The Spellmans Strike Again (12 page)

When I dropped by Len and Christopher’s home, shortly after nine
P.M.,
the new valet was shining his shoes and laying out his clothes for the following day. Apparently, he had spent almost his entire salary to date on a new wardrobe. Christopher sat helplessly in a lounge chair and pretended to read a book, but I noticed that he didn’t turn a single page during my visit. Len answered the door (because that’s what he does), gave me a warm greeting, and then adjusted my collar and dusted some lint off my jacket.

“Isabel, a pleasure to see you,” Len said very politely, but still in character. I guess I had to see it in context—or rather out of context—to believe it.

“Okay, knock it off,” I said.

“Pardon me?”

“I never thought a day would come when I’d miss your Christopher Walken impression.”
¹

“Oh, Isabel, you’re so droll.”

I turned to his partner. “Make him stop!”

“You started it; you make him stop!” Christopher shouted back at me. Then he pretended to be reading his book again.

“I’m worried about you, Len,” I said.

“Darling, you mustn’t worry. I assure you I am perfectly well. Can I get you a cup of tea?”

“Yeah, you do that,” I replied, just to get him to leave the room.

I sat down next to Christopher on the couch. His glare was loaded with accusation.

“This is not all my fault,” I said. “Would you prefer he lounged around the house all day taking bubble baths and giving himself facials?”

“I’m undecided,” Christopher replied.

“What’s going on with him?” I asked.

“He hasn’t had a decent part in eight months.”

“Well, he’s only playing one of his parts. That’s the problem I’m having here.”

“You need to explain it better. It’s like
Victor Victoria.
”

“Huh?”

“Do not tell me you have never seen that classic. Julie Andrews, James Garner, a positively brilliant performance by Lesley Ann Warren.”

“Go ahead and list the entire credits—I’ve got all night—but I still don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I keep forgetting you’re a cultural retard.”

“It’s not a crime to miss a single film made in the sixties.”

“Eighties, darling. And sorry. I’m in a dreadful mood.”

“Was there a point you were going to make?” I asked.

“Yes. In
Victor Victoria,
Julie Andrews plays a woman pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman.”

“That makes no sense at all.”

“She plays a drag singer in an old nightclub.”

“I’m getting a headache.”

“Forget it,” Christopher said. “My point is, you didn’t emphasize to Len that he was an actor, playing a spy, playing a butler.”

“I thought ‘undercover butler’ explained enough.”

“You never gave him a backstory.”

“Oh my god. Can you do me a favor? I’ve had all of the actor-speak I can handle for one night. Discuss Len’s motivation with him and then give him this kit. Instructions enclosed. Tell him I want him to gather fingerprints of the entire staff—on the sly, if possible. I just want to make sure there are no surprises. Obviously, not the driver. Since we already know about him. Also, have Len get fingerprints from Mason’s bedroom. I doubt we’ll find anything, but it’s worth a try.”

Christopher’s face lit up when he got a glimpse of the fingerprinting kit.

“This looks like fun. Can I do it instead? I’ve always wanted to dust for fingerprints.”

“I don’t care who does it; just don’t send warning signals out to the rest of the staff. Don’t forget to label the prints. Okay?”

Len returned with the tea, served on a silver tray that was once Christopher’s grandmother’s. While our butler-channeling friend set out the teacups, I lost my appetite for Earl Grey.

I glanced at my watch for show and said that I had to run.

“Where?” Christopher asked suspiciously.

“I need to spend some quality time with Connor.”

“Of course,” Christopher replied, “because that one is definitely going to last.”

“Now I’m leaving for sure.”

“What a pity,” said Len, as Mr. Leonard.

“You’ll live,” I replied.

“Christopher, do you want cream and sugar or just cream?”

“I’d like a whiskey and soda.”

“Then why did I make tea?” Len asked with the patient understanding of a seasoned manservant.

Who says you can’t find good help these days? Christopher walked me to the door.

“What am I supposed to do about Jeeves here?”

From the doorway I watched Len clearing the tray, still in character.

