Murder Miscalculated (22 page)

I laughed and clapped him on the shoulder.

“But,” asked Lynn, “those are all computerized. Can’t they simply print another?”

Cochran shook his head. “They would have to ask the judge to sign it again, and with James LeCuyer’s statement exonerating Barbara, there’s not much chance of that.”

Our uproarious laughter filled the back room of The Book Nook. The sound of it brought Old Tom from the front of the store to see what the commotion was. He stared at the sight of a saucepan on the table with a burning piece of paper in it.

Tom adjusted his wireframe glasses. “I suppose there’s a rational reason behind all this?”

“Absolutely,” I answered, straight faced. “We are celebrating Agent Cochran’s graduation from Pickpocket University.”

Dinner was a bittersweet affair that night. Max stumped into the back room, leaning on his walking stick, with Candy on one arm and April on the other. He accepted my offer of a chair and lowered himself into it, wincing a little as he did.

“It’s a real shame about that Joey fellow,” he said, “but he saved your lives, and we shall hoist a brew in his honor.”

I got the hint and fetched a bottle of beer from the refrigerator and a glass from the cupboard and put them on the table in front of him.

“Thanks, Kid,” he said, opening the bottle and pouring beer into the glass. He waited for the foam to subside and then lifted the glass. “Here’s to Joey, a good man.” He took a long pull from the glass. Duty done, he set the glass down. He leaned back in his chair and let his eyes wander around the kitchen. “I’m going to miss this place, Kid. I hope you don’t mind if I stop in again the next time I’m in the area.”

I told him that was fine, and I meant it. Max had his rough edges, but I’d grown to enjoy his company.

“The fact is I’m already planning my next book. It’s going to be set in Monterey in 1948, and it is going to tell the true story of what happened to Doc Ricketts. I’m kind of thinking that it might involve a pickpocket, so I may need to consult you, if you don’t mind.”

I assured Max I’d be available for such a consultation.

Junior strolled into the back room a few minutes later, and Max scooped him up. “I’m going to miss you, too, you handsome devil,” he said as he scratched the top of Junior’s head. Junior closed his eyes and purred in reply.

April Quist spoke up. “I’ve got an announcement of my own.”

We turned our attention to her.

She looked down at the table, gathered her courage and raised her eyes to us. “I’m quitting my job as event coordinator for Max,” she said. “I’m going to write a book, too.”

“And it’s about damn time,” said Max. “Haven’t I been telling you that you’re wasting your time trying to keep an old goat like me on schedule?”

“What’s the book about?” I asked.

April laughed. “Ask Lynn.”

“April, with help from Candy and me, has gotten a job as a dancer at The Pink Poodle,” Lynn said with a smile. “Her book is going to be about the life of a stripper. I’m helping her learn the routines. I think she’ll do fine, and I also think it’s about time someone wrote about all the stuff women like Candy and me have had to go through.”

April grinned. “Max’s editor has already agreed to look at the book when it’s ready.”

Everyone at the table applauded.

“Max, how are you going to replace her?” I asked.

“Already taken care of,” he said, looking over his shoulder at Candy. “Miss Candy here has agreed to take on that job. It turns out she’s got contacts all over the country.”

Candy nodded. “That’s right,” she said. “I figure it’s long past time for me to make use of a life spent on the road. Besides, someone’s got to keep an eye on Max.”

“That’s not the only job she’s taking on,” said Max. He reached up over his shoulder and took Candy’s hand. “You tell them, Doll.”

Candy blushed. “Max and I are getting married.”

Naturally, that was cause for more bottles to be opened, drinks poured and toasts made. April got out her camera and took pictures. One of my favorite photographs to this day is from that evening. It shows Max sitting at the table with Candy on his lap and Junior on her lap. She has one arm around Max’s shoulders. Barbara is standing to one side, and Lynn and I are on the other, and we are all holding our glasses up as a toast is made. Someone, probably Max, had just told a joke, and our faces are lit with laughter and love.

Cochran called my cell phone at ten o’clock the next morning.

“Hi, Kid. Can you, Barbara and Lynn meet me for coffee in an hour? I guarantee it will be worth your time for all three of you.”

