The Sleuth Sisters (2 page)

I glared at her. “Your sister is superficial, bossy, and impulsive. We’d be sorry.”

“She knows everyone, from the governor to the county animal control officer, and they all think she walks on water.”

“Your sister makes me nuts.”

“Stop that. She’s your sister too.”

Knowing it sounded childish, I said, “Not if I don’t let her be.”

Faye backed off, letting me roll the idea around in my head for a while. The worst of it was that she was right. Our only other sibling, Margaretta, was the widow of a state cop killed in the line of duty. That tragic event had become a cause célèbre in Michigan. Margaretta had been on the news, in magazines, everywhere for over a year, pushing for better body armor for police officers. It was an idea whose time had come, and Retta served as spokeswoman with both charm and tenacity.

It didn’t hurt that she was gorgeous. At forty-eight, Margaretta still looked like a CNN anchor. With her looks and kittenish charm, she usually got people to do exactly as she wanted them to do. The smart ones, once they walked away, might have realized they’d been manipulated. Most never figured it out. It’s a gift Hitler had too, they tell me.

Faye often hinted I was jealous, and it was true, at least a little. I’d succeeded in life by using my brain. Faye had spent her life working hard. Margaretta prevailed because she was pretty and because she went after things like a Labrador diving for a duck. Somehow, everything just fell into the pond in front of her.

Not that she was evil. She had no idea how irritating she was, and I recognized that. Retta simply believed she knew what was best for everyone else. In order to remain sane, one could either avoid her or become resigned to accepting her version of his happiness.

“If we let her anywhere near our business, she’ll ‘suggest’ and ‘hint’ until it’s no longer what we want,” I reminded Faye. “You and I do okay together, but she’s impossible.”

“I know.” Faye sounded reluctant. She’s always been more accepting, which is her weakness, just like rejecting the majority of the human race is mine.

“You can’t argue with Retta, because her conversations are round. You make point after point, but eventually she gets them to curve back around to what she wants.”

Faye sighed. “I know.”

“Remember when we were in high school and she was in junior high and she somehow talked Mom and Dad into letting her go to Cedar Point with us? She ruined everything.”

“I know, but she’s our sister.”

I gave Faye a hard look. “Your sister is not welcome in our detective agency.”

That ended the discussion, because in her heart Faye knew I was right. Besides, Baby Sister was wintering in Florida, which I’d taken into account when setting the opening date for our agency. I’d figured on three months to get up and running before she came home. The plan had been we’d be established by then, able to tell her thanks but no thanks when she offered to help. That wasn’t working out well at all.

I opened my datebook with more than necessary force. Although the question was temporarily settled, I knew that when Retta came home, she’d immediately stick her nose in. If we didn’t have some cases—even a case by then, Faye would argue we had to include her.

No, I promised myself. I’d lay down the law. Two detective sisters, not three.

The next week we located an Allport heiress.

Actually, that’s stretching the term. We found a woman who’d inherited a bar in town that would have fallen down except it was between other buildings slightly less decrepit. When we informed the lucky inheritor of her uncle’s bequest, she shook her over-cooked black hair until her earrings bounced. “Do you know how much money it’s going to take to demolish that wreck?” she rasped. “I won’t even be able to sell the lot in this economy. Thanks for nothing.”

Despite the clever work we’d done to locate our quarry, the result was less than satisfying. She wrote a letter to the editor of the
Allport Press
about how we’d invaded her privacy and ruined her life.

We turned down three more cases that were either spiteful or spooky, like the guy who wanted us to find his “dream woman” for him. He’d seen her riding around in a classic convertible and was sure she’d given him a come-hither look. I was sure he’d watched
American Graffiti
one too many times.

Faye watched me for two weeks, waiting. I knew we’d discuss the prospect of inviting Margaretta into our business again, and I dreaded it. I’d sunk quite a bit of money into this enterprise, insisting Faye be an employee with a regular paycheck until we got established. Once we had a client base, we’d form a true partnership.

I had also invited Faye and Dale to move into my house. The place was huge, built by some timber baron in the late 1800s, but it had been cut up into apartments in the ’70s and rented to young families. I was undoing all that, ditching the grungy shag carpeting, tearing out flimsy dividing walls, and replacing the orange appliances in the large downstairs kitchen.

The top floor was plenty spacious for my needs, and the ground level had a large front parlor we turned into our reception area. A second parlor behind that became our private office. At the back was a kitchen, a dining room, a full bath and two small rooms we made into a den and a bedroom. It was bigger than the house they’d been renting, and living there made it possible for Faye to work with me and keep an eye on Dale at the same time.

