#13.5 Trixie Belden in Third Degree Burned: I Think About Rough Burns

“Oh! Bet you didn’t see that one coming!”

Timothy Olyphant (Mickey) Scream 2

“In the last part of a trilogy, all bets are off. . .”

Patrick Dempsey – Scream 3

This is Jack Price. You’re listening to 96.3 FM WSTH Sleepyside. Home of the good old golden oldies. Coming up this morning in just a few minutes is our Friday morning Big Band and Jazz show. Later today, it’s back to the 50’s and 60’s. But first the news.

The Sleepyside Performing Arts Series is proud to announce the lineup for this year’s 2^nd annual Jonathan Crandall memorial fall extravaganza. Due to generous donations from some of Sleepyside’s more prominent citizens, and the overwhelming success of this year’s performing arts fundraisers, the chair of the performing arts committee, Earl Crimper Jr. is pleased to announce that the Fall Art’s Extravaganza will be the biggest and best yet.

On the lineup for the day are performances by the Julliard String Quartet, Irish folk singers Dublin Thunder, and the New York Symphony Orchestra. After the performances a reception is due to be held at the Sleepyside Museum of Fine Art, where various art treasures on loan from the New York Metropolitan Art Museum and numerous private collections will be on display for members of the Performing Arts Club.

We hope to see you all there.

Madeleine Wheeler had slept in that day. After going to New York to see two of her favorite new bands play, she had gotten back late. Matthew was up making arrangements for the upcoming art festival. He had politely declined to go with her to see bands called Wumpscut and VNV Nation. Although she had spent the better part of the night after she returned trying to answer the phone, the ringing in her ears had subsided, and she was in the mood for more techno.

She went to her new machine that sat on a new computer table in the Manor House master bedroom, and turned it on. This was her latest purchase. It wasn’t that she and Matt couldn’t share his computer. He really wasn’t home to use it all that much. It was just that it was all the way down in the study. And what’s more was that although it was a fast and powerful machine, it wasn’t really set up for what she liked to do. It was set up for business, and she wanted something more suitable for her net surfing and music.

So, like she always did when she wanted something, she just bought it. It had a bigger monitor than Matthew’s, a set of Boston Acoustics Media Theatre 5.1 surround speakers, a SoundBlaster Live! Platinum sound card, a CD burner, and a DSL connection. After a series of recent emails to one of the newest Bob-Whites, Corey Dawson, on what to get and where to surf, she downloaded Winamp, Music Match Jukebox 4, RealPlayer and everything else she needed to turn her computer into a home music studio. Matthew thought nothing of it. They were rich after all, and she always just bought what she wanted. This was not to say that she hadn’t done something that he would raise the roof over. She had very recently stuffed 200 dollars in cash into an envelope and sent it off to some address in Singapore. If the offer was on the level, in about six weeks, she would receive about 50 CD’s worth of techno MP3’s from Asia’s most well know ravers and DJ’s (Yes. The idiot I know who did this actually got the CD’s – Eric). It’s not that they would be hurting if that much money vanished into thin air, but Mr. Wheeler still had fiscally conservative instincts from the days when he had to be tight, to reinvest money and make his fortune, and didn’t really approve of throwing it away like that. But Madeleine was unconcerned. It was her money to spend, and if she blew it on just about anything else, he probably wouldn’t say a word.

She started a selection of songs and then went to take a shower, dancing the whole way to the bathroom.

When she emerged from the bathroom, she found a tray sitting next to her machine that Celia had left with her breakfast. She took one bite of the coffee cake and then picked up her coffee mug and went over to her hope chest at the foot of the bed. It was a very old Hart family heirloom that her great grandmother had owned. But inside, under some of the old family quilts and other things she had inherited were hidden some CD’s. Matthew was still getting used to the idea that she really liked this new music, and so she had decided that he really didn’t need to know just yet, how much she had already bought. After looking through them, she finally settled on the Lords of Acid album Lust. She took it over to the computer and fired it up as she checked her email, and went to her favorite sites.

She was about three dozen posts into rec.music.industrial when track 2 on the disk came on. It was her favorite song on the disk: Rough Sex. Not quite the naughtiest one, but her favorite nonetheless, and one that always made her feel naughty to listen to.

Love. Love is the answer

Soon, just listening to the song and swaying in her chair wasn’t enough. This song made her feel naughty after all. So pausing only long enough to set her coffee down and turn it up, she stood up and began to dance to this song.

Don’t think about love

Don’t think about bright moon

. . .twinkling stars

. . .red wine

. . .silent whispers

. . .holding hands

. . .secret love letters

But soon, just dancing wasn’t enough. This song made her feel naughty after all. So pausing only long enough to turn up the heater a notch, with a flourish, she let her bathrobe fall to the floor, and danced naked in front of the computer.

I think about Pure sex

Deep sex

Hard sex

Rough sex . . .

Soon, just dancing naked wasn’t enough. This song made her feel naughty after all. So pausing only long enough to roll her computer chair out of the way, she danced up to it with a defiant strut and gave her computer a chip melting lap dance.

As the song winded down, and the CD went into Let’s Get High, she sat down laughing and spun once around in her chair. She gave a startled shriek when she turned to see Matthew Wheeler standing in the door grinning ear to ear.

“Oh don’t let me interrupt anything,” he said. “I was just getting into it. I’m jealous of the computer though.”

Madeleine blushed to the roots of her hair, but soon laughed. She got up and walked over to him with wicked smile. They hugged and kissed. She finally slapped his hand away from her butt, and turned to go get her bathrobe. She suddenly froze.

“Matthew Sweetie? What’s that?”

“What’s what?”

Madeleine walked over to her computer and picked something off the top of the monitor and turned around to show it to him.

“This. What it is? Did you put it there?”

“No. Haven’t touched your computer. It’s a web camera. Thought you had bought it with your machine.”

“A WHAT?!”

Mr. Hayden finally returned to the computer science classroom at Sleepyside Junior-Senior High with Mr. Stratton.

Honey Wheeler still lie unconscious on the floor right where she had fallen when she fainted dead away. Trixie and Di had propped her head up on Di’s sweater and Trixie’s coat. Trixie was wafting air over her face with a notebook.

Jerry Vanderhoef, Mike Larson, and Bill Wright were also still on the floor laughing so hard that they couldn’t breath. Lester Mundy had his hand in his pocket and was shifting nervously when he was reasonably certain no one was paying any attention to him. Mart was starring blankly at his computer screen refusing to move, talk, or acknowledge that he had seen anything. He had never been stunned so speechless in his life. Jane Morgan turned to Patty Morris and said, “I hope I look that good in my late thirties after having a kid,” in a very matter of fact tone. Patty nodded in agreement. “Well. We know she’s a natural honey blonde,” Shrimpy Davis told Marvin Easton in a quiet voice. Although Marvin was smiling, he replied “Too much information! Although it was very kind of her to let us have such frequent and close inspections to determine this.” They were soon doubled over with laughter.

Mr. Hayden finally began barking orders to the class to back away from their computers till he could figure out where the live feed had come from while Mr. Stratton went to see if Honey was okay.

It was only with a heavy dose of prescription tranquilizers that Mrs. Wheeler made it through the Art and Music Festival the next day. No one even realized she was capable of such a powerful temper tantrum as the one she threw when she found out who had been watching. Mr. Wheeler got full assurance from the FBI and Secret Service that they would look into this case of electronic stalking. But that did little to settle Madeleine down.

Although dreary and rainy, the concerts and exhibitions had been a rousing success. People from all over the area came, and as the evening reception began, the Sleepyside Museum of Fine Arts was standing room only. There were two full receptions in progress. One took place in the main exhibition halls and was open to the general public. The other was a black tie formal reception for members of the Performing Arts Committee as well as the musicians and high profile guests.

Janet Grey, Charlie Burnside, Mr. and Mrs. Lynch, Rose Crandall, Polly Ward, Harrison, and Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler stood around drinking champagne with the orchestra conductor and several art and music critics who had come up from the city for the festival. They laughed and talked when Harrison, without warning, began to tell a joke. He began his story so matter-of-factly that few realized that he was telling one.

“I had a friend who played in an orchestra. He and his friends played the bass cello. My friend was first chair. Their skill was widely regarded. But alas, they had an Achilles’ Heal, like many fine artists throughout history have had. My friend and his fellow cellists had a wine spot. Not a serious one mind you, but a wine spot nonetheless.”

“It was during a particularly long performance at Carnegie Hall however, that this vice chose to rear it’s ugly head one night. The orchestra was finishing a grand performance of Beethoven ’s Ninth, the Ode to Joy.”

“My favorite,” Mrs. Lynch commented. Harrison smiled and continued.

“Now there is a very lengthy section of the Ode to Joy where the bassists have nothing to play. I believe the section is nearly twenty minutes long. So alas, unable to wait any longer, my friend and his fellow bassists decided that since they had nothing to play that they could slip away for a quick drink. It just so happens, that there was a pub right across the street from Carnegie Hall. So my friends slipped away and went to this watering hole for a drink.”