I doubted the others would agree. I certainly wasn’t interested in budging from the store. We were all pretty wiped out by the events of the past few days.

We were in the kitchen. I put my hand over the phone and told Lynn and Barbara what he wanted.

“Where?” ask Lynn, ever the practical one.

I asked him. It was one of those chain coffee shops that have become ubiquitous throughout the country. Lynn and Barbara shook their heads, but Cochran was insistent, and we gave in.

We made a quick check to see that we were reasonably presentable and piled into Lynn’s car. Barbara let me sit up front with Lynn. It was almost like a luxury for me.

We parked on a side street, and a minute later we arrived at the coffee shop.

“Look,” said Barbara, pointing into the shop’s front window. “There’s Agent Cochran. He’s waving to us.” She waved back at Cochran.

Lynn and I didn’t pay attention. Our eyes were focused on the building across the street. I had thought the address of the coffee shop sounded familiar. Now I knew why.

The coffee shop was directly across the street from The Empire Room. In a flash I had an idea why Cochran wanted us there. I stole a glance at Lynn. The brightness of her smile told me she had figured it out, as well.

We went inside and joined Cochran at the counter.

“My treat,” he said. Barbara ordered Chamomile tea. Lynn asked for a cappuccino. I decided to go all out and ordered what I call a candy-bar-in-a-cup. That’s one of those crushed ice and coffee drinks with caramel swirled in. Lynn heard me order it and patted my stomach. I ignored her. Cochran ordered a simple black coffee.

It took a few minutes for us to receive our drinks with mine taking the longest. Cochran kept looking at his watch and out the front door. As soon as I had my drink, he hustled us out the door and onto the sidewalk.

“Now what?” I asked as I sipped my drink.

Cochran grinned and pointed down the street. As if on cue, a large black SUV and a city police car came into view. They drove fast and seconds later screeched to a stop in front of The Empire Room. A second police car arrived from the other direction. Traffic on the street came to a stop, and a small crowd formed quickly with everyone, like us, watching the show.

Four people in suits, two women and two men, climbed out of the SUV. One of them was talking on a cell phone. They were joined by uniformed police officers, six of them, from the patrol cars. They huddled for a minute and then streamed up the steps and into The Empire Room.

I thought about how Lynn and I had run down those steps only days before, Lynn carrying her spiked heels and wearing that silly outfit with her blonde wig falling off. I think Lynn sensed what I was thinking, because when I gave her a grin, she poked me. But she was smiling, too.

Several minutes ticked by. Some of the pedestrians who had stopped to watch the action gave up and left, but word must have gotten out on the street that something was happening, as the crowd continued to grow. I recognized several pickpockets who’d run afoul of Doris, as well as a fence or two, plus a handful of panhandlers, street preachers and others who live on the margin of society. Even Molly Munn showed up with her cart. A pair of traffic cops routed cars around the stopped police cars and the FBI’s SUV.

The four of us kept our eyes on the doors of The Empire Room and sipped our drinks. We didn’t mind waiting. A paddy wagon drove up the street and parked directly in front. A jail warden got out of the passenger seat and opened the doors in the back.

At last the doors to The Empire Room swung open. The first to emerge were three of Doris’s crew. I saw Jeremy and Chad among them. Their hands were handcuffed in front of them. Jeremy was easy to spot by the cast on his wrist and Chad by the bandage on his head. They were led by uniformed officers and put into the paddy wagon. Lynn took my hand, and I squeezed hers in return.

Finally the big moment came. Doris Whitaker was brought out of The Empire Room and down the broad steps. A small crowd of well-dressed men and women followed behind her, diners in The Empire Room who had been startled and confused by the forcible removal of one of their most revered fellow diners. Several tagged along with Doris’s escorts, obviously protesting their actions. People in the crowd began holding up their cell phones and snapping pictures.

Someone in the crowd called out her name. “Hey, Doris! Look over here.”

Someone else called, “Hey, Doris, smile for the camera!”

The two women FBI agents and two policewomen escorted her down the stairs. Her wrists were in handcuffs, and when I saw her shuffling walk, I realized she was wearing shackles on her ankles, as well.

