“The car?” I asked. “No traces there?”
The FBI never found the car. Suspect must have sold it to a chop shop or driven it into a lake or burned it somewhere.
“Great,” I said. “But you still have no suspect in custody.”
“The dogfish have him,” Elizabeth said. “That’s my best bet. Some of you jokers caught him, found out what he did, did your vigilante thing. Local law and order.”
I looked surprised.
She narrowed her eyes, “How about you? Did you toss the doctor to the sharks? After that caper with the easy chair?”
“Nah,” I said. “With who helping me? Tillie?”
“I almost forgot,” Elizabeth said. “I want you to lose your uncle’s rifle. That case of the dead pirates is still open. My colleagues might want to pick up that file again.” She got up, picked up a long parcel from behind her luggage, and gave it to me. Unwrapping the present, I found a new, nicely scoped deer rifle. A new version of my uncle’s beauty. Elizabeth gave me the Dietrich smile. “My thank-you present. For all and everything.”
We went boating that day and Uncle’s rifle happened to slip out of my hands and splash into the sea at about the same place where Jacko once sprinkled Uncle’s ashes.
My secret agent was due to return to Washington the next day. The moon was out, we had a few at the Thirsty Dolphin, which was closing but Priscilla switched on the lights again. We walked home holding hands. She told me what her former husband, a congressman, said when he heard about the cancer. “How can you do this to me?” He wouldn’t drive her to the hospital. When she came back she stayed at a hotel and filed for divorce, which he agreed to in exchange for money. He later resigned because of a corruption charge. “He had attitudes,” she said, “you too, of course. But his were irritating.
“I never did well with men,” Elizabeth said. “With you it seems different. I wouldn’t mind spending time with you. Vacations. Long weekends, maybe.” She glared at me. “You’re still seeing Dolly?”
I told her Dolly had King Carlos now. And she was calming down some. She was also getting fond of Sheriff again. They were planning a holiday in Europe.
I drove Elizabeth to the airport next morning.
When Bunkport calmed down again and the seals were barking on the rocks, feeling the first breeze of what could perhaps be a slight warming up, I visited the Sisters to ask what made them target Dr. Shanigan.
“Bad Cat?” Big Sis asked, pointing at the stern of her boat where the name stood out in big bold letters. “Bad curious cat?”
“We just had to know what Doc was up to,” Less Big Sis said.
“We just had to check out that island. What was the man doing? How could he be buying all that stuff when he just lost his business on the Ridge? We waited until we saw him fly off, and phoned Nurse, who said he was in the Bahamas again. She wasn’t expecting him some time soon.”
“Worth the trouble,” Big Sis said. “Once we were in Doc’s house and looked around his office we figured it out. I used to be a bookkeeper, in Boston, can you believe it? Feels like a previous life now. I can handle computers.” She massaged my shoulder with surprisingly sensitive fingers. “Going through his financial files I saw plenty of income, but that was way back, before that hairy ape took over the medical business on the Ridge. So Shanigan’s income dipped toward zero, but then I found another money file, saying ‘cash.’ Which made sense, for none of the figures showed up on his bank statements, and he wasn’t using his credit cards anymore. Question was, where did all that cash come from?”
“We’re talking millions here,” Less Big Sis said. “What was he doing? Smuggling drugs with his airplane?”
“Then we found the dog cages in the basement,” Big Sis said. “And plastic containers filled with greenbacks. And human hair. He had kids imprisoned in there. And ransomed them for money.”
“What did you do with the money?” I asked stupidly.
The Sisters looked at each other. Then they looked at me. “Can’t remember,” Big Sis said.
“What money?” Less Big Sis asked.
“Maybe we left it for the FBI to find,” Big Sis said.
A joke. We laughed.
I remembered that the Sisters sometimes drove to Boston to help out with the National Battered Women Club. Maybe I had struck a sister-lode of goodness.
Big Sis was talking again. “We went back to Shanigan Island when Nurse told us he had returned. We went armed, of course. Doc Shanigan didn’t expect us. He seemed kind of nervous, scared, you might say. Even so, we had to work on him a bit. He confessed all right. On his knees, crying. He told us where the bodies were. We didn’t dig them up. Too much work and we would leave traces. We didn’t want to hang around too long, our Bad Cat was in full sight. Folks might see the boat and get ideas.
“So,” Less Big Sis said, “it wasn’t a good day for Fastbuck Freddie. We kept him chained down in our basement while we got the recliner from the dump and had the squeezes help create that work of art on the channel marker.”
“And then you emptied a few clips,” I said. “Jeezum, I wouldn’t like to mess with you guys.”
“You’re welcome,” Big Sis said.
“Just don’t mess with little kids,” Little Sis said. “It brings out bad things in us.”
“I’m sorry now,” Big Sis said, “having the squeezes paddling the Bad Cat around that marker, with us firing away.”
“You know the song, don’t you?” Less Big Sis asked.
The Sisters and I sang it together. We gave the song a new name. “Wake for Freddie.” All three of us have good voices. I thought of ways to improvise on the melody when the Bunkport Musicals would be playing again in the Thirsty Dolphin. Maybe send a recording to Elizabeth.
Parson Pennywick Takes the Waters
by Amy Myers
The Parson Pennywick of this story (and the previous EQMM tale “Parson Pennywick and the Whirligig,”) is only one of several historical characters created for her crime fiction by former publishing executive Amy Myers. She has also given us Victorian chef Auguste Didier, Victorian chimney sweep Tom Wasp, and her own rendering, in a detecting role, of the Greek goddess of love, Aphrodite. Ms. Myers’s latest novels are Tom Wasp and the Murdered Stunner (Five Star) and Murder in the Mist (Severn House).
“Something is amiss on the Walks, Caleb.”
Looking most agitated, Parson Jacob Dale came into his parlour, where I was taking my breakfast. My old friend and host had just returned from conducting the daily service in the church. He is an elderly man, of even greater years than mine own, and not in good health. “It requires your assistance,” he continued ominously.
“Of what nature?” I asked cautiously. My stay in his parsonage on Mount Pleasant in the delightful spa of Tunbridge Wells was a yearly delight, and I would help where I could, although the coffee and toast before me had greater appeal.
“I cannot say.” Jacob looked at me helplessly. “It centred on the bookseller’s store, so Lady Mopford informed me. A threat of death, she cried. Send for Parson Pennywick.”
I have some small local reputation for successful intervention in such situations, and unsought though that honour is, I find my services called upon from time to time. Lady Mopford, whom I knew from previous visits, was a better source of accurate information than the London Gazette.