and who the heck is this?”

“Fiona. She runs the
Town Crier
.”

“You brought along a reporter?”

“It’s Mackinac, she only reports on things that smile, and what do we do now that you’re going dancing? I got Bourne out of the house and everything. Can’t you go dancing another night?”

“When my sister sets her mind to something, it happens. I’ll show you and the reporter here how to get in on your own. I did a little walk around that Bourne guy’s place and got some ideas. The front door has a motion-detector light, so that’s not gonna work. The back door has another one, and a keypad lock, making it a little tricky for a beginner, but there’s a porch on the second floor. You can go in there, piece of cake. ”

“What if our piece of cake is equipped with an alarm system?” Fiona asked, and I added, “I can’t get arrested; I’m already the black sheep of my family.”

“Hey, every family needs a black sheep,” Angelo said. “But this place won’t have an alarm that’s hotwired to the cops or some agency. If Bourne’s who you think, the last thing he wants is the law showing up. He’s probably living off his reputation. Ya know, like what kind of idiot would break into a hit man’s house?”

“Can’t imagine,” Fiona said, grinning ear to ear.

“The porch lock is one of those fancy bio-matic fingerprint locks that get so much press,” Angelo said. “They look techy, but lucky for us it’s a piece of junk and opens with a pass code and a hidden place for a key. The key’s your in. I’ll give you a crash course in lock-picking.”

“A course in lock picking!” Fiona hugged Angelo and I asked him, “How can you tell all this lock stuff by just looking at it from down on the ground?”

“A decent pair of binoculars. It’s the family business.” Angelo looked to Fiona. “Don’t print that.” He handed her a pen flashlight, then slid a thin leather wallet from his breast pocket and flipped it open to—

“Dental tools?” I asked.

“That would work too.” He took a long, thin, pointy thing from the pouch and then something shaped like an L. He stuck the L into the lock on his door. “We’ll practice. This is a tension wrench; it holds the cylinder in place. Turn it just a little bit.”

He put long pointy into the lock. “They call this a hook pick. There’re pins holding the lock in place so you can’t open the door. This pushes the pins up and out of the way. When they spring back down, they land on the cylinder ’cause you turned it. Turn the cylinder the rest of the way like you would a key, and bingo.”

“We are so going to hell,” I whispered.

“And it’s so worth it,” Fiona gushed.

Angelo handed me the tools. “Bobby pins, nail file or a paperclip work too if you were in a pinch, but these do a better job. Feel for pins,” he said to me as I stuck in the wrench then the pick.

I fished around and there was a snap. Angelo ruffled my hair. “You got it. You’re a natural. I’ll give you two a boost up to the porch, then I gotta go rumba.”

We crept across the neighbor’s yard, hopped a little iron fence and wound up in the back of JB’s place. No lights were on there, leaving the yard black as a tomb—bad choice of words. Angelo made a cup with his hands. “Try not to get my suit dirty. You can drop back down into the shrubbery when you want out. Make sure to lock the place up and put everything back the way you found it.”

More landing in the bushes; my life was not improving. Up I went, grabbing the wood railing, then pulling myself over, falling headfirst with a hard thump.

“Shh,” Angelo hissed from below as he boosted Fiona.

I peered over the edge and gave a thumbs-up.

“There could be cameras,” he stage-whispered as he started back to his house. “You never know about these hit man types; they’re a whacko bunch. Keep your head down low so they don’t see your face, and slouch—that hides how tall you are. Oh, and hunt around for a hidden room. Hit men keep their ammo out of sight. Otherwise it freaks the pizza delivery guys when they come. One look at an assault rifle and you can kiss your pepperoni with extra cheese good-bye.”

Angelo faded into the night, and Fiona turned to me, eyes huge. “Cameras? Ammo? Hidden room? How’d I get so lucky?”

“I came to town and Bunny croaked.” It took me twice as long to do the
piece of cake
lock as it had taken to do Angelo’s, but I finally turned the cylinder and clicked the door open. Fiona gave me a high-five. “You know,” I said, “we really are going to hell for this.”

“Yeah, but right now life is sweet. We’re in Jason Bourne’s hallway.”