Doris Whitaker was a mess. Her carefully coifed hair was in disarray, the thick makeup on her face was smeared, and her fashionable dress had ridden up behind her, exposing the backs of her legs.

Her cultivated looks were not all that Doris lost that morning. She snarled at the crowd and cursed them, the police and the FBI. Then she caught sight of us across the street. Her shouts became incoherent shrieks as she called us every name in the book and then some. The crowd noticed at whom she was directing her wrath, and I began to think we should withdraw back into the coffee shop.

Before I could suggest it, Barbara stepped off the sidewalk, crossed the street and headed straight toward Doris. Barbara was a tiny woman in stature, but as she crossed the street she was like nothing less than an avenging angel.

As one, Cochran, Lynn and I started after her and caught up to her just as she reached Doris. Barbara placed herself directly in Doris’s path. The policewomen and FBI agents didn’t seem to know what to do with the force of nature that is Barbara when she is angry.

The watching crowd, sensing something unusual was happening, grew quiet. Barbara addressed Doris in a voice razor sharp and twice as cutting.

“Doris Whitaker, you painted hussy. You have been a blight on this city far too long. I knew you forty years ago when you were a cheap tart who shamed our sex when you hustled tricks on Broadway.” Doris’s face reddened. Barbara continued, listing every one of Doris’s sins for all to hear and stripping her of every pretense of respectability.

The crowd around us listened in rapt attention. Her fellow customers of The Empire Room, hearing Barbara’s litany of Doris’s crimes, began edging away, reconsidering their show of public support. At the height of his legendary speaking skills, Daniel Webster could not have delivered a more damning speech.

“I don’t know what kind of sentence you are going to receive or to what prison they will send you, Doris Whitaker,” Barbara finished as her eyes flashed with anger, “but should some day in the future you be released from jail, don’t you dare return to sully the air of our city again. So help me, if you do …” and here Barbara raised her hand as if to slap her. Doris recoiled, all her pride and fight withered away under Barbara’s scolding.

I stepped forward to stop her, but Barbara lowered her hand. “Don’t worry, Doris,” she said in a glacial voice. “I wouldn’t stain my hand by touching that cheap, painted face of yours.” She turned her back on Doris and walked back to where Lynn and I were standing.

Lynn began to clap, Cochran joined her, and then so did I. Others picked up the applause, and pretty soon the whole crowd was applauding, cheering Barbara and bidding good riddance to Doris.

Barbara linked her arms with Lynn and me. “Come along, you two,” she said with a happy smile. “Let’s go home.”

I suppose Doris was put into the paddy wagon and taken off to jail. I wouldn’t know. We never looked back.

Andrew MacRae is a misplaced Midwesterner now living in California. He works in the high tech field and is the creator of the Virtual Globe Theatre, a model of Shakespeare's theater as it stood in 1599.

He has had several mystery and crime stories published as well as slipstream, historical stories and children's stories and poetry. His mystery novels,
Murder Misdirected
and
Murder Miscalculated,
are both published by Mainly Murder Press.

In his spare time Andrew leads a monthly folk music jam, hosts a monthly open mike, presents showings of classic movies, produces concerts and staged radio shows and serves on an historic architecture review board.

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For
more great mysteries from fresh, new authors visit
www.MainlyMurderPress.com

Sample of

by Andrew MacRae

Prologue

A nervous man sat in an anonymous coffee shop in the center of the city, the fingers of one hand drumming on his knee. It was early afternoon, and he had hours to kill before meeting his partner. Having betrayed his employer’s trust, he now understood a simple cruel truth, that trust betrayed for one is trust betrayed for all. Could he trust his partner? Did his partner trust him? The man took his hand from his knee and held it in front of him, trying to will it to cease its motion. He reached for his coffee, misjudged where it was and knocked over the paper cup. It was almost empty, and what spilled was easily wiped up with a paper napkin, yet the man saw it as a sign. He put the napkin down and looked at his hand again. It was still shaking. The man put his hand back under the table, where it found his knee, and his fingers began their drumming again.