“Sad to say, as they consumed more whiskey sours they lost track of the time. One finally looked at his watch and realized they were going to be late. My friend told him that they could at least finish their drinks before heading back.”

“When confronted about his assurance, my friend told him, ‘Don’t worry. They won’t be able to go on until we get back. To make sure of this, before I left, I tied the sheet music together for the final section. The conductor won’t be able to turn the page and continue conducting until we get back and untie the music for him.’”

“So the bassists finished their drinks at a leisurely rate, and finally went back to the show.”

Harrison fell silent, and looked around with a smile at his captivated audience.

“Well what happened?” Rose asked him.

“The conductor was livid. For you see, it was the bottom of the ninth, the score was tied, and the basses were loaded.”

The crowd doubled over laughing. Many, not because they thought the joke was funny. It was just funny to hear Harrison tell one.

When they all recovered, Mrs. Wheeler made an announcement.

“This is so much fun. I never dreamed Sleepyside would be graced with all these wonderful performers and art treasures. I really love the Faberge egg.”

“Would you like to see it again?” Charlie offered.

“Yes. I would.”

Charlie walked off smiling to carefully unlock the case it was in and bring it to her. About this time, the black tuxed Brad Jameson and Jerry Vanderhoef quietly wandered into the room. They both discreetly looked over Mrs. Wheeler. She was in a black, floor length, strapless evening gown, slit up to the thigh on one side, and elbow length black gloves. No one noticed their discreet leering however, for Charlie soon returned and carefully handed Mrs. Wheeler the egg.

“Oh how exquisite!” she exclaimed, carefully looking it over.

Jerry very matter-of-factly turned to Brad. Although he sounded casual, he talked to Brad deliberately with a loud enough voice to make sure that Mrs. Wheeler could hear him.

“Wow! There really are some very classy, good looking women here tonight. I’m glad my parents dragged me to this reception.”

“Me too,” Brad agreed. “But you know what? As well dressed and cultured as all these hotties seem, that’s not really what I think about when I see women like that.”

Jerry nodded in agreement.

“I know what you mean. When I see a hot number I usually only think about one thing: Pure sex.”

“Or deep sex,” Brad replied nodding.

“Or hard sex,” Jerry added very matter-of-factly.

“And we can’t forget rough sex,” Brad said.

The was a loud snapping crunch. The two boys looked over in mock surprise to see Mrs. Wheeler flushed red with anger and holding some smashed, crumbled gold object inside a tight fist.

Charlie and Harrison blanched. Janet Grey fainted dead away, and Rose Crandall nearly did too. The Lynches gave an audible gasp. Mr. Wheeler wore a startled, but pained expression that made him look like he was going to need copious amounts of Xanx and Tagamet.

Brad and Jerry promptly fled.

“But Mommy! It hurts!” eight year old Bobby Belden wailed.

“Oh Bobby. Please stop complaining. It’s just a cut. You’re eight years old already. You shouldn’t cry over little scrapes like this.”

She finished putting the bandage on the top of his hand, and looked at him with a smile. There. You see. It’s all better now. She gave him a quick hug. He squirmed with embarrassment and pulled away. Now that he was “all grown up”, he began to resist such shows of affection meant for “little kids”.

Mrs. Belden simply laughed and let him run off. She turned her attention back to her chores in the garden. With the upcoming storms, she wanted to get as much done as possible. They promised to be the worst Sleepyside had seen since the ones that struck during the weekend of the Midnight Marauder’s depredations, although not nearly as bad as the hurricane.

Thank God for that! Mrs. Belden thought as she hurried through her work. Normally, her children would be out helping her. But the Bob-Whites had been recruited by Mr. Wheeler to take some emergency measures regarding the art treasures that had been on display in the Sleepyside Museum for the previous day’s festivities.

After everything that had happened during the Headless Horseman case, with the robberies by Alfred Dunham, it was much to the Art Committee’s dismay that they discovered the safe at the museum still hadn’t been fixed.

The storm was already ragging to the south. Although most of the musicians and critics had already made it home on the commuter trains, the storm had closed the roads, and the shippers could not get the art treasures back to the city. So at the last minute, they were being moved up to the Manor House for safe keeping. The Bob-Whites were up at the Manor House with Regan, rearranging furniture to make room, and helping Charlie Burnside, Harrison and Janet Grey move the priceless relics in to ride out the storm.

As soon as Mrs. Belden had finished ‘weatherizing’ her garden and got all of her tools put back in the shed and barn, she quickly brushed her hands off on her pants and ran for the house.

She was already partially wet from the stinging cold squall that had already started coming down. But enduring the rain for a few extra moments, she ran around the front of the house to check the storm windows, and then went inside the front. She quickly made her way around the house, checking the rest of the storm windows. It was after she finished checking all of the upstairs windows that she realized that she hadn’t heard Bobby or Reddy.

Oh dear. I hope they still aren’t outside.

She quickly made her away around the house looking for them. There was still no sign, and dead silence as she wandered around. She grew increasingly worried, and decided to call the Manor House to see if he had wandered up there.

She made her way into the kitchen, and screamed in surprise and revulsion. There was blood everywhere. Also bits of flesh. Like a splatter movie victim had been killed right there in her kitchen. The blood was pooled up on the floor with the bits of remains. It was splattered all over the pristine curtains, the white counters and cabinets, and all over the hanging pots and Belden family China. There was every some impressive splattering on the ceiling and all over the kitchen door.

When Mrs. Belden finally stopped screaming, she covered her mouth with a handkerchief. She was hyperventilating and felt like she was going to faint, but she forced herself to step gingerly into the kitchen to see the extent of the mess.

When she got the sink, what she saw gave her a nervous breakdown on the spot. Sticking out of the garbage disposal was a familiar chubby tanned arm with an even more familiar bandage on it . . .

With a resiliency no one realized she had, Mrs. Belden recovered and was home that very evening. The recovery was almost instant when she was informed that Bobby had been up at the Manor House, and that the arm and gore were fake. Trixie, Mart, Bobby and Mr. Belden saw to it that the kitchen was pristine, and no evidence of the mess was left at all by the time she got home.

Although Bobby really wanted to keep the lifelike rubber replica of his severed arm, Mr. Belden took it outside himself in the stinging rain to burn it.

Since it took so long to clean up the mess, and since Mrs. Belden had been away and not able to use the kitchen to prepare dinner, the Beldens ended up at the Manor House for dinner. The Lynches were also in attendance along with Charlie Burnside, who was staying at the Manor House to look after the art treasures. Although outwardly, Helen was happy and cheerful, Trixie could see the anger still smolder in her eyes. She longed to know what she was thinking, but thus far, they had talked about the incident very little and everyone was afraid to ask about it.

It was much latter when in various conversations, the events of the last few days were discussed at all. Trixie, Honey and Di were up in Honey’s room talking. The parents were having coffee in one of the sitting rooms. Mart was down playing with Bobby and the Lynch twins.

“Well Trixie,” Honey told her friend as they sat around on Honey’s bed. “Looks like we have another case to solve.”

“The case of the sick freak?” Di asked with a smile. “I’m game. Let’s work it.”

“I have no idea what to think,” Trixie convinced. “These are about the meanest things I have ever seen done to anybody. And I have no idea who would want to be this mean or why.”

“I don’t either,” Di confessed.

“I thought what happened to Mom was bad,” Honey said. “She couldn’t look me in the eye after I got back from school yesterday. But then I heard what happened to your mom. What a burn.”

The three girls suddenly looked up at each other again with sudden surprise.

“It’s happening again,” Trixie announced.

“It can’t be,” Honey said. “Brad is a Bob-White now. Even though we fined him for the cracks he made at the museum last night. And Dapper Dick . . .”

“Dapper Dick just got out of the hospital,” Trixie announced. “He hasn’t even stood trial for that stuff yet. The judge ordered the trial postponed until he got out of traction and could appear in court. Jim and Dan really broke him.”

“What about his son, Corey’s cousin?” Di asked.

“He’s in reform school for his little role in that misadventure, and will be until he’s 18.”

“Okay. But the first two acts of terror were only tenuously related. Brad thought we were snobs and wanted to get us. Richard Dawson Jr. was going to help his dad kidnap us. He just got the idea of how to set us up and get us mad from what Brad did,” Trixie said.

“So if the show is starting again, the link to the first two shows might only be very thin,” Di surmised.

“I don’t know if we can even say that it is related at all. The MO is the same, but that’s about it. There are all kinds of different criminals who use the same methods,” Honey objected.

“Maybe,” Trixie said. “But we aren’t talking about different groups of crooks who all decide to hold up convenience stores like they see in the movies or read about in the papers. We are talking about someone going through great lengths to burn people with mean and vicious practical jokes. That’s a lot more specific and unusual kind of trouble for someone to go to. And I don’t think it’s any accident that it’s happening here, and to our parents.”

“Maybe not,” Honey conceded, “But we really can’t even think about this like the previous two cases. One, our parents seem to be the target now, and two, these are on a whole new level of mean.”

