Chapter Eight: Danger, Trixie Belden-Frayne
“Hey, can you believe it? This is the second time in a week I’ve beaten you to work?” Trixie said with a grin, as she appeared in the doorway when Honey came hurrying into the office. “The glass people called and said they’ll be here mid-morning and then Belden-Wheeler Investigations will be back to its normal glorious self.”
Honey nodded. “That’s good.”
“Are you okay?” Trixie asked, frowning. As an adult, Honey had definitely become a morning person. Recent events had seen her friend looking worn and tired, but that was supposed to be behind them.
“Yes, sorry, Trix. I’m fine. I had another restless night. I always do when I sleep alone after I’ve slept with Brian. Which is odd because I’ve spent a lot more of my life, even since Brian and I got together, sleeping alone rather than sleeping with him and normally I sleep okay, well not recently, you know—” She broke off at the expression on Trixie’s face. “Honey-speak?” she said with a rueful smile.
“Uber Honey-speak,” Trixie said, nodding her head towards her friend’s office. They went in together and sat down on the sofa. “Thank god for airconditioning,” Trixie continued. “I would be pretty grumpy right now if this office was like the Swan when we went looking for Jim.”
“My memory tells me you and I were both grumpy when it was really hot for too many days in a row, unless we were hanging out by the lake or riding on a cool evening.”
“Your memory might be more reliable at the moment.”
Honey was too tactful to point out to her best friend that for July, it actually hadn’t been that bad. For a moment her mind drifted to that first August, when the Bob-Whites began, and she smiled.
“Do we have anything we need to go over?” Trixie asked.
“I ran into Evan Chambers in the coffee shop again,” Honey said slowly.
“In the coffee shop near your apartment?” Trixie’s brows knitted together.
Honey nodded. “It was really crowded this morning and I sort of stepped on him and then…”
“And then?” her friend prompted.
“I don’t know, it was probably just my imagination, but he seemed to block my exit. It was busy, like I said, but it felt like he was stopping me from leaving.”
“Why didn’t you just shoot him?”
“Shoot him?” Honey snorted with laughter. “One of these days someone’s going to take you seriously about that. No, I didn’t shoot him. I told you it was busy. I might have hit someone else and there would have been a lot of mess.”
“Those are very good reasons,” Trixie said solemnly.
“Besides, I like this dress and there would have been blow back,” Honey added. Trixie was such a wonderful friend. She just had a way of making things lighter without dismissing them.
“What did he say?”
“Not much. He made a couple of remarks about me, about the business. Indirectly about how we didn’t help him and…”
“And?”
“He made reference to the fact that I looked tired. Asked if I’d been sleeping okay.”
“What?” Trixie grabbed her friend’s arm. “Are you kidding me?”
“No, but Trix, I think I’m reading too much into it. He also wanted to know if I’ve been working too hard. And I do look tired—even I can see that.”
“I don’t like it. Maybe we should get Dan to have a chat.”
Honey shook her head, got up and moved to her desk. “We can’t keep getting Dan involved. We’re detectives ourselves.” Dan had, as promised, paid a visit and checked in with several tenants, finding that a couple of them remembered the visiting teenager but could not shed any light on his name or his current whereabouts.
“Wow, is it just my imagination or did you just sound like me and me like you then?”
“Maybe,” Honey conceded. “But I stand by what I said. It’s one thing for Dan, who visits the apartment regularly and has at least spoken to most of the tenants, to turn up there and poke around a little. Evan Chambers is a whole other story. He’s smart and very aware of his rights. He’d complain, and I don’t want Dan to have to deal with that, especially when you consider the most likely culprit for the door knocking is our mysterious teenager.”
“And the break-in and the brick?”
“Coincidence? You said yourself the other day that we had clients who might throw bricks through our window.”
“I didn’t expect one of them to make my prediction come true,” Trixie said. “But maybe I’ll run another check on Mr. Connelly anyway. He was the most vocal of our disappointed clients.”
“Look, you also said that you wondered if Brian being there was the reason no one came knocking. Brian’s been gone two nights, and I’ve still had no late night callers.”
“That’s true, but they weren’t turning up every night anyway.” Trixie couldn’t help it, she found the revengeful teenager a convenient scapegoat and didn’t think Honey’s late-night problems were typical of an angry kid, especially after Honey’s description of the incident. Honey was a sensitive person and if she’d really upset the boy, Trixie figured she would have realized it at the time. But failing any evidence to the contrary, even Dan had agreed with Honey’s take on the situation. She was willing to be believe her instincts might be off, but after the incident with the window, she was again leaning towards everything being linked.
“You almost sound as if you hope they will come back and prove you right,” Honey said as she opened her computer to check her emails.