Upstairs, I knocked out walls and made five dinky rooms into two large ones with a generous-sized bath. Center front was an all-purpose dining/kitchen/living area with a huge window that looked down on the street. In the back was my bedroom, just the right size for a woman alone who intends to stay that way, pretty much. A nice, wide staircase on the west side led down to the front entry, so I came and went through the same door our clients did. But if I needed it, there was a cramped, skinny, twisting staircase at the back of the house, once used by servants. Those stairs ended at my sister’s kitchen, where the back door opened onto our large, fenced back yard, which I fully expected Faye would take over and carpet with flowers.

I was happy with the setup, being close to Faye and Dale but not tied to them. I was happy to have returned to Allport, to my roots and a relaxed way of life. Still, I had a sense of urgency now that we’d launched this enterprise. Anxious to get a real start, I wasn’t sure how far I was willing to go to get clients. There was no halfway with Retta. Anything she touched became hers, and I was unwilling to let her share the dream Faye and I had created.

Chapter Two

Faye

Opening a detective agency is a dream I had for years. I just didn’t see for a long time that it was possible. All my life I’d read mystery novels, which helped me relax while raising a family and working for bosses, some nice, some not-so-nice, but all a little crazy. About the time my kids turned into adults, life turned crappy. Dale got hurt, our sons floundered in the lousy economy, and we all slipped farther and farther away from the American Dream. I could never get the medical bills caught up, and at least one of the boys always needed help. We just barely kept up.

Then, with a fake smile and a rotten deal, my job disappeared. With nothing to look forward to, I asked myself, “What do I want from the rest of my life?” I came up with three things: I wanted a job where I was my own boss, I wanted to help people, and I wanted something more exciting than counting boxes loaded onto a truck.

My sister Barb had recently retired. Successful, financially secure and well-respected, she missed the people part of life somehow: no husband, no kids, not even a long-term lover. She came home ready to be done with the politics of the legal system, but after a few months she was restless and vaguely unhappy. I pulled her into my scheme, knowing we’d work well together. My organizational skills would extend her intelligence, and my desire to make a difference would be expanded by her awareness of how things get done.

After a month in business, I realized we needed one more thing to make our agency take off: connections. Retta has those, but Barb and Margaretta remind me of the Green Bay Packers and the Detroit Lions, alike in background but unable to come together without a fight. As the middle sibling, I knew it was up to me to see that things worked out between them.

Once I’d mentioned Retta’s possible value to Barb, I let the idea settle into her mind. After two more disappointing weeks, I began trying to think of a way to bring Retta up again. Without her, our agency seemed likely to fail. Barb pretended to be busy, and I spent my time sharpening pencils. We avoided talking about the nothing we were facing.

As soon as Retta returned from her second home in Florida, I vowed to talk to Barb again about enlisting her help. I wasn’t looking forward to it.

One Thursday I’d taken the pencil sharpener apart and was examining its insides to see why its growl had turned to a crackle when the phone rang. A few minutes later, I was in better spirits. We had a client.

A few hours later she showed up, right on time. Judging by the car she parked out front, Madison Bowers was able to pay our fee. She shook hands like an adult and sat in the chair opposite my desk with prim propriety, clasping her hands in her lap. Barb explained I’d be taking notes on the meeting, and Madison gave permission with an almost regal wave.

“What can we do for you, Ms. Bowers?” Barb was searching her pockets for an oft-needed tissue, and I pushed a box of them toward her before sitting down in the third chair in our office, ready with notepad and pencil. I have an iPad, but I prefer paper for a first draft.

“I’d like you to locate my brother Rob. He’s been missing for some time now.”

“I’m sorry to hear it. Can you tell us the circumstances of his disappearance?”

“Of course.” She shifted in her chair. “On the night of February sixth of last year, I went to my brother’s home to visit. His wife informed me he had left her and the children.”

When she didn’t go on Barb asked, “You don’t think he left voluntarily?”

“Oh, no!” Madison took a photo from her purse and passed it to Barb, snapping the clasp closed again quickly, as if it held Pentagon secrets. “Robert’s a devoted father and husband.”

Barb examined the picture then passed it to me. A tall, slightly flabby man, a blond woman with glasses too big for her face, and two little boys with resigned look-at-the-camera smiles. “Were the police called in?”

“Sheryl, Robert’s wife, insisted he ran off. The police say there’s no evidence he didn’t.”

“And why don’t you believe her?” I leaned forward, eager to get to the good part.

Ms. Bowers bit her lip, her emotions getting the better of her for a moment. “She said the most awful things about Robert. It’s terrible what they did to that woman.”

I kept my expression blank. “Who, Mrs. Bowers?”

“Why, Congress. They took Rob away to one of their reeducation camps. I thought he might be released by now, but—” She smiled through her sadness. “He’s held out all this time.”