“True,” Trixie agreed, “but let’s not rule out the fact that we are not involved. This still may be a ploy to get at us, and get us involved. Whoever’s doing this had to know that we will get involved.”

“Do you think we should warn them? We already got in trouble over how we handled the second one. They already know about what happened. We have nothing to worry about if we come clean and tell them what we suspect,” Di said.

“That’s true too,” Trixie agreed, “but I don’t want to go to them just yet. They already know something is up, and to be on the lookout. I don’t want to go to them till we have more to go on. Till we have more proof that the strings of burns are related.”

“Sounds good to me,” Honey and Di both conceded.

“I just have absolutely no idea were to start,” Trixie complained. “At least with Dapper Dick’s burns, we had an angle to look into from the get go, because we knew Brad might know who it was. And before that, we had the hacking angle to look into since so many of the burns involved a computer. Now I don’t even have the faintest idea where to start.”

“I hate to say this,” Di said, “but we may have to wait for another parent to get burned before we have any idea where to start.”

Trixie and Honey nodded glumly in agreement.

The conversation was much lighter and unrelated down in the sitting room where the parents enjoyed coffee and desert. Hanging on the wall here was one of the art treasures that had been too big to go into Mr. Wheeler’s safe. It was the original Picasso that had hung in the Lisgard House for a long time. It had been sold to the Sleepyside museum recently for a bargain price by the owner so that he could pay the legal expenses in his arrest for attempted arson of the house.

Although they still hadn’t discussed exactly what had happened, in a related conversation, they did discuss their children and families and how precious and important they were to them. The families traded stories about their marriages and experiences with child rearing.

“Honey is the best thing that ever happened to me,” Mrs. Wheeler explained. “My pregnancy was such a nightmare though.”

“And expensive,” Mr. Wheeler joked. “And I’m not just talking about the medical bills either.”

“What do you mean?” Mrs. Lynch asked.

Mrs. Wheeler giggled, and blushed slightly before she answered. “He’s talking about my cravings. They were rather pricey.”

Mrs. Lynch laughed. “I hadn’t had a chance to develop those kinds of tastes. I’d end up sending out Ed for a bucket of chicken, a pizza, or have him drag me to the super bar at the Wendy’s in White Plains.”

“Matthew jokes that Honey is not made out of sugar and spice. He thinks she’s made of Russian Caviar, Maryland Crabs and really spicy Thai food.”

Mrs. Lynch and Mrs. Belden laughed.

“That’s not the half of it,” Matthew added. “I couldn’t take her out for the crabs anymore, because the chef would nearly cry when he saw her kill them with ketchup. The Thai food had to be from one particular place in Manhattan across town from where we lived. No one else made it right. And I dared not come home with just the Caviar. I also had to come home with the Chicken McNuggets.”

“McNuggets?” Mrs. Belden asked with disbelief. “As in from McDonald’s?”

“Yeah. They were great when you dipped them in the Caviar.”

Everyone laughed.

“The hospital stays were the worst. The food was atrocious and they wouldn’t let me order out,” Mrs. Wheeler complained.

“I went through a completely different set of cravings for each child,” Mrs. Belden said. “Brian was turkey sandwiches and fruit. Mart was spare ribs and tossed salad with no dressing. Trixie was noodles and cooked vegetables.”

“And Bobby?” Mrs. Wheeler prompted.

Mrs. Belden looked down with a slight look of embarrassment, and when she answered, she spoke quietly.

“Well, I was very fond of putting jalapeno slices on my hot fudge sundaes. And there just wasn’t enough Mountain Dew in the world to get me by . . .”

The crowd all doubled over laughing.

“I just can’t imagine how you two ever brought yourselves to go through all that again,” Mrs. Wheeler said in awe.

“Oh, I always knew I wanted a lot of kids,” Mrs. Lynch said. “I never minded that much, and my pregnancies all went without a hitch.”

“We knew we wanted a lot of kids too, although we were going to stop after we finally had a girl,” Mrs. Belden explained. “Having Mart and Trixie back to back was a bit much even for me.”

“So Bobby was an . . ?” Mrs. Wheeler asked carefully.

“Yeah,” Mr. Belden said, coming to Helen’s rescue. “Brian, Mart and Trixie were visiting their Uncle Harold in Idaho for the Thanksgiving holiday. It was one of those beautiful autumn nights. We had gone for a walk. We had a romantic diner. We ended up cuddled in front of the fireplace. Soon there was only one thing our minds.”

Peter looked around smiling before he answered. “Pure sex.”

“And deep sex,” Helen added with a smile.

“And hard sex,” Peter stated matter-of-factly.

“And rough sex,” Helen added in a wicked tone.

Madeleine Wheeler gasped with surprise and dropped her wine glass to cover her mouth with her hand as she blushed with embarrassment. Matthew instinctively leapt back to avoid the falling glass and smashed into the Picasso on the wall behind him. He whirled around in a vain effort to both stay on his feet, and to catch the painting. Charlie Burnside blanched and leapt to his aid, but they ended up colliding and tangled on the floor in a heap of splintered frame and torn canvas.

Trixie walked down the dark and dreary hall. In the dim light, she peered into the cells with a morbid sense of dread. These were the worst. They were some of the most dangerous convicts behind bars, anywhere. And all that stood between her and them was old cobblestone walls, the bars and thick sheet of plexi-glass over the last cell. She slowly approached the cell at the end. In the bleak and damp hall in front of the last cell sat a single folding metal chair.

Trixie irrationally tried to straighten out her unruly curls, and checked herself over one last time before she made herself visible to the occupant of the last cell.

The inmate in the cell in front of her came up to the bars sniffing like a curious cat or puppy. His grin widened to a leer as he saw her, and he stated, “I can smell your Stroganoff.”

Trixie gave an involuntary shudder, but steeled herself to finally confront the final inmate.

She walked forward. The cell was dark, and a figure sat in back, still in several casts and slings.

“Detective Belden,” Dapper Dick greeted

“Richard,” Trixie greeted formally.

“What did Trent tell you?”

“Trent?”

“Paul Trent, in the next cell.”

“He said, ‘I can smell your Stroganoff.’”

“Always hungry that Paul. Ever since they busted him. But I can not smell it.”

Dapper Dick came up to the holes in the plexi-glass and sniffed.

“You use Irish Spring soap, and sometimes you borrow your mother’s toilet water or perfume. But not today.”

“You see a lot Richard.”

“But you didn’t come here to talk about your cooking. You must be here on a case Detective Belden. Where’s Honey?”

“Couldn’t make it.”

“This must be a pretty important case for them to let a teenaged girl come in and talk to one of the inmates in maximum security.”

“Yes, so if you will just let me ask a few questions and help me with this case?”

“No. no. no,” Dapper Dick replied. “You were doing so well. You greeted me politely and respectfully. You established trust by repeating Paul’s remark, and voicing your insecurities about being seen as a homemaker and not a detective.”

“They’re just questions about my current case. Either you’ll answer them or you won’t.”

“So brave. So ambitious. But you know what you remind me of, standing there in your Gingham blouse, “school” skirt and battered mocs: a wannabe. You’ve moved past yourself and cracked some pretty tough cases, but your parents are third generation country farm folk, and you dread the fact that you are being groomed to be generation number four. Thrown at all these honorable working class men, all the tedious stay out trouble and be a lady speeches, while all you can think about is escape, all the way to the realm of PRIVATE INVESTIGATIONS.”

“You see a lot Dapper Dick. Maybe you can turn this introspection in on yourself and help me crack this case.”

“A census taker once tried to interview me about my life. I stole her wedding ring and bought lima beans and a nice cold brew.”

Trixie turned to flee when Paul threw a chicken bone and hit her in the face.

“Please. Bring me some Stroganoff. They don’t feed me enough here.”

“Detective Belden!” Dapper Dick called as she ran. “Detective Belden!”

Trixie came running back.

“I apologize for this discourtesy. What did you want to ask me?”

“Who’s burning our parents. Who’s burning us? What’s the link to the last part of the show; the end of the trilogy? Why is this happening?”

Dick’s expression grew pained and irritated.

“I just got out of the hospital! HOW IN THE HELL WOULD I KNOW?!”

Trixie sat bolt upright in bed, drenched in sweat.

“Wow! What a nightmare!”

Mrs. Lynch had a long enjoyable day. Although Mr. Lynch had been gone, with help of the servants, she had taken all of her children, including Diana, on a picnic to celebrate the break in the weather. As she made her way to the master bedroom of the Lynch estate, she smiled at how much fun she had, and how good life had been to her. The only flaw in today was that her husband hadn’t been around to share in the family fun. He wasn’t going to get in from the city till very late. He had gone in with Mr. Wheeler and Mr. Jameson to meet the other investors and see about buying into the highly profitable fiber optic line. The negotiations and transfers were going to take a while, and after that was all done, there was going to be a small reception and party at the investment house to celebrate Mr. Lynch buying into it.

