One Fool At Least (The Madeline Mann Mysteries) Read online

  Jack peeked out the door, then beckoned me through. He took my crutches. I made much quicker work of hopping down than of hopping up; the only challenge was to keep from peeing in my pants.

  At the bottom of the stairs I heard voices; I sent a terrified look to Jack, and he yanked me into the dark cave underneath the porch. I had images of spiders in my hair as he lifted me into the womb of blackness, clutching my crutches in his other hand.

  A moment later the voices became figures, and they were climbing the stairs. “I’m telling you, it came from Finn’s place. And I don’t know how anyone could get in there.” It was the voice of Aidan Flanagan, and it didn’t sound at all friendly or approachable now.

  “I told you, that one day there was that cat that wandered in.” That was Colleen, sounding uncertain.

  “But you got the cat out, right?” Aidan said. “So why would we think it was a cat, Coll?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’m not messing around.” I heard the distinct sound of a gun being cocked; I wanted to cry out, but Jack’s hand squeezed mine tightly, warning me.

  The two of them disappeared into the apartment. I didn’t know how much time we had, but Jack seemed to think it was enough. He pushed me out and I started toward the back road, crutching for all I was worth. Jack was next to me, gliding effortlessly, his hand on my back, hurrying me. We blended in with the darkness soon enough, and when we reached our car we opened the doors silently and eased in.

  “God,” I said. “It’s like when I was a kid, playing hide and go seek. I always had to pee the instant I hid. The suspense killed me.”

  “Shh,” Jack said, trying to see the stairs. “Here they come. I can’t tell what they’re saying, or if they found anything.”

  “Can they see us?” I whispered.

  “No, not if we can barely see them. Oh, I take that back. Shit.”

  In an instant Jack had started the engine and barreled down the road. I stifled a scream of pure terror. Aidan had a gun. Enough people had been shot, I thought, for one honeymoon.

  Only when we were a mile away did Jack pull over to a dark shoulder and look at me. I was staring at the pines that lined the road, bending in a slight wind. “You okay?” he asked.

  I forced a smile. “The heart rate is slowing. What the hell did you break in there?”

  Jack looked rueful. “I thought I felt something behind his dresser. It had this attached mirror. I was trying to pull out whatever it was, and I guess someone had already loosened the mirror for moving. The whole damn thing fell. Some spy, huh?”

  “So what was it?”

  “What was what?” he asked, checking the rearview.

  “What was it that you felt behind the dresser? Anything?”

  “Oh,” Jack said, pulling back on the road. “Just this.” He pulled something out of his windbreaker and tossed it to me.

  I looked into my lap and saw Finn’s tin notebook, just before our car was illuminated by flashing red lights.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Jack swore under his breath and said “Hide it.”

  I shoved the notebook into my purse and moved toward Jack. “We’ll just say we wanted to take a romantic drive,” I said. “We’ll say we were making out on the side of the road.”

  “Right,” Jack said.

  We were back on the shoulder, waiting for the officer who walked toward us in the blue and red strobe of his Mars light. It was eerie, but somehow it wasn’t as frightening as standing under the porch and listening to Aidan Flanagan’s voice.

  To my surprise, Chief Roy Hendricks appeared at Jack’s window. “Evening,” he said. Our windows were down.

  “Good evening, Chief,” said Jack.

  “Hi, Chief Hendricks,” I piped brightly.

  He peered more closely. “I know you folks?” he asked.

  “We met at the restaurant today. At Monaghan’s,” I said, trying to sound like someone dumb enough to make that mistake.

  “Flanagan’s,” Jack corrected me, with just the right amount of indulgent lover in his voice.

  “Oh, right. Remember? We happened to be there when that tall man, that Ardmore, was shot. Jack and Madeline Shea.”

  “You’ve also been working with the highway patrol regarding Madeline’s kidnapping,” Jack said.

  “Right. What brings you folks out tonight?” he asked.

  “I asked Jack to take me for a drive. I wanted to see the stars. There seem to be so many more here. Back in Chicagoland, we can barely see them at all, and we forget to look up half the time anyway. It’s different here,” I babbled.

