Chapter Four The Follow-Up #3
Madison grasped she was almost as old as the song, and then recognized she had to stop obsessing over her age.
Did she need therapy? Or was it the hormones?
She hadn’t gotten to full-blown menopause, but she knew it was coming.
Her moods were often sullen for no apparent reason.
She was beginning to get “warm flashes.” They hadn’t excelled to the level of “hot” yet.
And her libido appeared to be on permanent vacation, as well. That is, until recently.
Things were surely shifting, and she had to get a grip on the wheel.
No one would ever suspect Madison Wainwright of feeling as if she weren’t in absolute control of her life.
She exuded confidence. Perhaps she should begin a new era and soften her edges.
This wasn’t the first time it had occurred to her.
Each time, she got more comfortable with the idea.
A swift rap on the door snapped her out of her reverie. She peeked through the fish-eye lens of her door. It was someone from the maintenance crew with her packages and her mail. “Thanks, Roger. I appreciate it.” She collected the stack and gave him a tip.
“So much junk,” she said out loud. She began to toss the flyers and catalogues into the recycle basket and discovered a legal notice.
There was going to be a town meeting for landowners in Smuggler’s Cove at the end of the month.
For a moment, she was confused. Landowner? Of course. The marina. Duh.
She looked up the number of the people who owned the house she was renting.
She began to dial the number and wondered if it was the right thing to do.
She was second-guessing herself. Again. “Madison Wainwright, do not get in your own way,” she said out loud.
“You’ve been doing a lot of talking to yourself today.
” Then she laughed. Maybe therapy was a good idea.
Mikey was pacing the floor. It had been twenty-four hours since he got the mysterious phone call and a visit from the chief of police. No wonder he was reaching for the antacid tablets.
Arlo sashayed his way into the front of the shop. “Yo, bro. Look what I got here.” He rolled out a copy of the map. “See, we can stash the real one somewhere, so’s when we go looking for it, we don’t got to worry about getting it wet.”
Mikey gave him a side look. “Listen, Arlo. I don’t have time for this wild-goose chase you think is going to save us.
I gotta meet some guy I never heard of who says he made a deal with Dennis and Dennis didn’t keep his end of the bargain.
He wants his money back.” Mikey let out a long sigh and shook his head.
“How much is he askin’?” Arlo finally became interested in his brother’s problem.
“He wouldn’t say over the phone. Could be thousands, tens of thousands. I have no clue. I was up half the night going through all the filing cabinets to see if there was some kinda clue. I got nothin’. Zip. Zero. No runs. No scores.” Mikey was pale. Disheveled.
“What else did he say?” Arlo quizzed his brother.
“Nothin’ except Denny didn’t do the job he was paid to do.”
“And you got no idea what that is?” Arlo kept overstating the obvious.
“Geez, Arlo. No. What part of ‘he told me nothing’ are you not understanding?” Mikey shot back.
“Whaddya gonna do?”
“Meet him at Zoe’s on Friday.”
“Do you want me to show up and act like I don’t know ya? Sit close enough to hear what’s going on?”
“Arlo, this is not a caper. I have no idea what the man wants. So until that point, just keep looking at your map and enjoy whatever fantasies you have about striking it rich.” Mikey grabbed his windbreaker from the rack.
“You got a rip in your vest. Get it sewn up before the bank shows up to inspect the place. I don’t want us looking sloppy if we’re going to try to get them to loan us money.
” He turned to Arlo, who wasn’t paying attention.
“I’m going to get a shower and a fresh set of clothes.
” He practically slammed the door behind him.
Arlo placed the original map in one of the drawers of a filing cabinet.
One with a lock. He took the copy into the back room and tacked it on the wall.
He stepped back and kept tilting his head from side to side, checking it from different angles.
He just knew there was a secret hidden somewhere. He could feel it in his bones.
Chief Burton answered his phone. It was one of the people from the lab. They’d found a partial boot print on a piece of the broken glass from the frame. “Do you have enough to do a search?” he asked, then listened. “Okay. Great. Do whatever you can.” He ended the call.
He strummed his fingers on his desk. They had minuscule pieces of evidence for a seemingly low-level burglary.
A different law enforcement officer would close the case.
It was a “nothing burger” at face value.
But Burton was going deeper than that. A dead body of a guy who had a questionable reputation, and a burglary a few months later at the same location, did not seem like a coincidence to him.
Something fishy was up, and it wasn’t Hannah’s clam roll.