Deja Vu Read online

  “Does Maggie know?” the guys chorused as one, shock written all over their faces at this brazen news.

  Ted huffed and puffed. “In case you forgot, Maggie returned my ring. She does not want to be engaged to me, and she does not want to marry me. That means I am a free agent, just the way she is a free agent. So, get off my case. Aren’t you supposed to be on my side? What’s wrong with this picture?”

  “Maggie scares me sometimes,” Jack said. “I think you should be scared. Scorned women are vicious.”

  Harry spoke. “I will protect you, Ted.”

  Ted’s legs turned to jelly. He plopped down on the picnic bench, his eyes glassy. “Thanks, Harry.”

  “Can we please get back to my problem here?” Bert admonished. “The fourth bay in the garage was empty.”

  “And this means … what?” Jack said.

  “It means … it could mean … I think it means there was maybe a robin’s-egg blue Cadillac sitting in that fourth bay. It was going in the opposite direction. Like maybe Jellicoe was the driver, and he’d just left Professor Jordan’s house. Try that on for size.”

  “Jellicoe dressed up as an old lady. Is that what you’re saying?” Jack said.

  “Why not? He assumed the professor’s identity. What’s to say he can’t pretend to be a woman. Something triggered my reaction. Espinosa, you took pictures from the car, right?”

  “I did, but in passing. Hell, I didn’t even see the driver. I just clicked when you yelled for us to look at the car. Hold on, let me see what I got.”

  “When something is nothing like what it seems, you need to look into it,” Ted said.

  “Very astute, Mr. Robinson. I totally agree. I think we should find a vehicle that Mr. Jellicoe won’t recognize and drive out to that retirement village and ask some questions.”

  Bert shared his and Kathryn’s experience with the dog walkers from the night before. “We even have a street the couple thought might be where the woman lives. Butternut something or other. They said to talk to the mailman.”

  “Okay, here is the picture. All you can tell about the driver from this angle is the gray hair. Sorry, guys,” Espinosa said.

  “Let’s head out to Manassas,” Bert said. “We need a nondescript car that will not draw any attention to us as we cruise through the village. You know, a sedan of some kind. Old people like Chryslers for some reason. I read that somewhere,” Bert said as an afterthought.

  “What about the girls? Should we tell them what we’re doing?”

  The boys stopped, looked at one another, then laughed out loud. The sound was devilish, which meant they were in high spirits.

  Forty minutes later, Jack was driving a Chrysler Sebring, and they were tooling down the highway.

  “And our plan is …?” Harry said from the backseat. His tone clearly said there had better be a plan in motion.

  “We drive up and down the streets until we find the mailman. We stop the car. We ask him questions. Then we drive off. We stop. We confer.”

  “And then we call out to Pinewood with our findings?” Bert said. “Shit! Kathryn is not going to like this when she finds out I blew off our day together to come out here with you guys.”

  “I will protect you, Bert,” Harry said in a singsong voice from the backseat.

  “What’s with all that shit about protecting everyone, Harry? Are you up to something you haven’t told us about?” Jack all but bellowed. Harry ignored the question.

  “The couple Kathryn and I met last night said there are seventy-five homes where we’re going. They said it is Phase One. They’re going to start Phase Two after the first of the year.”

  “That was information we don’t need, Bert,” Harry said.

  “Information is powerful. The more you have, the more successful you will be at dealing with the problem,” Bert huffed.

  “It’s stupid,” Harry said.

  “My mother had an expression she was rather fond of, which was, stupid is as stupid does,” Jack said. “Okay, according to the GPS, we are a tenth of a mile from the entrance to the village.”

  “Do you think four guys asking questions of a mailman about an old lady with a robin’s-egg blue Cadillac isn’t going to come under suspicion?” Espinosa asked. “To me, that’s an immediate red flag. Seniors are vulnerable to scam artists who prey on them.”

  “He has a point,” Bert said. “I never thought of that.”

  “That’s because you’re stupid,” Harry said. “Someone should have thought of it. No, not me, I’m your protection. Now, come up with something or I’m outta here.”