Immediately upon entering the bedroom, she immediately noticed something was wrong. A lot of Mr. Lynch’s things were gone. And not just small things. His large roll top desk that he had purchased right when he made it big was gone too. Although he had a study, he had put the desk in the bedroom just like he had had in their small apartment when he was carefully investing to make the family fortune. It was one of his most treasured possessions, and a lot of the business he still did was done from this desk.

Mrs. Lynch began to quickly look around the room in panic to see what else was missing.

She found his entire half of the cavernous closet was empty and all the drawers with his clothes were empty as well. It was looking less like a robbery and more like he had moved out.

It was then that she spotted some papers on the top of her dresser. There was a stapled sheaf of official looking documents, and a handwritten note on top of them in Mr. Lynch’s handwriting. It read:

I’m leaving you.

Sign the papers and make this easy.

It’s all yours. I’ll make another fortune withmy new girlfriend.

Mrs. Lynch looked open mouthed at the divorce papers under the note, and read the note again in disbelief. She then crumpled it up in her hands, stumbled back, and sat back on the bed crying.

Mr. Lynch wandered in.

“Hey honey . . . what’s wrong?! And what the hell happened to all my stuff?! . . . .”

The Bob-White mothers ended up meeting for tea the very next day at the Manor House. Mr. Lynch and Harrison had come as well. As soon as Mr. Wheeler returned from New York, they had a council of war.

“This is getting way out of hand,” Mrs. Lynch announced. “Something rotten is going on here, and I’m not sure I like it.”

“What’s to like?” Mrs. Belden snapped irritably. “We are only the victims of a serial prankster. One with a very poor sense of humor.”

“Look, I agree these are bad,” Mrs. Wheeler began, “but are we just going to sit here and take this, or are we going to do something about it?”

“I don’t like this any more than you do,” Mr. Lynch said, “but I really have no idea what we can do. We have no idea what’s really going on or why. All we know is that our joker is patient, extremely mean, and very professional.”

“What brings you to this last conclusion, if I may be so bold as to ask?” Harrison chimed in.

“The way these jokes have been pulled off, I think it’s safe to assume this. We have seen masterful burglaries, expert forgery, Hollywood level special effects and hacking which has eluded the feds so far,” Mr. Lynch explained.

“Do the kids know what’s going on?” Mrs. Lynch asked.

“Trixie mentioned something about a possible link to a past case, and that they were looking into it,” Mrs. Belden said. “But that’s all she’s told me. I think she may have been talking about the case they were involved in at the very beginning of the summer with the dead snake, bleeding dummy and planted drugs. The one where they ended up involved in that shootout at that old theater.”

“I remember now. The one we grounded them all over for not going to the police,” Mrs. Lynch said.

“Honey did tell me that that wasn’t the first time those sorts of things had happened to them,” Mrs. Wheeler said.

“Yeah. But the first time around, the culprit was Roger’s boy,” Mr. Wheeler said. “Since he’s a Bob-White now, I think it’s safe to say that he’s been forgiven, and probably not involved.”

“I remember that now too,” Mrs. Lynch added. “Roger made him come over and apologize to Diana, and give her back some pictures. Never found out what they were. I think Diana threw them away. But I guess he is forgiven, because they are dating now.”

“Do we bring them into this?” Mrs. Wheeler asked.

“I don’t know if I like that idea too much,” Mrs. Belden said, “but we may have no choice. They certainly know more about what’s going on than we do.”

“I think we can investigate this one ourselves,” Mr. Wheeler asserted, “but we at least need to ask them what they know. Find out what we can. We have nothing to go on right now.”

“That sounds good,” Mrs. Belden agreed. “Why don’t we have some sort of big family get together, and all get together in one place. Then we can ask them.”

“That’s sounds like a good idea,” Mrs. Wheeler said. “Where should we do this?”

“Why don’t we have our get together down at Crabapple Farm,” Mrs. Belden suggested. “It’s been too long since we’ve had company like this, and I’d love to cook for you all.”

“All three families?” Mrs. Wheeler asked in disbelief.

“That’s no big deal. I’ve fed more.”

“Well at least let us come down and help you,” Mrs. Lynch offered.

“That’s really not necessary, but I wouldn’t mind your company.”

“Then I guess that settles that,” Mr. Wheeler said getting out his cell phone. “I’ll start calling around to tell the kids.”

As the adults plotted, other members of the Bob-Whites met discussing the same dilemma. After an after school double date for a soda at Wimpy’s, Trixie, Corey, Di and Brad sat up in Di’s room discussing the burns.

“That’s terrible Di!” Trixie exclaimed, when Di finished telling them what had happened to her mother. “She must have been furious.”

“Not as furious as Daddy was.”

“Why?” Corey asked. “Did he spend the night in the dog house?” He suddenly wished he had bitten off his tongue.

“She was so happy to find out it was a hoax, that I don’t think she would have let him,” Di said with a giggle.

“This is throwing me for a loop,” Trixie complained. “We need more clues.”

She turned to Corey. “Will you get some clues for me Love?” she asked only half jokingly.

“You’re asking me to find you a clue?” he joked. “Most people tell me to get one for myself.”

Trixie laughed, but turned serious. “We need an angle. And the only one I can think of is that you might be able to find who hacked Mrs. Wheeler’s machine.”

Corey gave her an extremely pained expression.

“Trixie dearest, Mr. Wheeler called the FBI! Do you know what’s going to happen to me if they catch me snooping around that system. They’ll probably blame me for the whole thing, and lock me up in a cell with a 300 pound toothless hillbilly doing five to life for armed robbery named Bubba, as part of the New York state asshole expansion program.”

Everyone present laughed. Then Trixie gave Corey a playful pout.

“For me? You’re better with machines than they are. You won’t get caught.”

“I’m very flattered with your faith in my skills, but if it’s all the same to you, I’d like to not risk it, and be able to be involved with you instead of Bubba.”

Everyone laughed again. Then Trixie developed a wicked look and turned to Corey.

“If you do this for me I’ll let you . . .”

She finished her offer whispering in his ear.

Corey’s eyes went wide.

“I’ll get right on it!” he announced.

Everyone laughed again.

“Looks like she knew how to motivate you,” Brad remarked calmly.

Corey collapsed on the ground because he was laughing so hard. Everyone looked at him with a puzzled expression, not sure why he found that remark so funny.

Trixie finally grew serious. “Look Corey, I was just kidding. Don’t risk getting in trouble over this. We’ll figure something else out.”

“No. It’s alright. I just remembered. I have the perfect way to find out what’s going on without getting burned by the Feds.”

“How?” Trixie asked.

“Well, you remember how Di wanted to me to hack during the last case of burns, and I spent some time figuring out how to do so without getting caught. I just remembered what I was going to do.”

“What?” Trixie, Di and Brad asked in unison.

“I was going to use a little tidbit I got from my Brad through my cousin before I knew he was one of the culprits. Or my cousin . . .”

“What!?” they all asked again.

“You gave me the password for someone else’s account,” he said looking at Brad. “Remember? When I started hacking, I was going to be Paul Trent!”

The laughter didn’t stop for several minutes. When they all finally caught their breath, Trixie got serious again.

“Is that all we can do? There’s got to be some other angle. Some other obvious clue we’re missing.”

The group fell silent. Finally, without a word, Di got up and began to undress. She stripped until she was wearing nothing but a tight fitting red cotton camisole and matching panties. She calmly walked off into her bathroom. The remaining friends gave each other startled and puzzled looks. They then heard the water run for several minutes.

Di came back out completely soaked, sat down in her chair, assumed the pose of the thinker, and quite seriously announced, “That’s much better. Now I can think.”

There was yet more laughter, although for the remainder of the conversation, Trixie noted that Corey was making a very serious effort to talk to her chest instead of Di’s.

“I did some thinking in the shower,” Di said. “I think we have another clue.”

“What?” Trixie asked.

“So far, all the burns have been aimed at our mothers. Anything that has happened to the fathers has been purely collateral damage.”

“That’s right!” Trixie exclaimed. “I knew we were missing something obvious!”

“Maybe that’s the just the order they have happened in. Maybe the burns for the guys haven’t started yet,” Brad theorized.

“Maybe,” Trixie conceded. “But then again maybe not. We can’t afford to write anything off to coincidence in these cases.”

“So does that mean this is all over?” Corey asked. “All of your mothers have been burned.”

“No,” Di said. “One, you and Brad are Bob-Whites now, so if this theory is true, you’re mothers are next on the list. I think a warning would be prudent right about now. I know how happy your mothers were when you joined us and made good friends in this town. I don’t want the first perk they experience due to your membership to be a bull’s eye for a vicious prank. Second, even if this was the end of the regular burns, if the cases are related, and I think they are, this won’t end quietly anymore than the previous shows did. We are still looking at a grand finale.”

The group fell silent again in thought. Then Di’s phone rang. She reached over and picked it up. Her eyes went wide during the short conversation, and as soon as she hung up, she looked over at her friends.

