“Good morning,” he said with a smile.
“Easy for you to say,” I said.
“You’ve been talking to Liam.”
I took a deep breath and let it out. “And Rose. You know what they have planned?”
He nodded.
I waited for him to say something, but he didn’t.
“I worry about them, Mac,” I said. “This guy, Thorne Logan, he could be a killer. At best he’s most likely a con artist and Rose is trying to outcon him.”
“Which is why it won’t hurt to have your brother lurking in the background,” he said. “I would have volunteered, but compared to Alfred”—he stuck out an arm, the sleeve pushed back to expose the smooth brown skin of his forearm—“I’m a tad toasty.”
“I’m overreacting.”
Mac shook his head. “No. You care about them.”
I brushed a stray strand of hair away from my face. “Rose did say if they find Mr. Logan she’ll call Michelle.”
“You don’t believe her.”
I shrugged. “I want to, but it’s just that Rose could do a much better job of selling an elephant blocking the road than my brother.”
Mac smiled. “I’m just going to pretend that made sense and go open up.”
Liz arrived about nine thirty and she and Rose outfitted Mr. P. in a pair of brown polyester pants with a green-and-brown-plaid shirt.
“Remember, you just want to leave something for your family,” Liz cautioned.
“Alfred knows how to get into character,” Charlotte chided gently.
Rose was nothing if not resourceful. She’d rented an old pickup from Cleveland. The trash picker’s unofficial motto was Anything for a Buck, so he’d been happy to help.
The plan was for Liam to drive the old truck and drop Mr. P. off at the seminar, making sure to be seen, if not by the mystery woman, then at least by other people.
“She might not be the only plant,” Rose said.
“Someone’s been watching late-night TV again,” Liz whispered to me.
Rose and Liz would follow in Liz’s car, staying out of sight in case there was anyone at the seminar who recognized them.
Mr. P. was fastening a small pin shaped like a beaver to the collar of his shirt. He twisted it so the beaver was standing on all fours and then turned and clicked several keys on his laptop. An image of the back wall of the porch filled the screen.
“What is that?” I asked.
“It’s a camera,” Rose said, reaching up to smooth down a couple of wisps of Mr. P.’s hair. “That way Liz and I will be able to see and hear what Alfred can.”
I turned to Mr. P. “Do I want to know where this came from?” I asked, thinking that I’d asked that question a lot in the last six months.
“I Spy With My Little Eye,” he said.
“I don’t think you play that game with cameras,” I said.
“What about that game with the young man with the striped shirt and glasses?” Rose asked.
“That’s not a game,” Liz said. “You mean Where’s Wally?. It’s a book and it’s all illustrations.”
Rose frowned. “Where’s Wally? doesn’t sound right.”
Liz was walking around Liam, making a face, it seemed, at his hair. “I can’t help how it sounds,” she said. “That’s the name of the book.”
We were getting way off track. Before I could try to rein them in, Charlotte clapped her hands. We all automatically turned and looked at her. She could still command a roomful of people.
“You’re both right,” she said, looking from Liz to Rose. “It’s Where’s Waldo? here and Where’s Wally? in Britain.” She turned her head and looked at me. “Sarah, I Spy With My Little Eye is an electronics store in Portland. The camera is perfectly legal.” Finally she fixed her gaze on Liam. “Child, what did you wash your hair with?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Whatever Gram has in her shower.”
“Organic Burst Rosemary Mint shampoo,” I said.
“You smell too good,” Liz said, reaching up to run her fingers through Liam’s hair. “You smell like a girl, not a carpenter.”
“Nobody’s going to smell his head,” Rose said, hands on her hips.
“You don’t know that,” Liz retorted.
I turned to Mr. P. “I’m coming with you. I can run the computer.”
“You don’t have to do that,” he said.
I nodded. “I know.” I tipped my head toward Liam. The three women had surrounded him, debating what was the best way to make him not smell so good. “You’re not going to make me stay here and miss all the fun, are you?”
“Of course not,” he said, a smile playing around his mouth.
Mr. P. gave me a crash course on how to record and monitor the feed from his beaver cam. I had no idea whether what we were doing was completely legal or not, but I decided that was something I could ask Michelle or Nick later.
Liz and Charlotte solved the problem of Nick’s great-smelling hair with something they borrowed from Avery when she showed up at lunchtime. By a quarter to one we were in the workroom pretty much ready to leave.
“Can I come?” Avery asked. She was way more interested in the beaver cam than I liked.
“I need you here,” I said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Mac can’t do everything by himself.”
“Is that just a line because you don’t want me to go because you think I’m a kid?” she asked, crossing her arms defiantly across her chest.
“No,” I said. “It’s because Mac really can’t do everything by himself.”
“Fine,” she said after a moment, “but you owe me a big hot chocolate from McNamara’s.”
“Deal,” I said.
Avery started back to the shop. “With extra whipped cream,” she called over her shoulder.
“Have I been had?” I said to Liz.
There was a gleam of amusement in her eyes. “I think the correct term is ‘well, duh.’”
Liam and Mr. P. left in Cleveland’s pickup. I followed in the SUV with Rose riding shotgun and Liz and Charlotte in the back. The plan was for us to park in a lot across the street from the community center where the money management seminar was being held. The tiny digital camera had a transmit range of about five thousand feet.
“What if this woman doesn’t show up?” Liz asked. “Do we have a plan B?”
“We don’t need a plan B,” Rose said, very confidently, it seemed to me.
“And that would be because?”
“Because she’ll be there,” Charlotte stated calmly.
I glanced in the rearview mirror. Liz was frowning at her friends. “What do you two know that I don’t?”
“Good question,” I said. “What do you two know that Liz—and I—don’t?”
“Our mystery woman has shown up at five financial seminars in this area aimed at senior citizens in the last six months,” Charlotte said. “Every time she talked about investing in things you can see and touch and every time she spent most of her time with someone who came to the seminar alone.”
“So she’ll only have to win over one person, not two or three,” I said.
“That’s what we think,” Rose said.
“She’s going to show up,” Charlotte said. “This is exactly the kind of setup she likes—small town, a presentation aimed at seniors who have some money saved but not enough that they’d already have a financial adviser.”
“It’s despicable,” Rose said. I glanced at her. Her mouth was pulled into a tight line.
“It is hard to accept that someone who is a senior citizen would be taking advantage of other people her age,” Charlotte agreed.
Ahead of us Liam put on his blinker and moved over into the exit lane. I did the same.
“Maybe it’s all she has,” Liz said.
Beside me Rose shifted so she could look at her friend in the backseat. “What do you mean?” she asked.
“Maybe she’s doing this because she doesn’t have any other choice.”