  “Espinosa and I have press credentials we can flash,” Ted said.

  “I have my old FBI credentials if the mailman doesn’t look too close.”

  “I have my old D.A.’ s Office card,” Jack said. “We can swear him to secrecy. That leaves you, Harry. Who do you want to be?”

  “I’m the guy who is going to kick your ass all the way to New Jersey. I’m me. I don’t have to be anyone but myself.”

  “That was well said, Harry, and I respect every single word you just uttered. Just for the record, what do you think I would be doing when you kick my ass to New Jersey?”

  “Flying,” Harry said.

  “I think we should discontinue this discussion,” Ted said. “Look, there’s the mailman, and this street is …” He craned his neck to see the concrete posts set at the end of the street. “Acorn. It crosses Butternut. It looks like he’s headed to Yellow Squash Drive. I’d never want to live on a street called Yellow Squash Drive. Let’s hit on him there. We don’t want to be too close to Butternut in case that’s really where he is. Is that okay with you, Harry?”

  “It is, Ted.”

  Ted slowed the Sebring and slid to the curb. He got out, as did the others. Credentials in hand, the boys approached the mailman, a tall muscular guy with a long blond ponytail and an earring. He was rolling a mail cart in front of him. He stopped and waited.

  “Special Agent Navarro, this is District Attorney Jack Emery. Ted Robinson and Joe Espinosa from the Post. Harry Wong.” The boys held out their IDs and Harry bowed.

  “What do you want?”

  “First things first. Your driver’s license will do nicely. Mr. Espinosa will photograph it. A few questions. Your word that you will not discuss this little meeting. As in ever. Are we clear on that?”

  “Yes, sir. I’ve been assigned this route from the day this place was built, that would be four years, two months, and three days.”

  “Do you know any of the residents personally?”

  “No, not personally. I go by addresses and names. Who are you looking for?”

  “An elderly lady who drives an old baby blue Cadillac.”

  “That would be Bertha Tolliver. She lives on Butternut, number 17. She travels all the time, leaves notes on her door. Saw a note yesterday. It said …” The mailman squeezed his eyes shut as he tried to remember what the note said. “It said, ‘Erma, I tried calling you to cancel lunch but your cell phone wasn’t working. I’m going to Seattle and will be back after Labor Day.’ There was duct tape at the top of the note and duct tape at the bottom to hold it in place. She put it smack-dab in the middle of a door wreath. Some kind of yellow flowers.”

  “So she’s gone away?” Bert said.

  The mailman shrugged. “When she goes away, she takes her car. How I know this is when I drive around Yellow Squash Drive, I can see her car in her carport. I haven’t finished my route yet today so I don’t know if she’s there or not. Try knocking on the door.”

  “Do you know anyone who knows Ms. Tolliver?”

  “No, sir, I don’t. What did she do? Never mind, I don’t want to know. Can I go now? These people get cranky when their mail is late.”

  “Remember what I told you. Not a word of this to anyone. One peep, and you’ll be a guest of the Feds for an indefinite period of time.”

  “Not a problem,” the mailman said as he moved off. He took one last look at Harr
y Wong, smiled, and then waved.

  “It’s my aura,” Harry said.

  “You know, Harry, you are so full of shit, your eyes are turning brown,” Jack said.

  Jack climbed behind the wheel and roared down the street. He looked in his rearview mirror to see the mailman offer up a single-digit salute. “Same to you,” he muttered under his breath.

  “Slow down, Jack. Go around the circle so Espinosa can take some pictures. We can only go around once; any more than that will make a senior suspicious. Okay, Espinosa, get ready.”

  “Did you get it?” Jack yelled.

  “Hell, yes, I got it. I’m a photographer. However, just a bit of the hood can be seen, and you have to be at the right angle, which I wasn’t. Ah, yeah, you can see a little blue. The car is there, boys! The mailman must be wrong, or she took a cab and a flight. He sounded pretty sure about how she traveled.”