Barb’s gaze never wavered, but I read her thoughts like there was a news crawl rolling across her forehead. She stayed professional, promising to look into the case. Our visitor left with her head held high, but I couldn’t help picturing it filled with bats. Barb pushed her bottom lip up into the top one. “This shouldn’t take long. I’ll put it on speaker.”

The call yielded one positive and several negatives, delivered in a definite, rather nasal tone. Ms. Bowers indeed had a brother named Robert, but he was neither missing nor a victim of Congress, at least, no more than the rest of us. “What he is,” Robert’s ex-wife Sheryl reported, “is uninterested in being a husband or a parent or a homeowner. Grown-up stuff like that.”

“Do you know where he is?”

“Oh, yeah. Once I got two hundred in cash and a note:
Tell the boys I love them
.” She sniffed dismissively. “If he really cared he’d visit once in a while.”

“And the authorities are aware of his whereabouts?”

“Yup. He lives in Gaylord, works at The Home Depot. If I wanted my kids exposed to that loser, they could visit Dad and get new bedroom lamps at the same time.”

“Why does his sister think he’s missing?”

“Did she give you the brainwashing story?”

“Well, yes.”

A sigh on the other end signaled exasperation and pity. “Maddie practically raised Rob. I guess their parents were real boozers. She can’t accept that he turned out shiftless, and she can’t believe he doesn’t want to see her. She came up with this fantasy that it’s not Rob’s fault. It’s the Evil Empire. Don’t send her my way, okay? I’d rather live without both of them.”

Barb set the phone down with a gentle click and rubbed the frown lines between her eyes. “No one’s ever going to take this agency seriously, not anyone sane. People expect detectives to be retired male cops whose outdoor plumbing proves they’ve got crime-solving skills.”

I couldn’t decide if I should tell her we had a second prospective client due in an hour. Would the next person to sit in our guest chair be broke, spiteful, crazy, or all of the above?

After a suitable interval I called Miss Bowers, telling her we were unable to take her case. She hinted “they” had gotten to us but didn’t seem angry. Maybe part of her, the tiny little sane part, sensed that what we discovered about her brother wouldn’t have made her happy.

Madison Bowers was followed by Meredith Brown, and the unfortunate similarity of their initials made Barb’s left eyebrow rise. I don’t even think she knows she does it, but it’s a sure sign she’s ready to dismiss an argument, a possibility, or a person.

My sister appears brusque, even uncaring, but honestly, she’s just so focused she has a hard time coming out of her bubble to notice the world around her. Daily stuff doesn’t matter to her. For example, you could feed her chicken and mashed potatoes every night for the rest of her life and that would be fine, not because she loves those things so much, but because she doesn’t care about food--or clothes or movies or Facebook. Barb goes along with the world because it’s expected, but what concerns the world doesn’t really concern her.

When she does let herself care about something or someone, however, Barb is whole-heartedly involved. Unable to turn her emotions off, she holds back from most people. It’s simple self defense.

Meredith Brown didn’t appear crazy, but neither had the woman who an hour before had insisted her brother was being re-educated by the government. Miss Brown was about twenty-three, cute in a well-scrubbed way, and dressed in khakis and a light sweater. I guessed elementary teacher, and I was right. Of course the magic marker stain on the heel of her right hand was an important clue, and I am a practicing detective.

That was the good part. The bad part came after we finished the preliminary introductions and offered coffee, tea, or water. Once that was settled she began, “My brother is missing.”

Barb’s eyebrow went up again, and I stepped in quickly. “Was he kidnapped?” Barb’s gaze shifted to me, but I looked at Ms. Brown in what I hoped was an encouraging way.

“Oh, no, nothing like that. He left several years ago, but now I need to find him.” She made an obvious decision, and the process by which she came to it was easy to follow in her expression. There was uncertainty, pain, and finally determination. “He was accused of a crime, and he took off to avoid getting arrested. I’d like you to find him and prove he’s innocent.”

Now Barb’s forehead puckered. It was a step up from alien abductions and Congressional plots. We were capable of doing a search for someone missing, but proving someone didn’t commit a crime when the police thought he had might be a tricky proposition.

“Ms. Brown, what makes you think your brother is innocent of this crime?”

“He told me so.” She smiled at the ingenuousness of her own statement. “Can I tell you the whole story before you decide I’m nuts?”

“Please do, Miss Brown.” Whatever it takes to grab my sister’s emotions, this sweet young thing had it. I put my head down to hide a grin. We had a real case at last.

“It happened six years ago,” Meredith Brown said after a sip of water. “I was eighteen and my brother was twenty-five when he married Carina Wozniak.”