Trixie made a face. “Of course I don’t want that. You can’t really mean that.” It had been a long time since someone accused her of putting mysteries ahead of her friends.
“No, sorry,” Honey said. “I know that you just want the truth. And you want me to be safe.”
“Exactly, which is why we’re agreed that for the next little while, until we can confirm that your so-called humiliation of kid whatsit is behind the problem, we’re going to stick together, especially if we have night work or client meets.” Trixie knew her friend. Honey had changed a lot from the timid and naive girl she'd met all those years ago, but she was still inclined to be trusting rather than suspicious—something Trixie was aware she could never be accused of.
“Wait a minute,” Honey said. “You are supposed to be taking it easy, letting me do more.”
“Still happy for that to happen,” Trixie said blithely. “ There’s a mountain of paperwork on my desk I am happy to hand over. But I promised Brian I wouldn’t leave you in a vulnerable position and before you say anything, Jim is totally on board with that. He’s worried too. After all if you’re right and I’m wrong, we still have someone calling you constantly and hanging up and throwing a brick through our window. Either way, it makes sense to be careful.”
Honey nodded but found it impossible to hide the smile on her face.
“What?” Trixie demanded.
“I think you’re still being me and I’m still being you, that’s all. Apart from the paperwork thing, that is.”
Her friend laughed then tilted her head to one side as if she were considering something.
“I know that look,” Honey said narrowing her eyes.
“Perhaps it’s time for the return of Boney Tre—”
“No, no.” Honey cried waving her arms. “Whatever else we have to deal with please, please leave Whixie Helden out of it.”
“Probably a good idea,” Trixie patted her pregnant belly. “I don’t see me getting into anything you own, looking like this.”
“You look beautiful,” Honey said loyally. “Remind me I have a little something for you. I keep forgetting to bring it in.”
“A s’prise!” Trixie’s blue eyes danced. “Go home and get it now. You know how I love s’prises.”
“Trust me, it’s not that exciting. Now, maybe we could take a look at some of the cases we might actually get paid to work on?”
“You’re back to being you,” Trixie said, lifting her feet and placing them on the coffee table. “Fine, hit me. What’s on, partner?”
*
Dan Mangan leaned back in the chair, took a sip of his coffee, strong and rich, just as he liked it, and met the enquiring gazes of those sharing the table at which he sat.
“You can tell us we’re interfering,” Diana said.
“You’re interfering,” Dan said with a grin.
Diana wrinkled her nose at him.
“But what are friends, not to mention family, for?” Mart asked, reaching for his own coffee.
“I knew this invite to brunch had ulterior motive written all over it.” Dan’s dark eyes twinkled above the rim of his coffee cup.
“Are you going to go all, client privilege/confidential information on us?” Mart said.
“Well, technically Trixie and Honey aren’t clients, cause we don't have those at Sleepyside PD, and this isn’t official police business so neither of those things really apply.”
“We do know that they can take care of themselves,” Di said.
“And they’ve been in far worse situations than this one,” Mart added.
“But?” Dan knew the motivation behind this meeting was concern and not curiosity, and while relaxing on the Lynch-Belden terrace with good friends and good food was reason enough to be there, he wanted to hear what they had to say.
“But,” Di looked at her husband and then continued, “I was the one who sort of mentioned that guy at Honey’s building, the one who seems a little creepy to me.”
“Right,” Dan said. “Well, that was a good thing, Di. He had useful information.”
“You don’t think it was odd that when Trixie and Honey were talking to him he didn’t remember anything about this teenager and then suddenly he did?”
Dan shrugged. “People don’t always remember everything right off the bat,” he said. “Sometimes it takes a while—something or someone jogs their memory. Honey didn’t remember the run-in with the teenager either.”
“But the way she talks about it, it didn’t seem like a big deal.”
“Still, having been a bit of a rebel in my youth I know what’s it like when you feel as if you’ve been made a fool of.”
“We just want to make sure nothing’s being taken for granted.” Mart bit into his cherry Danish.
“And if this teenager is responsible, who threw that brick through the agency window?” Di added for good measure.
“Are we going to have a second investigative team in our midst?” Dan asked with a smile. “You two seem pretty invested in this.”
Di and Mart exchanged looks, and the former shrugged her slim shoulders. “It might sound silly but it feels…scary and almost stalker-ish, not like a prank.”
The truth was Dan wasn’t certain she was wrong. There was something about the whole thing that didn’t sit right with him either. “I don’t necessarily think that’s silly, Di, and I’ll tell you this—one thing I have done is get the name of the woman who rents the apartment where the kid was meant to be staying. I can probably check out a next of kin listing on her lease agreement and give them a call. If they know where she is, we can settle this once and for all.”