  “Jack, turn right here, you made the circle, go slow, house 17, an uneven number, is on the left. We get one shot at this, too. Hit it, Espinosa. Zoom in on the door.”

  “Got it. Burn rubber, Jack,” Espinosa said.

  Jack ignored the order and continued to drive twenty-five miles an hour until they reached the highway. He drove for fifteen minutes, the occupants of the car silent until he pulled off onto a secondary road, which in turn led him to the parking lot of a roadside steak house. The lot was filling rapidly with the lunch crowd. He shifted into PARK and turned around. “What’s it look like?”

  “Just the way the mailman said, the note, the duct tape. The wreath is sunflowers, and the note is smack-dab in the middle. I don’t get it, what’s with the garage doors on a carport when the sides are open?”

  Harry offered up his buzzword for the day. “Because whoever built this paradise is stupid, that’s why.”

  “Well, I for one am glad I waited for your explanation, Harry. I can now get on with the business of living,” Jack said.

  “Eat shit, Jack.”

  “Okay, we need to take a vote here. Who believes Bertha Tolliver is Hank Jellicoe?”

  Every hand in the car went up.

  “So, what do we do with this information? Do we go back, circle the house, invade it, or do we go to lunch? If you don’t like those two choices, we can go to Pinewood and dump it all in Charles’s lap. Bear in mind that if we go back to Pinewood, we’re giving Jellicoe hours to split again. That’s if he saw us driving by.”

  “You think he stands by the window watching cars?” Bert asked.

  “No. I think he has a camera by the front door, up under the eaves, that looks out onto the street. He wouldn’t be there without some kind of warning system or surveillance. He must feel safe here to be so out in the open,” Ted said. “I say we head back to Pinewood.” The others agreed.

  Halfway to their destination, Ted finally asked the question that had been plaguing him. “Do you really think Maggie is going to be pissed?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Jack drawled. “The thing with women is this. Even when they dump you and push you under the bus, they don’t want anyone else to have you. I was never able to figure that out, but there you have it. Since you two apparently have an agreement, you don’t owe Maggie any explanations. You are on your own, Ted,” Jack said. “But I would advise this: Do not, I repeat, do not sneak around. That makes things worse. Women can come up with a hundred reasons why you did or didn’t do something, and you don’t have a fighting chance. So, if you go with the truth and don’t sneak around, you won’t be scrambling to come up with what you think Maggie might want to hear.”

  “I concur,” Harry said.

  “Oh, Harry, I so feel the wisdom emanating from the backseat.” Jack cackled. Harry reached up and tweaked Jack’s ear.

  “Guess you’re driving, Bert,” Ted said, as he got out of the car to help drag Jack’s body onto the passenger seat. Bert climbed behind the wheel.

  “Harry, you have to stop doing that.” Bert grinned.

  “Why?”

  Bert laughed as Jack slept peacefully.

  Chapter 29

  The war room in the underground tunnels at Pinewood bustled. Everyone was talking at once. Questions ripped off the walls and ricocheted to the point where Charles whistled sharply for silence. “Enough!”

  “But Charles …” Isabelle blustered.

  His hands still in midair, Charles descended the few steps to the table where the Sisters were sitting, the boys clustered in a tight group behind them. Noticeably absent was Maggie Spritzer. Charles explained her absence by saying she was only a phone call away, ready to change the front page of the Post if need be.

  “We aren’t even sure it is Hank at that house,” Charles said.

  The room went silent when Harry said, “We’re sure!” And that was all the confirmation the Sisters needed.

  Charles did a harrumph deep in his throat and moved on to what he was going to say next. “Then let me say this. We cannot spook Hank. That means no drive-bys. I have here a map of the retirement village. For starters, there are not seventy-five houses in Phase One. There are 275 houses. You were given erroneous information. For any of you interested, there will be a like number in Phase Two. And there are two mail carriers who deliver mail to Phase One.