  “See any shooting stars?” he asked.

  Jack spoke before I could. “A couple. Not as many tonight as we generally do. I was a little disappointed for Maddy.”

  “You all have car trouble?” he asked, looking at me and smoothing his mustache. “I saw you pulled over.”

  I batted my lashes. “I asked Jack to pull over. I got a little overexcited. It’s our honeymoon, and—I just wanted to—you know. I didn’t want to wait until we got home.”

  Chief Hendricks took this in without a glimmer of a smile. “We had a break-in back in town. Were you in town at all?”

  Jack nodded. “We drove through, maybe about forty-five minutes ago. Just making up our route as we went along.”

  “See anything unusual?”

  Jack and I pretended to think about this. I said, “I have to confess, I wasn’t paying much attention to anything but Jack and the sky.” I made my voice sound quite dreamy.

  Hendricks started to look a little nauseous. I was guessing he wasn’t the romantic type. “You recovering all right from your incident, Mrs. Shea?” he asked.

  Jack’s jaw tightened. “She will be when you arrest Damian Wilde.”

  That Hendricks found funny. He chuckled, toeing the ground with his boot. “Mr. Shea, Damian Wilde wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

  Jack shook his head in disbelief. “No, but he’d be able to pay someone to hurt a fly. It was in his best interests to arrange a kidnapping. It just didn’t go as he planned. He put way too much confidence in those codgers.”

  Hendricks adjusted his utility belt, maybe to remind us of his gun. “With all respect, we’re not going to believe the lies of those two old farts against the word of Damian Wilde.”

  Jack glared at him for a moment. “If that’s all, Chief?” he said coldly.

  Hendricks looked at him, then looked at me. Eventually he stepped back from the car. “You all have a good evening, and a good vacation. You let us take care of the investigation. Have a good night now,” he said.

  Jack drove away, not bothering to wait until Hendricks returned to his car. “Prick,” he said.

  “God, Jack, I can’t take too many more surprises.”

  “We’ll be home soon.” His jaw was set again. He was getting that look in his eye, the one he’d had when he punched Wilde’s face. Then again, it was a pretty sexy look, I thought, edging closer.

  “Want to take another bath tonight?” I asked silkily.

  His dimple appeared. “Sounds nice.”

  When we pulled into our driveway, I was convinced we would face no more stresses that evening. When two silhouettes appeared at our window, I screamed.

  Slider’s voice said, “Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you. We heard the car, so we ran down. How did it go?” he asked. He and Molly were illuminated only by the distant glow of Pat’s landscape lights.

  I reached down to my purse, retrieved the notebook, and handed it to Slider and Molly. “Jack found it,” I said. “Behind Finn’s dresser. But he broke the mirror, and the cavalry was after us.”

  “Meaning Aidan and Colleen,” Jack said. “Aidan had a gun. Maddy and I had to run like fugitives.”

  “Oh, God,” Molly said. “Are you okay? Do they know it was you? Are we in trouble?”

  I laughed, opening my door. “I think we’re okay.”

  Slider was peering at the notebook in the dark. “God, after a
ll that, I hope this has something in it. Something that will help.”

  Jack slammed his door and walked around the jeep to help me out. “Get some sleep, you two,” he said. “We’ll sort through this tomorrow.”

  “Son of a bitch!” yelled a voice in the darkness. “Son of a bitch, I knew you were all a bunch of goddam liars!”

  Slider grabbed Molly and pulled her close to him, his head whipping back and forth to try and locate the speaker. Then he seemed to understand something, and his face, even in the darkness, registered pain. “Damn,” he said under his breath.

  Angelo Cardini materialized next to our Jeep, weaving slightly. From a distance of ten feet I could smell the liquor on his breath. “So, here is my son, safe and sound with the Sheas, just like I knew all along.”

  Slider shook his head, looking at his father. “The Sheas didn’t know where I was, Dad. I just came back today,” he lied. “I asked them not to call you.”