We crawled to an open door that was obviously JB’s room. The bed wasn’t made and clothes were flung across a chair. No desk; a dresser with the usual array of clothes; and a nightstand with Tylenol PM, Tums and a smiley-face stress-relief ball.

“Looks like being a hit man isn’t all flowers and sunshine,” Fiona whispered.

We scooted to the next door. “It’s locked,” Fiona said, turning the knob. “It’s one of those old door locks like in the Disney version of Cinderella.”

“Except there aren’t any cute little mice headed my way with a key to save the day.” I stuck the wrench tool in the lock and fished around till it caught on something, then I gave a hard turn, but it slipped. I tried again then again with no luck.

“We’re wasting time.” Fiona said and started downstairs. I kept the flashlight aimed at the floor and away from the big windows that offered a killer view of the night harbor and Mackinaw Bridge.

The dining room held a table, a hutch, six chairs and a layer of dust. Across the hall in the living room, the red coals of a smoldering fire offered the only light, with a box of logs sitting right in front. My flashlight reflected off a silver briefcase by the couch, handcuffs dangling off the side. “It’s
the
briefcase,” Fiona gasped. “Open it.”

“
You
open it.”

“Looks like it has a combination lock, and Angelo didn’t cover that in Lock-Picking, the Beginner Class. What are we looking for again?”

“Bourne’s client list, something that says somebody paid him a bundle to knock off Bunny, and my guess is it’s in that locked room.” Shaking with fear, disappointment and the sinking feeling I was getting nowhere fast in finding the real killer, I slunk over to the hearth to get warm and to try and come up with at least one good idea, since I hadn’t had any in a really long time. I reached for a log from the box to add to the fire and kick up the heat, then stopped dead. That
four-poster bed with moonlight and the chickie and delish dude
book was right there in front of me.

“What?” Fiona asked coming up beside me.

“It’s Lovelace books from Dwight’s yard sale. I recognize the L.L.Bean box they were packed in.”

“A half-burned copy of
The
Duke’s Decadent Proposal
’s smoldering here in the fireplace. I’ve read this one. My guess is it caught fire all by itself.” Fiona fanned herself with her hand. “There’s a bedroom scene on page—”

“Why would a hit man burn books? Why
these
books? I get that romance is not everyone’s cup of tea, but setting them on fire seems a little extreme, don’t you think?” I picked up
The Secret Diary of Miss Collette
and photos of a man in a brown leather jacket, bad mustache and fedora who had a silver briefcase cuffed to his wrist fell to the floor.

“It’s Bourne in disguise coming out of an office building, or maybe going in—hard to tell,” Fiona picked up the pictures. “It’s some contemporary building with big glass doors and windows all across the front.” She passed me the photo with the 375 address in silver numbers over the entrance. “375 where?” I asked. “The building has a big-city feel, but why is this photo of Jason Bourne and this particular building important? Why would someone take it?”

“Why put it in a box headed for the fire,” Fiona added. “Bourne wanted it destroyed, not just tossed in the trash.

I pulled out Sheldon and snapped pictures of the pictures, then emailed them to myself as a key turned in the front door. Fiona’s eyes covered half her face and my heart dropped to my toes.

T
he front door opened, and Fiona hunkered down beside the couch, pulling me with her. Humming, Bourne walked into the living room and stood by the hearth. Humming was good, right? People didn’t kill people if they were happy—unless killing was their job, and they really liked their job.

He put a pink Blarney Scone bag on a little table by an overstuffed chair, and instead of turning Fiona and me into worm food, he picked a book out of the box. He heaved a sigh, tore out some pages and tossed them onto the hot embers, which burst into a soft yellow glow. He added more books, crumbled the photos and added the pieces to the blaze.

He headed for the bookshelf and fiddled with something there, then opera filled the room. He started for the kitchen and I followed Fiona to the steps, swiping a blueberry scone from the little pink bag along the way. Four scones or three—JB would never know the difference, and we needed to get something positive out of this evening.

Following Fiona, we tiptoed up the steps, timing footfalls with the loudest opera shrieks. I split the sugary scone in two, handed half to Fiona then reset the lock and closed the door behind me. We climbed over the railing and landed in the bushes, staying put for a few minutes to finish off the pastry and to see if bodies falling from the second floor happened to have caught Bourne’s attention. When nothing happened, I thanked Puccini or Verdi or whoever had penned the opera bellowing inside, and we made a dash for the street. We climbed in Fiona’s cart, neither of us saying a word for a full minute. “Gee, that was fun,” I finally managed.