Brown hadn’t struck a chord in my memory, but everyone in Allport knew the name Wozniak. The story had been in all the papers that year, even big ones like the Detroit Free Press. I tested my recall as Meredith Brown gave her version.

“Even then I knew it was a disaster, but Neil never had a chance. Carina was gorgeous and different from most girls he knew.”

“How was she different?”

“My sister’s been out of state.” I hitched my chair closer so I could rest an elbow on the desktop. My right shoulder goes numb if it doesn’t have something to rest on.

Meredith sighed as if she’d thought about that question a lot. “Carina was the type of girl Neil had never imagined would look twice at him. She’d gone to some expensive school, and she looked like a model. I think at that point in his life she was irresistible.” Barb was frowning, and Meredith tilted her head in a question. “Her family has lots of money.”

“You remember the Wozniaks.”

“Oh,” Barb said, catching on. “The stone quarry people.”

“Right,” Meredith said. “Except Carina’s father took over the family business in the ’90s and diversified. Now they have interests in just about everything you can imagine.”

“WOZ Industries,” I told Barb. “Remember, I drove you out to see the Pit?”

“Yes,” Barb said, nodding. “Much bigger than I remembered.”

Meredith returned to her story. “Carina and Neil met when the contractor he worked for did some expansion on their house on Pierce Lake. You should see it!” Her tone revealed awe and a hint of disapproval. “Neil was dazzled. My parents tried to tell him it would be tough for a working guy to marry into that family, but he wouldn’t listen.”

“He saw things differently after the marriage?” Barb asked.

“Mr. Wozniak—his first name is Stan—wanted Neil to move to Detroit and run one of his subsidiaries. Since he offered two choices, he thought Neil was ungrateful when he refused them both. But both the so-called choices involved things Neil hated: inside work, lots of travel, and public speaking.” As Meredith ran a hand through her taffy-colored hair, I noticed a small, partially healed incision on her scalp.

“When he asked Carina to marry him, Neil thought she understood they’d stay in Allport and live on his income. If you ask me, her plan was to get him then change him into the kind of husband she wanted.” A turn of Meredith’s lip revealed her opinion of her sister-in-law.

“So the marriage was in trouble?”

A flush began at her neck and rose to her face. “It was, but not like they said. Neil wanted to work it out, but Carina only spoke in ultimatums. They had some pretty intense arguments.”

The media had reported that a neighbor actually went to their door one night, fearing the young couple had come to blows. I decided to wait until Meredith was gone to mention it.

“What did your brother do?”

“He moved out.” Meredith wiped her palms on her pant-legs. Even after several years, reliving the events was harder than she’d thought it would be. “Neil insisted he and Carina could work things out.” She grimaced. “I wasn’t so sure.”

Despite not knowing where this was headed, Barb seemed to sense that background was important. “So the wife was staying in the couple’s apartment alone?”

“Well, no. Her brother Carson was visiting from California. After a few days at the family’s house on Pierce Lake, he moved into Carina’s spare bedroom.” She licked her lips. “When…it happened, people said she asked him to stay with her because she was afraid of Neil.”

“What happened?” Barb’s tone was gentle.

Meredith literally squirmed in her chair, and though her mouth opened and closed a couple of times, nothing came out. Guessing what it would cost her to put it into words, I stepped in. “Carina and Carson were both murdered. All the evidence pointed to Neil Brown.”

Barb looked from me to Meredith and back again, her eyes wide. If we took this case, we’d be chasing down a double murderer, at least someone the police thought was guilty.

And of course we were going to take it. I knew my sister, and she already wanted to find out what happened that night. Two people dead, a third missing. It was what we’d been hoping for since the doors to our agency opened: something that made a difference.

Barb scribbled a note on the legal pad in front of her, and again I smiled. For a lawyer, taking notes is like a boxer taking off his robe.

“Tell us what you know about that night. And tell us everything.”

Meredith’s eyes moved to the left as she searched for a beginning point. They say left is good; it accesses the brain’s recall. Liars look to the right, accessing creativity.

“Neil was working down in Lincoln. He called a little after one and said he had to leave Allport.”

“Try to say it exactly as he did.”

Again her eyes turned to the left. He said, ‘Hon, it’s me. Something bad has happened, but it isn’t like he says. I’ve got to leave town for a while. If I can, I’ll contact you, but even if I don’t, I’ll be okay. I’m really sorry. There’s nothing else I can do.’” Meredith swallowed hard. “I tried to ask questions, but he just repeated he was sorry and hung up.”

“He never said he didn’t kill them.” When Meredith simply sat there looking sad, Barb went on. “‘It isn’t like he says.’ Whom did he mean by that?”