“It would appear that our parents are on the case,” she announced.

Trixie laughed. “I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised. They know first hand what’s going on with this case. And they have gotten involved in cases in the past. Especially Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler. What did they want?”

“The complete and unabridged story of the first two cases. Mom assured me that we had complete immunity, but they want to hear every last detail."

Trixie giggled. “Well, I suppose we’ll have to tell them, no matter how embarrassing it is. They know too much now, and we’ll only get in trouble if we hold out. When did they want the story?”

“Tonight. I guess there is going to be a big dinner for everyone at Crabapple Farm.”

“I’d better get home then,” Trixie announced standing up. “Moms will want my help, or at least want me to keep Bobby out of her hair.”

“And out of the garbage disposal,” Corey added, just barely managing to keep a straight face.

Trixie gave Corey a vicious elbow to the ribs. As soon as he finished laughing and coughing, Trixie helped him to his feet and they left. As soon as they were out of the door, Di tossed a towel at Brad.

“Dry me off?” she asked with a wicked grin.

None of the predictions proved to be true. The dinner at Crabapple Farm went without event. As embarrassing at it was for the Bob-Whites to divulge every detail of those cases, the parents listened at rapt attention with deep fascination at how they had gone, often asking questions about certain details.

When it was all done, the parents stayed up discussing it long after the kids had been sent to bed on this school night.

As good it as it felt to have some sort of information, the discussion still didn’t lead to any definite conclusions. All that was decided that night was that Mrs. Belden was going to call Mrs. Dawson first thing in the morning and that Mrs. Lynch was going to call Mrs. Jameson as well. They all agreed to be as vigilant as they could, and let each other know the minute something developed.

It wasn’t till the following afternoon that terror struck again. Honey came into her room after school. She set her books down on her desk, sat down for a few minutes to rest and then began to look in to changing for riding.

She immediately noticed some new clothes that someone had lay out for her on the bed. Her curiosity immediately perked, she went to investigate. There was a pair of very very expensive designer jeans from some exclusive European store. With them was a blouse and riding sweater of similar expense and quality. To top the outfit off was a set of perfect fitting riding boots.

When she tried the whole outfit on, and inspected herself in the mirror, she was very pleased with how well it fit, and how good it looked.

“How nice,” she said quietly to herself. “I wonder if Mom got this for me?”

She reached into the pockets of the jeans, and immediately noticed a folded piece of paper.

She pulled it out. It turned out to be a scented envelope, tied with a ribbon. Smiling sheepishly, Honey carefully took the ribbon off, and pulled the card out of the envelope. She opened it and read it:

Since you insist on not dressing and acting like a properlady, you should at least show some small measure of sophistication you little BITCH!

Honey stared blankly at the card for several minutes, blinking back tears. She then read it again, to make sure she wasn’t seeing things. She soon stumbled back and collapsed back on her bed, letting the tears come.

Her mother found her crying quietly a few minutes later.

“Honey!” Madeleine exclaimed in alarm. “What’s wrong?!”

It was to a livid crowd in the Bob-White clubhouse later that night that she recounted what happened to her.

“I know I shouldn’t be so sensitive about hearing bad language like that. I mean, I hear Corey talk like that all the time.”

“I shouldn’t,” Corey quickly asserted. “At least not around people who don’t like to hear language like that. I should be apologizing to you for forcing you to get used to hearing it.”

“It’s no big deal,” Honey reassured him. “I’ve heard people swear before. I know this is going to sound kind of lame, but this was really upsetting for me. Upsetting, because no one has ever called me that before. No one has ever used that kind of language at me. The only thing that even came close was when Dan was rude when he first got here, or when Corey swore because I was trying to beat up my cousin.”

Dan shifted nervously, and Corey looked down at his feet.

“You’re giving me a serious guilt trip here,” Corey lamented.

“Don’t beat yourself up over it. I had no excuse for being violent. You’re a Bob-White and you’re my friend. You’ve all treated me so well. And I like to think that it’s because I’ve tried to treat you well. I like to think that I’ve never heard that word aimed at me because I’ve never given anyone a reason to.”

“You still haven’t,” Dan asserted. “There are just some people who suck, and think they can hurt others without provocation. They think it’s fun and funny. And when I get my hands on the person who talked to you like that, they are going to find out how fun and funny I think it is to beat the crap out of people like them.”

“Let’s not go off half cocked,” Mart said. “Before we do anything, we need to find out what is going on. This just doesn’t make any sense.”

“No one at the Manor House remembers anyone coming in that afternoon, or any sort of delivery of those clothes,” Honey said. “That means whoever put them there with the note, went on the prowl. And I think that means we can safely assume that this burn is related to the others.”

“Don’t assume,” Brad warned. “That’s what got you in to the bad situation in the theater.”

“Well, we won’t make any definite conclusions or act on them without proof,” Trixie asserted, “but I will make the assumption that these are related for now in terms of trying to see a pattern. To examine the possibilities.”

“This just doesn’t make any sense,” Di complained.

“Neither did the first two cases till we got to the bottom of them,” Mart said. “The solution is probably starring us straight in the face.”

“Why would a joker start with some of the Bob-White mothers, and then move to Honey? What are they saying? What does this mean?” Trixie asked aloud.

“Maybe the joker has dated information as far as who all the Bob-White mothers are,” Brad suggested. “Doesn’t know that Corey and I are members yet.”

“That’s a good point,” Dan said. “But why are the mothers the target? What did they do that made them targets? There are all sorts of people who would want to get us. That’s a long and distinguished list. But who would be angry with the mothers?”

“Should we be looking into who would be after us? Maybe someone we had put away got released or escaped,” Di suggested.

“I know all of our fathers are already looking into that,” Trixie said. “I’ll ask them if they find anything out.”

The group sat in silence.

“Damn it!” Di suddenly exclaimed. “I hate just waiting around for people to be burned. I hate waiting for the joker to reveal themselves. I hate the waiting. . . . Why can’t we just once crack the case before the joker chooses to reveal themselves and rubs it in our faces?”

Everyone laughed at Di’s angry outburst.

“Well, then I move we adjourn this meeting,” Trixie said. “Let’s everyone think about how we can get more proactive. And let’s think about this real hard. I think Mart’s right. The solution is probably starring us right in the face.”

“I’ll second that motion,” Honey said.

They didn’t have much time to think about it, for the next burn happened the very next afternoon.

Honey came home from school again, and went to her room. She wasn’t going to ride this afternoon. Had too much homework to do, and wanted to finish it before she met Brian on ICQ that night.

She came down, set her book down, and began to clean and organize her desk so that she could get started right away. It was then that she noticed another ‘present’. It was a Palm Pilot mini computer. It had a bright red bow on it.

Caught off guard, and thinking that her father might have gotten her one, she picked it up and started to mess with it.

It was then she noticed a flashing message indicator. She opened the file and read.

Since you have forsaken ladylike pursuits to act likea white-trash tomboy, I thought this might help you keep all your wastes of time organized, you little BITCH.

Honey was now too mad to be upset. She calmly put the Palm Pilot down and went looking for something to break.

Her father walked by her room just in time to see her punch completely through her closet door.

“Honey! What’s wrong?!”

The Bob-Whites didn’t have a chance to meet that night. Honey did call around to let them know that Brian and Jim now had the lowdown on the whole situation and were going to be back that weekend to look into it.

This however, didn’t stop the parents from having a council of war.

“I’ve had just about enough of this,” Mrs. Wheeler stated, slamming her fist down on the table. “It was bad enough that they were burning us, but now my daughter seems to be the exclusive target.”

“This is completely unprecedented,” Mr. Belden exclaimed. “Based on the stories the kids told us, no single person was ever singled out before to get it worse than the others.”

“But each case seems to take it to a new level, and has been unprecedented from the previous ones,” Mr. Lynch said. “We never know what to expect.”

“I think we need to stop idly speculating, and get proactive about this,” Mrs. Wheeler asserted. “When the kids had enough with each string of burns, they started getting serious about these cases, and finding out what they could. The Dawson boy completely figured out who the first prankster was with his computer, while the rest of the kids also figured it out on their own. And the whole club came together to find out who the second one was.”

“I agree,” Mr. Wheeler said. “With all the extra security I put in after several of their cases in addition to what I put in till they could move the art treasures, I can’t figure out for the life of me how this prowler is getting in and out so easily.”

To accentuate his remark, right on cue, Charlie Burnside, Janet Grey and Harrison walked by with several of the items that they were moving to a waiting van outside, to take them back to the city.

“So what do we do?” Mrs. Lynch asked.

“We’ll do exactly what they did. Bait a trap.”

“What kind of trap is this, and how do we bait it?” Mrs. Belden asked.

“The bait is simple. We are all going to be in one place, and so are the kids,” Mrs. Wheeler explained. “And the trap will be the exact same kind the kids baited: a party. You and your families are invited to a bash right here at the Manor House this Saturday night. Dress casual if you like, formal wear is only optional. There will be dinner and drink, and it will go as late as it has to.”