“Oh, I think would be great.” Di let out a sigh of relief. “I know I’m not a detective like Trix or Honey or you, but this has really been bothering me.”
It had been bothering Trixie too, Dan knew. And part of him wondered if Honey had jumped at the possibility of a teenager playing a prank, rather than contemplating something or someone more sinister.
“Leave it with me,” Dan said. “Now, can a guy get another cup of coffee? And are there any more of those hash browns?”
Many hours later, Dan was beginning to think it was easier said than done. He’d left Di and Mart’s and headed into the station where overdue reports demanded his urgent attention. Then the chief called a meeting and that took up another two-and-a-half hours of his life. Eventually he was back at his now clear desk and free to check out Honey’s teenager. He had used all of his considerable charm with the rental agent handling the property, but she wouldn’t budge or let him see the lease agreement without a warrant, and he wasn’t about to get one of those. He then called and re-checked with Honey’s neighbors, and although one woman was friendly with the woman concerned, she did not have either a cell number or a clear idea of where her neighbor was that she could offer.
Realizing he wasn’t going to be able to fulfill his promise to Di and Mart, he figured he might as well get ahead with the roster and spent the next hour or so allocating people and resources. A glance at his watch told him it was time to pack up and head home. He’d have another chat with the rental agent tomorrow, see if he could convince her to give out the name of the next of kin even if she wouldn’t release the document. With a name he stood a good chance of tracking them down—unless the name was John Smith or Sue Jones. He pushed his chair back and grabbed his leather jacket—so different from the one he’d worn when he first arrived in Sleepyside. As he shrugged into it, his cell phone rang. “Detective Dan Mangan,” he said. The person on the other end began to speak, and Dan’s dark eyes took on that tell-tale gleam.
“Thanks so much for calling,” he said resuming his seat. “I do have something I need to talk to you about. It concerns your nephew.”
*
“Sorry about this, Trix. I can’t understand what happened to our client, and there’s no answer when I call the cell number they left me.” Honey snapped the lock and slid the secondary bolt on the agency’s front door into place.
“Don’t worry about it. All you really did was get me out of doing the dishes. Like that’s going to bother me.” Trixie leaned against the newly restored window. There was no one else around the small business strip as the other businesses all closed by seven. There were still a couple of cars parked down the opposite end of the lot; she could just make out the shape of them in the dark. They were probably visiting friends in the multi-storey apartment block down the street.
“Do you expect me to believe that Jim makes you do the dishes?” Honey linked her arm through her friend’s as they headed to the rear lot where their cars were parked.
“I cook, he washes up and vice versa,” Trixie said. “I sat down to a delicious baked fish dinner with scalloped potatoes and salad and then stuck him with the clean up.”
“Like he cares.”
“He did say I’d have to make it up to him.” Trixie made a suggestive movement with her brows.
“Thanks, that’s all I need to know,” Honey returned with a laugh. “You didn’t have to come back for the meeting though. It’s been four whole uninterrupted nights for me now. I think we can safely say my late-night visitor was my neighbor’s teenage guest.”
“Looks like it,” Trixie said. “But we had an agreement, remember.” She knew that she should feel relieved. In all likelihood Honey was right, but something still niggled at her and try as she might, she wasn’t ready to expose her partner to what she considered to be vulnerable situations.
They hugged and jumped into their cars, Trixie waiting until Honey had edged her Prius out of the lot before slipping her SUV into gear and pulling out, heading in the opposite direction.
It was a little after nine-thirty and darkness had fallen. Sleepyside was far more developed that it had been ten years earlier, but Glen Road, thanks largely to the size of the Wheelers’ property, remained much as it had been, and Trixie adjusted her headlights to suit the dark stretch of bitumen. All at once she became conscious of a vehicle behind her. It drew closer, and she squinted as its high beams hit her car.
“Jerk,” she muttered, flipping the rearview mirror to deflect the light and increasing her speed slightly to increase the distance between the two vehicles. The car drew closer and closer.
Trixie held the wheel tightly. Either she was dealing with an idiot who couldn’t drive to save their life or whoever was driving was doing their best to intimidate her. She felt a sudden jolt as the car tapped her bumper and backed off. Okay, that answered that question. Still, she hadn’t scored the second highest defensive score of all time when at the academy for nothing. She floored her SUV, keeping one eye on the road ahead and the other in the rearview mirror. The other car followed suit, though she could see they were having a hard time navigating the curves in the road. Just as she was considering her options, the SUV hit a patch of gravel and spun. Desperately she gripped the wheel as she struggled to regain control.
MPD:MAIN NEXT
Word Count: 2862
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Hugs and thanks to Dana who works through my various issues and find ways to improve my story in general.
Trixie Belden et al belong to Random House. No monetary profit is being made from these scribblings.