  Cardini looked confused. “Why the hell not? You can’t let your old man know you’re safe and sound? You can’t do me that courtesy? I’m over at the house, sitting on your bed, wondering where you are, looking at your damn baseball cards—” Cardini’s voice broke with convincing emotion. Drunken emotion, though.

  “Dad, it’s a long story, okay?”

  Cardini looked at him. “I’ve been worried. Worried for a month.”

  Slider shifted uncomfortably. “I’m sorry, Dad. I didn’t mean to worry you. I guess I thought—you wouldn’t notice that much.”

  Cardini had the grace to look guilty. “I’m trying to get the drinking under control. I was sober all day yesterday.”

  Even in the semi-darkness I could tell that Slider was embarrassed for his father. Love in families was difficult enough, I thought, without the complications of addiction. “We’ll talk about this tomorrow, Dad,” Slider said.

  “I suppose you’re staying here, then? With them?” he asked, sounding like a jealous child.

  “Yeah, Dad. I’ll come and see you tomorrow, and I’ll explain everything, okay? But you should be sober when we talk. So I need you to go sleep it off and then have some coffee in the morning, and I’ll come and see you.”

  “Fine,” Cardini said. He hesitated, wanting to say more, wanting to inflict pain with words. Obviously none sprang to mind, so he repeated, “Fine.” He stalked off into the darkness, and we heard the distant sound of a car door slamming.

  “He shouldn’t be driving,” Molly said.

  Slider nodded and ran after his father. He returned a short time later with car keys in his hand.

  “He’s going to walk. He’ll be okay. And tomorrow the whole town is going to know that I’m back, you can bet on that,” Slider said grimly. “And then whoever wants to take a shot at me will have an easy mark.”

  Molly pulled him back toward the house with a final wave at us. Slider’s words stayed with me even after their silhouettes had blended back into the night. The secret was out. Some predator out there would have a new, telling scent of his prey. I shivered in the gentle breeze.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Slider was right. In the morning I saw the police cars up at Pat’s house, as well as a car I thought I recognized as Damian Wilde’s. Jack and I ate breakfast while darting glances out the window, waiting for something to happen. Finally Jack, under the weight of too much suspense, dialed Pat’s number.

  “Hello. Molly? What’s up?” he asked. He listened then, running a hand through his wavy brown hair, still damp from a shower. He looked at me and shook his head, a disgusted look on his face. Finally he said his goodbyes to Molly and hung up.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Stranger than you’d imagine. Wilde managed to get there first and weasel Slider’s story out of him. Now Wilde is acting as sort of an advocate for the boy, against Hendricks, who is trying to make him feel like a criminal on the run.”

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake,” I said.

  “Meanwhile, none of them are focusing on the fact that Slider, Molly, maybe others, are still in danger from this lunatic.” Jack picked up the bread basket and threw it down again, scattering crumbs. His frustration was palpable.

  “What should we do?” I asked.

  “Do? Well…”

  “Finn’s diary!” I said.

  Jack nodded, relieved. “Let’s go up and get it from Slider. See if it points us in any one direction.”

  “OH!” I said. “Jack, grab my jeans, the ones I was wearing last night.”

  “Where are they?”

  “I don’t know! Where were we when you took them off of me?”

  Jack grinned momentarily, remembering the moment. “Upstairs,” he said, and he jogged away. He wore cut-offs today with a green T-shirt that said “Glacier National Park.” He called from the loft.

  “Do you want them?”

  “Just get the thing out of the pocket. It’s a sticky note that I found under Finn’s stove.”

  Jack re-appeared, studying the note. “Daddy’s windfall?” he asked.

  “We need to see whose number it is,” I said.

  Jack shrugged, went to the phone, and dialed. He waited until someone answered, then said, “Sorry, wrong number.” He hung up, then turned to me. “It’s the accountant. The one we talked to about Slider.”

  “Ah. So we have more than one guy making plans about his money. Finn must have been deciding what to do with the dough he suddenly had from Wilde. But that sounds sarcastic, doesn’t it? Calling him “Daddy?” I guess his Daddy wanted to make up for the past. Ardmore suggested it was a lot of money. Not to mention that Finn’s real mother left him as a beneficiary. He had decisions to make.”