The adults looked at each other for a moment in silence.

“Sounds good,” Helen Belden said. “We’ll be here.”

“We will too,” Mrs. Lynch announced.

There was another moment of silence. Suddenly Mrs. Lynch got a sly look.

“Will there be dancing?” she asked with a smirk.

“Sure,” Mrs. Wheeler said, not catching Mrs. Lynch’s slight mischievous tone. “If you like.”

“Yeah. We could handle dancing,” Mr. Lynch added. “Especially to songs about pure sex.”

“Or deep sex,” Charlie Burnside added as he walked through the room.

“Or hard sex,” Janet Grey added as she appeared behind him.

“And let us not forget rough sex,” Harrison said in a stilted but suggestive tone as he finally appeared. “Especially the way you would dance to such a song.”

There was a wrenching and splintering crash that would have made every classical music appreciator in the world cry if they realized what it was. Harrison calmly stepped outside with the pale Janet Grey and sobbing Charlie Burnside so that they could try to get the Stradivarius violin unwrapped from around his neck.

Honey came home from school the next day, almost dreading to go into her room. And her fears proved to be very grounded. But in addition to her fears, she felt an odd sense of wonder as she saw the nature of the burn. There was a dress on the bed, that was far and away, firmly in the “to die for” category. As Honey carefully looked at the label, it read Vera Wang. She held it up to her body and pirouetted around the room. It looked like it had been made custom just for her. Honey became more than slightly alarmed at how much the prankster seemed to know what fit her, and what looked good on her.

She almost threw the note with the dress away, not wanting to know what mean thing it had to tell her. She finally decided against it. It would be a much needed clue, and she felt that she could be strong enough to handle it.

She steeled herself and opened it up. Inside was a note and a picture.

Be sure to look your best when Brian comes

Smart handsome pre-med’s don’t go for unsophisticatedcountry tomboys, you little TRAMP.

If it had just been the words, she would have been able to handle it. But the picture hit her like a kick to the gut. It was a picture of Brian at some sort of big college party. He looked really drunk, and had his arm around some sophisticated looking hottie, that reminded Honey a lot of Dot Murray in Happy Valley.

Too upset to even cry, Honey closed her door and locked it, and sat back on her bed, looking at the wall blankly for quite some time.

Jim and Brian returned home early the following day. Although the Bob-Whites planned a big cookout for lunch, Jim went immediately in search of Honey as soon as he got home.

Honey could immediately tell that something was bothering him when they greeted and hugged. But Jim didn’t keep her in suspense for long.

“Can we talk?” he asked meekly.

“Sure,” she replied.

“Can we go up to your room?” he asked.

“Sure,” she said sounding somewhat puzzled.

As soon as they were in his room, he closed the door behind him.

As he began to fidget nervously, Honey had a sneaking suspicion what he wanted to talk to her about.

“About Brian . . .” he finally began.

Honey promptly picked up the picture of him she had gotten and threw it at Jim.

“It’s so good to see that he’s enjoying himself in college!” Honey snapped with heavy sarcasm. “Should have known, he was going to go off and do something like this. But I guess smart handsome young pre-med’s don’t go for ‘unsophisticated country tomboys’ like me.”

“Look!” Jim snapped, “What did you think he was going to do? If you were going to let him down, you might have let him down a little easier!”

“Let him down? Just what did I do to make him go whoring around at frat parties? Was I not around? Did I not put out? Did I not get drunk with him and let him take advantage of me? Just what was my big crime?”

“He was a wreck after he got your e-mail!” Jim nearly shouted. “I can’t say I was too happy with you either after he showed it to me. That tone and language is really beneath you!”

“E-mail? I haven’t emailed him in a week. We always talk on the phone, or chat in MSN. I haven’t used actual e-mail in a while.”

“What?!” Jim said.

“Maybe that tone and language sounded beneath me because it wasn’t me!” Honey suggested angrily. “There is a wise ass going around burning people you know. I do seem to remember mentioning this to you several days ago. I know you and Brian weren’t the mystery enthusiasts of the Bob-Whites, but don’t you think if a mysterious e-mail shows up that doesn’t sound like me, that you might have been even the slightest bit suspicious. Especially since you two insisted on coming home to help bait the trap on this particular case and be in on the kill. But I suppose it made a really good excuse for Brian to cheat on me.”

Jim was speechless, and red with embarrassment.

“But you said the joker was after our parents. And that the cases might not be related,” he finally said meekly. “Has anyone else been burned?”

Honey angrily picked up the nasty notes she had been getting all week and threw them at Jim. She wiped a tear from her eye and walked past him and out of her room without another word.

Jim winced as her door slammed behind them. He picked up the notes and read them over in disbelief. He grew livid. Although he had already bungled this already, and it was going to be a mess any which way he sliced it, he felt obligated to do what he could in terms of damage control since he was already involved. He looked at his watch. There was still time to talk to Brian before the Bob-White get together. He stuffed the notes in his pockets and left hurriedly.

Things were still very tense at the cookout. Brian was livid, and had obviously heard that he had been burned. He silently smoldered about it. Honey was very calm and pleasant but had steadfastly refused to speak to him past a quick “hi”. Jim had already found her to talk to her about what really happened, and the real story behind the picture, but she decided that he was still in the penalty box for a little while longer. Even posing for a picture with a girl like that, that he had known for two minutes, before he passed out was a punishable offense.

They had a short meeting after the cookout about the party happening at the Manor House later that night. But there was little to discuss, since it was still pretty much the adults’ show.

“I really wish you had told us what was going on sooner!” Jim complained. “We’re still Bob-Whites.”

“Hey!” Trixie protested. “You heard about most of it as it happened. The only thing we waited to tell you about was what we thought of the case as a whole. You’re always the one telling us not to jump to conclusions. And this really isn’t our case. It’s our parents’. They are pretty much in charge here, and stepped on our necks early on to keep us from pulling another stunt like we did at the theater where we caught Dapper Dick.”

Jim was forced to concede the point.

“I guess all we can do is show up to the party and keep our eye’s peeled.”

“I’m scared,” Di admitted. “I have no idea what’s going to happen, but I’m really scared. I mean, I was terrified during the first case when I thought Corey really was a killer slashing Brad’s throat. And just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, we ended up in that shootout, which just about scared me into paralysis. Each case takes it to a new level, and I’m already scarred of what’s going to come even though I don’t know what it is. I just know it’s going to be worse.”

“Don’t worry,” Corey assured her. “We’ll all be on guard. And our parents will be too. There won’t be a soul in all of the Manor House not expecting something to happen . . . .”

The Bob-Whites had to make haste when they cleaned up from the cookout, for it looked like another “whin-dinger” of a storm was on it’s way in, as Jim would say.

Corey and Brad went home to get ready for the party, and took Di home as well. With them, Di took Bobby, who was going to be kept out of harms way and stay with the Lynch twins at the Lynch estate under heavy guard. Honey and Jim had to hurry as they ran up the hill in the first spats of stinging cold rain.

As preparation got in full swing at the Belden household, Trixie ended up giggling to herself as all the activity seemed like an odd cross between preparations for a formal party and preparations for war.

Since Trixie wasn’t quite sure what to prepare for or expect, she simply slipped her Secret Service style collapse-able baton that Corey had given her for her birthday into her purse.

“You ready?” the first voice asked.

“Yeah. This is going to be a scream,” the second answered.

“I still feel guilty,” the first complained.

“Why?”

“Call me a purist, but this just won’t be the same.”

“Sure it will.”

“Naw. They will know right off that what we are doing isn’t genuine. It’s more fun when they really don’t know. Or when they think it’s real.”

“That’s the way it’s got to be. The distraction is more important than their skepticism. Be we can still just consider this motivation to put on a good show. We have way more stuff set up than we did last time. If we do this right, they still might wonder.”

The first laughed.

“Yeah, I suppose you’re right. This is going to be fun.”

“Just don’t get carried away. Remember what we’re really here to do.”

“I know. Trust me. I won’t forget. Especially with the credit card bill I wracked up getting all this stuff.”

Although the party was a big set-up, the Wheelers still did it by the numbers and set up a very formal and extravagant affair. In addition to the catering however, there was also an elaborate set of behind the scenes preparations taking place.

Mr. Wheeler had already talked to Sleepyside PD about the potential situation. He had also called the Feds. Both Tom and Regan brought rifles and shotguns, which they cleaned, oiled, loaded and left in the kitchen and back den where they could get to them quickly if need be. Charlie Burnside, also recruited to help, wore his piece that he used when he was the museum guard, before he got promoted to curator. You couldn’t even tell he was carrying a Smith and Wesson .357 snub nosed revolver under the tails of his black tuxedo coat. Although Miss Trask was dressed up, she traded out sensible shoes for her steel-toed combat boots.

Two plain clothes rent-a-cops from the Scarsdale First Response security company which Mr. Wheeler had used many times before, suited up to walk the grounds. They both carried tonfa-nightsticks, stun-guns, tasers, mace, handcuffs and each had a 9mm automatic and a .38 snub-nosed hold out. They pulled on heavy rain boots, and ponchos and headed out into the storm just as the guests were showing up and the caterers where closing up their delivery truck to drive back into Sleepyside before the worst of the storm hit.