“You bet it was,” Fiona agreed, and meant every word. “We need to get in that locked room. The question is how?”

Fiona dropped me at the shop, retrieved her bottle of That’s Berry Daring nail polish and took off to finish up an editorial piece for the
Crier
. I checked in on Rudy, who was still zonked in the La-Z-Boy. I’d seen my share of hangovers, but fudge hangovers were something else. I got my laptop from my room, hoped it had some juice left and headed for the Pink Pony for free Wi-Fi and some fried green beans. The bar was packed, and a guitar player was warbling on about Alabama being his sweet home.

I found a stool at the end of the bar behind the cash register and away from the turmoil. I ordered a beer and beans and pulled up Google Images. Dropping in the picture of Bourne and the glass office building, I did a search by image. This works great for well-known stuff, like pinpointing the location of Machu Picchu or the Washington Monument, but this office building was pretty obscure, and—holy cow, it worked! Smooches to Google. Bless the guys who rode around with those cameras strapped to the hoods of their cars. I wondered if the island had cameras strapped to the backs of some horses. They should!

Bourne’s 375 office building was on Hudson Street in New York City, and that it was designed by some famous architect gave it notoriety. My beans came and I munched, staring at the picture trying to think what it meant, and it meant something or Bunny wouldn’t have had pictures of it.

“Moving up in the world?” came Sutter’s voice from behind me. He pointed to the computer, getting my attention there, then snagging a fried bean. I quickly closed my computer. Sutter flipped it back open, bought the guy on the next stool a beer, making sure he saw the police patch on his Windbreaker, then politely asking him to move.

“Surprised you don’t have some fancy iPad.” He took another green bean.

“Not enough kick for the software I use in my job,” I said, trying to get his attention onto something else. I sure didn’t want to tell Sutter how I got this photo. “So, what do you do back in Detroit?” I asked Sutter.

I got the
duh
look.

“Right, you’re a cop with a three-month vacation. I think I want your job.” The Pink Pony was bar-loud, and Sutter leaned closer, his woodsy scent of soap and aftershave washing over me. Little shower droplets still clung to his hair, there was a light scruff across his jaw and his brown eyes were intense—always intense—and my heart skipped two beats, then kicked into overdrive.

“You need to laugh more,” I said, wanting to somehow get my mind off scruff, eyes and overdrive.

“I was working on it, then you showed up. Why are you collecting pictures of Jason Bourne in New York?”

“Why are you hiding out on Mackinac Island?”

“Who says I’m hiding out?”

“Only Congress gets three months off with pay.”

“Where’d you get this picture?” He nodded to the screen and snatched another bean.

The thing with spilling my guts to Sutter is he could shut me down before I could put this all together. On the other hand, he thought like a cop and knew how bad guys operated. I thought like a designer and knew how to sell soap, cars and soft drinks. “Bunny had it mixed in with some books that Bourne bought at Dwight’s yard sale. What I don’t get is why Bunny would care that Bourne was at this particular New York location—and how did she get the picture in the first place?”

“Who’s in the building?” Sutter snagged another bean. “Unless you think JB was there to admire the architecture, he was there because of someone inside.”

I did a search on the tenants. “This one’s a high-end advertising firm; I recognize the name. And there’s a publishing house. The books!” I Googled
The Highwayman’s Revenge
. “This publisher puts out the Lovelace romance books. They’re hot, steamy sexy books about delicious guys with . . . with black hair who need a shave and smell like . . .” I looked at Sutter, my insides on fire.

“Okay, so you got a picture of Bourne outside a building where there’s a publisher.”

“What building?”

Sutter took my beer. “How many of these did you have?”

I grabbed my beer back.
Get a grip, Bloomfield.
“Bourne was burning a box of Lovelace books, and he burned the pictures too. Why would he do that?”

“How do you know about the burning?”

“A little bird told me.”

Sutter leaned closer still, his breath hot on my face. “How did you get into his house?” His eyes shot wide open. “Angelo?”

“I saved his dog, and Angelo pays his debts. He makes great hot chocolate.”