  “Hmmm,” Jack said. “And maybe there were certain family members that knew about those decisions. Aidan? Colleen?”

  “Slider? Ardmore?” I asked doubtfully. “I can’t picture anyone we’ve met as a murderer, not even Damian Wilde.”

  Jack had no response to that one. He didn’t like Wilde, and short of the man saving baby Max from a burning building, it didn’t look like he’d find a way into Jack’s good graces. Jack was doing some squats while standing in place. I regarded him with scorn, and perhaps a hint of jealousy. This is the last thing I would do with some time on my hands. Generally, standing in place makes me want to continue standing in place, or to transition into a sit. I shook my head at him, not understanding.

  “We need to see the notebook,” he said. He stopped squatting, spun energetically and started doing dishes; I finished my breakfast in a restless silence, watching Pat’s house. Eventually one police car left, and Wilde’s elegant vehicle disappeared soon after.

  The second police car came down the winding drive and parked in front of our little place. “Cheese it, it’s the cops,” I said into my juice glass.

  “They’ll want to start the process of pressing charges.” Jack turned, wiping his wet hands on his jeans. I stared at the spots of moisture he made; anything to avoid his eyes. “Maddy—” he began warningly, but I was saved by the bell.

  Chief Hendricks came in with his clompy boots and his air of authority. A uniformed lackey followed, obviously there to bask in the brilliance of Hendricks, and perhaps take notes. “Miz Shea. Mr. Shea,” said Hendricks. “Mind if I sit down?”

  “Not at all,” Jack said. He pulled out a kitchen chair near mine, and Hendricks’ eyes, when he pulled off his mirrored sunglasses, were suddenly at my level. They were disconcerting, to say the least, because they didn’t change when his voice or manner did. They stayed fixed, like a pair of marbles pounded into his head. It was creepy, and I looked away.

  “Miz Shea, we need to get the paperwork started on Randy and Jim. They are currently out on bail, because Mr. Damian Wilde feared what we had was simply a misunderstanding.”

  “That’s bullshit,” said Jack, almost pleasantly.

  Hendricks’ marble eyes flicked to Jack, then back to me. “So we’ll need to know if you’ll be pressing charges against those gentlemen.
Your husband indicated last night that you weren’t in any state to make that decision, but pretty soon of course we’ll need your answer.”

  I hesitated. Of course Jim and Randy deserved to go to jail; they committed a crime. They frightened me half out of my wits, they threatened me, in so many words, and Jim had a gun, which had terrified me. And yet I felt that they’d been patsies, manipulated by a man who knew he had nothing to lose. I thought of Randy with his Hubba Bubba and his country music, and the way he helped me walk to the bathroom, making stupid conversation about my little kidneys. I thought of Jim on the elevator on the night of my wedding, smoking and grinning and calling me “little bride” and suggesting that “they” sent him to give me a message. Who were “they?” Wilde and someone else? Someone other than Wilde?

  I sighed. “Jack, I don’t see the point in—”

  Jack stiffened. “The point is that they kidnapped you. They put you through emotional hell and they held you against your will, despite the fact that you obviously needed a doctor. They terrorized our whole family on what should have been a happy and beautiful day.”

  “On the other hand, Chief,” I said, “Wouldn’t this drag on? Wouldn’t I have to be in court, maybe make repeated visits to the police station, for my testimony to be valid?”

  I turned to Jack. “Do we really want that? To keep reliving it? How about a restraining order for them, and a demand for an apology?”

  “An apology?” Jack stared at me and I could hear my brother’s voice floating on the wind, borne all the way from Illinois: “She’s Madeline Mann, see? Mad-man.”

  “Chief, I guess we’ll have to get back to you on this,” I said, trying to look at his marble irises without cringing. “Perhaps we could call you later today? Here are your sunglasses.” I couldn’t wait for him to put them back on.

  Chief Hendricks rose. I’d forgotten his minion, who stood flattened against the wall as though he feared schrapnel. “Ya’ll will need to make up your mind. There’s a lot going on in this town right now, but I’d like to give this the attention it deserves.”