“Perhaps he needs a taste of his own medicine,” I replied.

“QUALITY TIME”

I lied. I went straight home and back to work. I looked at Mason’s e-mails again and realized that there might be a way to at least track his general whereabouts. It was eleven
P.M
., but I phoned Robbie Gruber, Spellman Investigations’ tech support guy, since I knew he was awake and would be awake for hours.

“What?” Robbie said when he picked up the phone. That’s how he always answers the phone. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever heard Robbie say “hello.”

“Hi, Robbie. It’s Izzy.”

“I know that. What do you want?”

“Is there any way to track where an e-mail originated from?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“I’d need the e-mail headers.”

“How do I do that?” I asked.

“You don’t know?”

“That’s why I asked.”

“I’ll send you an e-mail with detailed instructions.”

“You can’t just tell me over the phone?”

“No. It will take too long to explain it to you and I don’t feel like talking anymore.”

Robbie hung up the phone. No good-bye. That’s another word I haven’t heard him use.

After my phone call with Robbie I went straight to bed. There was no point in staying up for Connor. Considering our schedule conflicts, it’s a miracle our relationship had lasted this long. Connor starts work at four
P.M
., doesn’t finish until three
A.M.
most nights, and sleeps until noon. I’m usually at the office by nine
A.M
. and out cold by midnight. We were together when I visited the bar after work, for a few hours in the morning on Saturday, and as for Sunday . . . well, Sunday was always decided by a coin-toss. If Connor won, I maimed the morning watching rugby and killed the afternoon drinking beer with stinky, sweaty, dirt-streaked men. When I won, I enjoyed quiet time at home, alone.

As you might imagine, the snippets of time Connor and I shared did not a relationship make. And when you toss in a hostile mother, dates with other men, constant sleep interruptions from both parties, and almost all communication happening in the privacy of a crowded bar, well, things were complicated. We needed more time together (and watching him play rugby is not time together, as I have explained again and again) and since I’m always thinking about my revenge on Harkey, I decided that bringing Connor into my Harkey investigation was a good idea for everyone. Except maybe Connor and Harkey. I had to admit that Connor tried to be a good sport about the whole thing. But when he realized that surveillance was sort of like sitting on a couch and watching TV together, only the television show was really bad and you couldn’t tear your eyes away from the set, he lost interest in the endeavor. As with all surveillance neophytes, the first time is always the best; Connor had finally reached his boredom threshold.

The following day, Ex #12 and I were parked together in my car, watching Jim Atherton watching Marco Pileggi, but Connor was trying to get a football game on the radio.

CONNOR
: I could be watching football right now, if I weren’t doing this.

ISABEL
: But then we’d almost never see each other.

CONNOR
: Are you coming to my game on Sunday?

ISABEL
: Maybe. How many points is Declan offering?

CONNOR
: Ya can’t bet against me again.

ISABEL
: There’s no room for sentiment in wagers.

CONNOR
: There’s no bloody balance to this relationship, Isabel. I come on a bloody boring job with you, I tape pieces of shredded paper together, I endure your family, I lose sleep, I get kicked in the middle of the night, and you get free drinks.

ISABEL
: I always say thank you and sometimes I even tip.

CONNOR
: It’s time to take a stand, Isabel. I have a few precious hours a day away from the bar; I’m not spending them sitting in a car, taking pictures of people with neck braces. I’m sorry, Izzy. But I quit.

Once again, I was alone in my quest to take down Harkey.

RULE #31—
VACATE RESIDENCE
EVERY WEDNESDAY

AUTHOR: MOM AND DAD
VETOES: (N/A)

I assumed there was a logical explanation, like maybe the house was being painted or fumigated, but no, the rationale was far more warped.

“Rae, did you pack your overnight bag?” Mom asked.

“You were serious about that?” Rae replied.

“Yes, you’ll be spending the night at David’s.”

“I don’t get it,” Rae replied.

“Just pack your bag or you’ll be late for school.”

“I won’t step foot out this door until everyone has their shirt on,” Rae said as she passed Dad on her way out of the office.