But despite the preparations, the party was shaping up to be a very extravagant and formal affair. All the adults ended up cracking out their black-tie formal wear, and made the Bob-Whites do the same. This meant the male Bob-White had to crack out the suits, and the females dug out things like old Homecoming dresses. They all slipped in certain concessions to formality, unlike the adults however, because they knew how potentially crazy these showdowns could get. There was not a single pair of heels or uncomfortable shoes to be found among the dressed up Bob-Whites, and although they were dressed very nicely, there wasn’t a single suit or outfit to be seen that they would loose sleep over if it got ruined.

The adults made none of these concessions however, and as all the guests started to show up, it looked like a Hollywood awards ball. The guests mingled for a few minutes before they made their way to the dining room, where a feast was waiting.

The storm began to pick up outside as the two hired security guards walked around in the rain.

“Is it always this miserable and wet when you work this estate?” the rookie asked his partner.

“No,” the partner said laughing. “This is actually the first time it’s been like this. I like working for Mr. Wheeler. It’s never dull, and he tips really well when it’s all said and done.”

“We get tips?” the rookie asked in surprise.

“Yeah. Mr. Wheeler doesn’t call unless he really needs us. This is a pretty choice assignment. And there’s always action. I told them to put you on tonight. It will be valuable experience when promotion time comes around.”

“So I have you to thank for this night out in the wind and rain?”

“Yeah. But don’t worry. If this is half as big as Mr. Wheeler says it is, you will earn your pay, and be telling your grandkids about this one.”

“I’ll take your word for it. But right now, I’m feeling cold and wet and hungry.”

“There’s this great pizza delivery that just opened a few months ago. Tried them when I was patrolling for UFO nuts. I won’t say anything if you call now. Just be sure to be done with your dinner by the time it gets dark. That’s probably when the action will begin.”

“Cool,” the rookie said, pulling out a cell phone. “What’s the number?”

Talk at the dinner table was lively, as the group discussed the case.

“So what leads have you turned up?” Trixie finally asked the adults.

“We managed to track down every last name from all the cases you have worked,” Mr. Wheeler said with a smile. “And turned up a goose egg.”

“Olyphant is out, but this really isn’t his thing. The rest are still rotting away, not even eligible for parole for several years. We weren’t able to find out anything about Lontard, but we don’t think he’s out. I think the Feds locked him in a room, and threw away the room. They were very tight lipped about it, and short with us, but they did tell us not worry about him. I guess we’ll have to take their word for it.”

There was a flash of lightning, followed by a window rattling crash of thunder. The power flickered off for a moment, and everyone at the table fell silent.

“How oddly appropriate,” Mrs. Lynch commented with a giggle. “This case is going to be solved on a dark and stormy night.”

Miss Trask suddenly let out a blood curdling scream.

Everyone looking around in surprise to see what had made her scream like that.

Patch had wandered into the room, trotting along happily like he always did when he found so many of his favorite people. Mouths fell open however, as they quickly noticed that his mouth was dripping blood, and Junior’s tail was hanging out of it.

“Wait!” Jim cried in alarm. He quickly ran over and knelt next to Patch. “I knew it! This blood is fake. And so is this tail. It’s attached to one of his teeth with a rubber band.”

Miss Trask still had both of her hands over her face and was shaking with revulsion. Without even waiting to excuse herself, she quickly got up and went in search of her cat.

“It’s begun,” Trixie solemnly announced. “I guess our bait worked. We know whoever it is, is here.”

There was a mass murmur of agreement. As good as the dinner had been, everyone around the table pushed their unfinished plates forward, wiped their faces and set their napkins down on the table in front of them. They all began to get up.

“I’ll put a few pots of coffee on,” Celia said, making her way to the kitchen.

“I’m going to make sure my shotgun is not full of toothpaste or something,” Tom said, quickly following his wife out.

“That sounds like a good idea,” Regan quickly agreed, leaving to where he left his weapon.

The rest calmly got up.

“Why don’t we adjourn to the living room?” Mrs. Wheeler suggested. “Celia will bring us the coffee and drinks,” she said with emphasis on drinks. “Celia. Be sure to make mine a double.”

“That sounds like a good idea,” Mr. Belden agreed.

Soon the crowd lounged around the living room drinking either coffee or cocktails. Miss Trask sat on an easy chair, tightly holding Junior and petting him. He looked mildly annoyed that his nap had been interrupted, but it didn’t take him long to get used to the idea of being held and petted. He was now purring with his eyes almost closed, stopping only periodically to give a long yawn.

Tom, Regan and Charlie periodically wandered the house on roving patrols to see if anything was afoot.

Mrs. Lynch wandered in from the kitchen.

“The phone is out. I wasn’t able to get through to check on the children.”

“Might just be the storm,” her husband said. “But then again, it may not. Let’s be on guard. The nurses have our cell phone numbers in case of an emergency.”

“Will we be able to connect in this lighting storm?” Mrs. Lynch asked with concern.

“Yeah we should. We are close to the repeater tower they just built by the river. And I don’t think our crank is going to go sabotage that.”

“Never say never,” Mrs. Belden said with a laugh.

The group fell silent again, until Mrs. Belden noticed that Trixie was lost in thought.

“A penny for your thoughts?” she asked her daughter with a smile.

“Just working through all the details in my head,” she said. “I think I have an idea.”

“And what’s that?”

“Well. . . ,” Trixie said before she became lost for words. Mrs. Belden and the other adults waited for her to speak anxiously.

Jim finally laughed. “She must be on to something.”

“What makes you say that son?” Mr. Wheeler asked.

“When she has a good idea regarding a case, she is never able to talk about it. She is too excited to. She absolutely has to wait to see if it’s right. And she usually is.”

Trixie smiled at Jim. “You know me too well. Unfortunately, I don’t know if this is a good idea yet.”

“Well, no pressure dear,” Mrs. Belden said, “but maybe if you tell us we’ll be able to help you.”

Trixie fell silent again for a moment before she spoke.

“Mr. Wheeler? Did you get that dress appraised? How much did it cost to make? The one Honey got.”

“It’s an actual Vera Wang,” Mrs. Wheeler answered for her husband, “and it cost about fifty-grand.”

Many present whistled in surprised.

“It was made to specific order by a buyer who took great pains to remain anonymous. And they paid with cash.”

“Cash!?” Trixie said in surprise.

“Yeah. And the cash was delivered by a bank officer from BCCI on behalf of his client.”

“BCCI?” Trixie asked. “Haven’t heard about that one.”

“The Bank of Credit and Commerce International,” Mr. Wheeler explained. “They are a bank based out of London, every bit as big and powerful as the Swiss Banks, the World Bank, or other American banks like Citibank or Chemical. Didn’t surprise me that they would be mixed up in something like this.”

“What makes you say that Mr. Wheeler?” Diana asked.

“BCCI is to banking what the Golden Triangle is to heroin or Brazil is to criminals who want to get out of the country. They are just where it’s at when it comes to high finance for the global underworld. I’m not just talking about drug cartels laundering money. It’s where a great deal of the espionage, black-ops and international intrigue was financed from since World War II. Everyone from the CIA to Drug Lords, to other governments and shadowy organizations moved money through the BCCI. Although based in London, the BCCI’s banking cartel spanned 62 countries and was run by shadowy backers all over the world. Arguably some of the most low profile, yet powerful people in the world.

“In just a few short years, the BCCI bought senators, laundered drug money from the biggest drug cartels, helped dictators loot national treasuries, traded arms to third world countries and may have even subverted the CIA and National Security Council.”

“The BCCI even had an enforcement squad of over 1500 hit men, spies and thugs. They were known as the Black Network. And they had access to all the latest surveillance equipment, weapons and gadgets. They were the best, and had a blank check from the bank to get involved in murder, bribery, extortion and kidnapping on behalf of the BCCI.”

“The scandal finally broke around 1990, when the press found out the full extent of what the BCCI had been involved with. Then various governments stepped in to force them to clean up their act. But they probably never came too clean. It’s hard to clean up an organization so powerful, that knows so many people’s secrets and dirty laundry.”

“They didn’t have the rep that the banks in Switzerland and the Caymans did for bolt-holing dirty money, but that was part of the appeal of banking there. It was low profile, and no one suspected them.”

(No. I’m not making this up. I read the newspaper. If you are into conspiracies, shows like the X-Files have nothing compared to reality. LOL. – Eric)

The audience fell silent after Mr. Wheeler’s story. Trixie became lost in thought again.

“Is that an important clue?” Mrs. Belden asked her daughter.

Trixie couldn’t speak, except to say, “I think I’m excited about my theory now.”

Everyone laughed.

“Then it sounds like she may crack this case,” Corey said with pride.