“You’re breaking into a hit man’s house and consorting with the mob.”

“Define
consorting
.” Sutter closed his eyes and muttered some creative expletives. I closed my computer and slid off the stool. Then I ran for the door to get away form Sutter—and for more reasons than one.

*   *   *

Rudy slept in,
least that was my guess, because he wasn’t outside the next morning being Twain, and I sure wasn’t checking out his whereabouts after the little surprise party at Irma’s. Without Rudy/Twain to pull off our tourist attraction, I had to improvise. I shrugged into jeans, got the straw hat Rudy used when fixing the door hinge and went for the Tom Sawyer effect on my own.

I rented out a handful of bikes and sold off the rest of the trail mix. A few kids gave painting the fence a try, but I was no match for Rudy’s stories. By noon the trim on the shop was bright white, setting off the beach-baby blue, and I added a curly frame around the kids’ heights so it looked like a picture and did a sketch of Rudy on his rocker next to it. The shop wasn’t exactly the Taj Mahal, but it didn’t look bad.

“Is that supposed to be me?” Rudy said as he stumbled out of the shop, coffee cup in hand, eyes squinting against the sun, ice pack strapped to his head with a belt.

“It’s a caricature of you as Twain. I even put in Bambino and Cleveland. Are you okay?”

Donna and Paddy plodded up to the curb. “Saints above,” Donna said to Rudy. “You be looking like death warmed over and served on a platter. You’re in no condition to be riding with Paddy and me out to the freight docks to check on me new oven and pick up those bikes for Ed that finally made it here.”

Rudy leaned heavy on his crutch. “Don’t know how I got this way. Yesterday I started off feeling really good after eating a few pieces of Irma’s herbal fudge, then switched to the fudge with booze, and
bam
, it hit me like a ton of bricks. Bad combination. Worst headache ever.”

“I’ll just be bringing Chicago with me, paint and all,” Donna said. “It’s getting to be we wouldn’t recognize her any other way, though the blue was a bit more becoming than the white. Makes you look sickly, dear.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” I climbed in the buggy, Rudy handed me a screwdriver to attach the seat and the pedals to Ed’s bikes so I could drop them at Ed’s boat on the way back then Irish Donna, Paddy and I plodded out of town. Main Street was congested this time of day. Well, it was as congested as it ever got in this part of the world, moving at horsey and bicycle pace. We rounded Mission Point, where fudgies played croquet and tennis and sat in white Adirondack chairs looking out at the sparkling, sun-splashed water. The road circled around the whole island for eight miles, no GPS needed—you wound up where you started. Hiking or biking the interior paths got more complicated, not many signs and you never knew where you’d wind up.

“Now we can get to talking,” Donna said as we left the crowds behind. Main Street turned into Lake Shore Boulevard with sandy beaches on one side and straight-up cliffs on the other. “How did it go at Bourne’s place? There be any skeletons in the closet for real? I kept stuffing scones and tea down the man’s throat best I could to buy you some time I did.”

“He got back to his house while Fiona and I were still there.”

“Fiona?”

“We get around.”

“Holy Saint Patrick!” Hand to heart, Donna flopped back against the carriage seat. “And ye lived to tell about it? ’Tis the luck of me shamrock that’s keeping you alive these days, it is.”

I pulled out Sheldon and showed Donna the photo of Bourne by the glass building. “It’s in New York City, and Bunny had this photo in with some Lovelace books that Bourne stole from Dwight’s yard sale. He was burning them. Can you think of any connection between Bunny, a New York publisher and a hit man?”

“Sounds like a title of a mighty bad book, it does. Bunny worked on her snooty family history for years and went to New York more than once to try and sell the piece of malarkey. She made a big deal out of it, not that it ever amounted to much. Maybe she came across Bourne when she was there and snapped his picture?”

“New York isn’t Mackinac Island. Bunny and Bourne showing up at the same place at the same time is too much of a coincidence. Whatever got them there, it was a planned event.” I sucked in a quick breath. “Good grief. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“That Bourne’s mustache looks like a dead caterpillar these days? The man’s in need of an overhaul, he is. Think there’s a hit man magazine he can take a look at?”

“That Bunny was Bourne’s target. He knew she was going to New York to try and sell her book, and he followed her to this publisher.”

“Faith and begorra!”