Our shirts were laid out on our desks. We didn’t argue, since there wasn’t any point. We all simply donned our
FREE SCHMIDT!
uniforms and continued the conversation.

“Somebody better start talking,” I said. “You need the house vacated for twenty-four hours why?”

“Once a week. Twenty-four hours. No one enters or exits,” Dad said.

“Well, we do,” my mom added, correcting him.

“You and Rae need to stay out,” Dad explained, explaining nothing.

“I’m still waiting for the details, please,” I said.

“One day, when we’re retired and the house is empty, we need to know that we can handle it,” Mom said.

“We’re doing a test run once a week,” said Dad.

“Huh?”

“Because if we can’t handle it, we need to be prepared,” Mom chimed in.

“Maybe get a dog or a foreign exchange student,” Dad suggested.

“I’m vetoing the foreign exchange student idea right now,” Mom said.

I tried to steer the conversation back to some semblance of rationality: “So, you’re just kicking us out so you can see what it’s like to be alone? Is that what I’m hearing?”

“In a nutshell,” Dad replied.

“Why don’t you take a freakin’ vacation like normal people?”

“Vacations are different,” my mom said.

“And we don’t actually like them so much,” Dad continued.

“We need to see what it’s like to be home alone together with no distractions,” said Mom.

“And face it,” Dad said. “You are all really distracting.”

Rae resurfaced with a more voluminous backpack.

“What did I miss?” she asked.

“Mom and Dad need some quality time together, so we have to vacate the house for twenty-four hours every Wednesday at eight
A.M.
until Thursday same time.”

“Why can’t you have quality time while I’m here?”

There was a brief pause, which filled Rae’s head with probably the wrong idea.

“
Oh my god.
I’m going to be sick!” she shouted, and ran for the front door. “Izzy, drive me to school now!”

My father calmly bellowed to my sister, “It’s not what you think, Rae.”

A very loud “La la la la” was the only reply he got.

I gathered any work-related items I might need and said, “I’ll be taking wagers on which one of you snaps first. Send me a text message if you want in.”

In my car Rae took a few soothing breaths to clear her mind. Then she shivered and shook her head and made this noise that sounded like she was trying to cough up a hairball.

As I drove her to school, I fished for a few pieces of information. I hadn’t had time to go fishing in a while.

“How’s everything going with Maggie?”

“We’re killing ourselves on the Schmidt case. We could use some help.”

“I’m asking about Maggie as a person, not Maggie the lawyer.”

“The two are closely connected,” Rae replied.

“Listen, all I want to know is how things seem between Maggie and David.”

“Great, as far as I can tell. He drops by the office all the time. They have lunch a lot. He’s brought her flowers once or twice, and candy. I ate most of it, though. He went to that candy store off of Polk. Their licorice is really good. Not stale like you get at the movies or the drugstore.”

“Tell me about your boyfriend,” I asked.

“He’s an excellent driver,” Rae replied.

“Is that his best quality?” I asked.

Rae ignored my question and said, “His car is in the shop. You need to pick me up from school this afternoon.”

“Is there a bus strike that I don’t know about?”

“Izzy, please don’t make me threaten you. Just pick me up from school and everything will be cool.”

“When was the last time you were actually on a bus?” I asked.

“Can’t recall.”

“It’s been
that
long?”

“I’ll see you at four,” Rae quickly replied, as if she were trying to change the subject.

Resisting the urge to lecture Rae on the benefits of public transportation, I suddenly had a feeling that I had missed a key moment in Rae’s history.

“Did something happen to you?” I asked.

Rae ignored the question and jumped out of the car, but the look on her face after the query was all I needed to know.
Something
had happened.

I circled Rae’s school, searching for Logan’s car, just to be sure. I couldn’t locate the car, but Logan was easy to spot, in his preppy-boy clothes chatting with a carbon copy of himself (albeit with a sloppier haircut) around the corner of the school entrance. I pulled my car over to the side and grabbed my binoculars from the glove compartment and watched their exchange, hoping for some kind of vague insight. It never occurred to me that the insight I’d acquire would be so specific.