  “Having said that, there is a recreation center where special events are held—luncheons, birthdays, holiday gatherings, the like. A newsletter is published once a week to alert the residents of coupons at certain supermarkets, the lowest prices at local gas stations, which pharmacies give the best bang for your buck. It’s all geared to senior living and making things as good and as comfortable for its residents as possible. It appears everyone is involved in everything. They have over two dozen committees. It’s hard to keep track of, but I think I have a handle on it.

  “Having said that, your plan, when you come up with one, does not have to be immediate. I think, and this is just a guess on my part, that Hank is going to stay right there in that house for a while. He’s got to fall back and regroup, and what better place than where he is? I don’t like giving you a deadline, but I feel comfortable saying I think you might have a week to develop a plan and act on it. Do you have a plan?”

  “Well, of course we have a plan, Charles,” Myra said huffily. “We just have to fine-tune it, and I think we can do that in the next several hours. Don’t look so surprised, dear.”

  “I’d like to hear the plan, dear.”

  “Well, of course you would.” Myra pushed back her chair and stood up. “Because Annie and I are of an age with the women of the Red Hat Society I’m going to tell you about, we think it will work marvelously if we work in sync. It’s the Red Hat Society. You boys probably don’t know what that is, but I’m sure the girls do. There are chapters all over the country, globally, also. Ladies of a certain age, fifty and up, wear decorative red hats and purple clothing. Very fashionable. They have fun. Let me tell you about the society just to bring you up to speed.

  “As I said, there are chapters everywhere, and there just happens to be one in the retirement village, with a very healthy membership. Annie and I signed up earlier online, under assumed names, of course. These ladies basically answer to no one but themselves. More or less like us.” She twinkled. “They celebrate life at every age and stage. They solidify and support the expansion of the bonds of sisterhood. As we do, girls. Now, are you all following me?”

  Not waiting for a response, Myra continued, “The ladies discover and explore new interests and renew abandoned ones. They realize their personal potential and embrace a healthy, life-lengthening lifestyle. That’s what it says on their Web site. In other words, they are working to get the most out of life, which I think is commendable, and at the same time they wear gorgeous hats and colorful clothing. Color is in this year, girls. And boys.

  “A membership is thirty-nine dollars a year. That means each member who signs on is entitled to have an RHS chapter and be the Queen, complete with charter, inclusion on the Queen to Queens’ Newsletter e-mail list,
access to online chapter management tools, and it includes her own Supporting Membership. Each Hatter becomes a Supporting Member for twenty dollars.”

  “Wow!” Jack said. The Sisters glared at him. Jack had the good grace to look ashamed.

  “And each member gets a unique, custom RHS keepsake, but as yet we don’t know what that keepsake is.”

  “And your plan has something to do with the ladies in Red Hats?” Charles queried.

  “Well, of course it does, Charles. We infiltrate the local chapter the residents of the retirement village belong to. We arrange a party at their clubhouse. Or on their pavilion. We send out invitations to all the residents to attend. Hank, of course, will get an invitation. It will all be legitimate to cover all the activity that will be going on so as not to spook him. So in summary, ladies and gentlemen, the Red Hat Society is a global society that connects, supports, and encourages women in their pursuit of fun, friendship, freedom, fulfillment, and fitness, kind of like our little group.”

  “And …”

  “And, what?” Myra huffed.

  “Do you know any of the people on the board at the retirement village, any members of the various committees? How do you plan to organize this in a week’s time?” Charles asked, his face registering total dismay.

  Myra drew herself up to her full height and glared at her husband. “You said you wanted a plan. I just gave you the plan. You did not say I had to execute the plan. You’re the one with the street maps and the locations. That is your forte, Charles.”

  And then everyone was talking at once.

  “Do we get a red hat?” Alexis asked. “If I had the time, I could design us some eye-popping hats. Even so, I bet I can whip us up something that will blow everyone’s socks off.”

  “Where do we come in?” Espinosa asked, his gaze on Alexis. “Is there a top hat or a black hat society for men? How are we going to get into the village?”

  “Ask Charles,” Myra snapped. “He’s in charge of the details. Annie and I just came up with the plan.”