“I’m glad you are,” Diana said, “because I can’t make heads or tails of this. The target selection for burns has been so weird. Now Miss Trask got burned. What is this all about?”

The waiting had become unbearable. The storm raged outside, and the power had flickered numerous times. Miss Bruger had managed to get a call through on the cellular phone system, and assured Mrs. Lynch that all was quiet and well at the Lynch estate.

All conversation died down as everyone nervously waited. As Celia came in from the kitchen with another tray of coffee cups, terror struck. The lights went black. The house echoed to the sounds of an evil cackling sinister laughter that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at once.

Celia and Mrs. Lynch both screamed in surprise, and Celia nearly dropped her tray. Tom, Regan and Charlie began to alertly look around, and the Bob-Whites as well as the rest of the parents all looked at each other in nervous surprise.

“Stay calm everybody!” Regan barked. “This is just a burn. I’m sorry, but the Manor House is NOT haunted!”

Regan’s words quickly reassured everyone, and things began to happen.

“Tom, get those flashlights we left in the kitchen,” Regan ordered.

“Matthew?” Madeleine asked. “Where did you leave the cell phone? I’m calling the cops.”

“I’m gonna go find those security guards,” Charlie said. “They need to be alerted that something is up.”

“You kids stay here and keep your eyes peeled,” Mr. Belden ordered.

Mrs. Lynch calmly reached down the front of her dress and produced a book of matches that she had stuffed there. “I’ll see if I can light some of these candles.”

The Bob-Whites nervously looked around and waited as the adults began to prepare. Corey and Jim immediately noticed that Trixie was discreetly, but alertly looking around, and they could tell from her look that she was looking for something in specific. They also knew, unfortunately, that she was too caught up in her search to be able to tell them what she was looking for.

Celia hurried to the center of the room to put her tray down on the coffee table so that she could help Mrs. Lynch with the candles. It was right after she put it down, that the next terror struck.

There was another bright long flash of lightning and crash of thunder. The light from the lightning temporarily illuminated the room. Honey, Di, and most the women in the room screamed when they saw what the light revealed. Many of the males cried out in alarm as well. Hanging in place of the chandelier was a decayed body, hanging by the neck. It was directly over Celia who, startled by the screaming, looked up just in time to see it burst open, and the contents of its insides spill out all over her.

Tom was instantly by her side, but she was still unable to stop screaming for several minutes.

“I’m going to take her upstairs to get cleaned up,” he announced as soon as she stopped.

“I wasn’t able to get through to the police,” Madeleine said moments later. “Too much interference from the storm.”

A few minutes later, Celia was upstairs showering all the fake gore and entrails off of herself. She was completely livid. She then heard something. She felt her heart flutter at the noise, but then steeled herself.

The Manor House is not haunted! These are just burns.

She left the water running, but silently stepped out of the shower. She came up to the door of the bathroom and peeked into the master bedroom. As her eyes focused in the dark, she saw a man looking through Mrs. Wheeler’s jewelry boxes stuffing things he liked into a pillow case.

Gotcha.

Stopping only to grab a towel and a weapon (and not necessarily in that order), she ran quickly to hit the thief, yelling the whole way. He looked up with a start and fled.

“Okay!” Madeleine announced. “I was just able to get through. They are on their way, but said it might take a while. Some of the roads are out because of the storm.”

“I think we need to be on guard,” Regan said after walking in the room. “We appear to only have selective power loss. Some of the lights in the house still work, and I still have power in the garage.”

Trixie leapt up, and yanked Corey to his feet by his wrist.

“I knew it! Come on! Follow me! We don’t have any time!”

“Where are we going?” many of the parents asked in alarm, along with many of the Bob-Whites.

“Quick. To Mr. Wheeler’s study!”

The crowd ran. As soon as they were all in, Trixie tested the switch on one of the lamps. It turned on. But the point was mute, because Mr. Wheeler’s computer was already busy doing something.

“Corey!” Trixie yelled in excitement. “See what it’s doing!”

Corey quickly sat down and looked at the screen. He then quickly pulled the tower case out from under the desk where it sat and tipped it to look at the ports in back.

“A cell modem,” he announced.

He then looked up at the screen. “Someone is using your machine to log onto your bank accounts and network them to an offshore account. It’s going to clean you out.”

“How far has it gotten?” Mr. Wheeler asked in alarm.

“It hasn’t done it yet. It was just able to connect to the repeater now, like your wife’s phone was, during the lull in the storm. It’s in the process of logging on now.”

“Can you stop it?” he asked in panic.

Corey didn’t answer, but quickly sat the case back down and tried to get a command line.

“I’m locked out! Whoever set this up put code in to prevent tampering till it was done.”

“Can’t you do anything?”

Corey fell silent again, lost in thought for a few seconds. He looked up at the screen. The connection was made. He quickly tipped the case again, and ripped off the wireless modem. The computer promptly went to a blue screen of death. Corey then turned around grinning.

“Sorry about the damage. I’ll get your system fixed as soon as this mess is over.”

“No worries son,” Mr. Wheeler said with a smile.

But Dan wasn’t mollified yet, and neither was Trixie.

“Who did this?” Dan asked her. “Who is responsible?”

“We need to be looking for the two guys that were haunting the Blaisdell Bed and Breakfast upstate,” Trixie explained. “They can’t be far. This was just set up a few minutes ago while we were being distracted by the fake haunting. We need to find them fast!”

“Corey!” Dan quickly ordered. “Stay here and keep an eye on the machine to keep them from coming back to it. The rest of us will split up and find them.”

Without another word, the Bob-Whites and parents formed into groups and started fanning out throughout the house and the yard.

The lights around the house began to flicker on and off all over, making it look like the house in the Ammityville Horror to anyone who saw it from the outside. The evil cackling laughter echoed throughout again. There was a great deal of yelling and confusion as the groups ran around the house to try to find the two burglars.

George Harris, a new student to the Sleepyside area, finally pulled up to the Manor House. It had taken him quite some time to find an alternate route to the Manor House, since Glen Road was blocked at one end with a fallen tree. He just hoped his tip wouldn’t suffer for the delay. But even if it was, he was eager to meet some of the people he had heard so much about. Part of the reason he had taken this job as pizza delivery boy was for the chance to meet new people in his new home town.

He quickly, but calmly walked up to the house during the first lull in the rain. He nearly stopped in his tracks when he saw the lights in the house flashing on and off strangely. He walked up the front door and calmly knocked. It swung open by itself, and George nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard a maniacal laughter emanate from within.

As the lights in the main living room area flashed on and off, the first thing he saw was a chase taking place on the stairs. Coming down the stairs at top speed was a small man in black clothes wearing a ski mask and carrying a jingling pillow case. Chasing him was a wet naked woman that still had shampoo in her hair. With one arm, she was unsuccessfully trying to cover herself up with a towel, and with the other, she held a toilet brush up in the air like a saber, ready to club the man in black. She was screaming as she chased him.

Running through the living room he saw three men and a girl in one of his classes. The men all wore suits or tuxedos, although one had on cowboy boots and a leather cap, and the other two wore hiking boots. One of them carried a shotgun. The girl, who’s name he couldn’t remember, was doing her best to keep up with them in what looked like a strapless blue chiffon prom dress. She had a metal baton in one hand.

“He’s over here!” the naked one yelled. The group turned in surprise, and joined the wet woman in her pursuit. They quickly disappeared into a side room.

Moments later, he heard someone yell, “He’s over there! Get him!” A black blur ran by, followed by another party of pursuers. One was a gray haired woman in a pantsuit and combat boots. She was running as fast as she could while holding on tightly to a very angry sounding cat. She was followed by a trio of women dressed for some sort of fancy ball. The women has obviously made a quick stop to the kitchen however, because they had armed themselves with a frying pan, rolling pin, and meat cleaver.

George stood motionless and blinked for a full minute. He watched two more groups run by yelling. In the groups he did recognize Diana Lynch, who he though was the prettiest girl in the class. She did look a bit strange running around that dressed up with a stun gun and mace can.

Then, without a word, he carefully set the pizza down just inside of the door. He counted out the cost of the pizza from his tips, and put it in his other pocket. He then quickly scribbled a note on the receipt that said, “This one’s on me.” He then calmly closed the door and walked back to his car.

Corey couldn’t stand the waiting. With all the yelling and confusion he had to know what was going on. He looked over the system he was supposed to guard for a minute, and then made a decision. He put the cellular modem on the floor and stomped on it till he was certain that it would never work. He then got out his pocket knife and actually cut the cable on the DSL modem and the phone cord for good measure, meaning no one without a soldering iron was going to be able to get them working.

He then roamed into the kitchen to see what was going on.

“Hey!” Regan yelled. “They’re headed to the kitchen. Cover all the exits. We have them cornered!”

Corey heard people coming at a high rate of speed. Two black blurs ran by. He looked up in sudden dread as all the chasing parties emerged into the kitchen.

“Oh Shit!”

The resulting crash from the collision sounded something like a cross between football linemen smashing into each other at the beginning of a play, a washing machine full of hub caps, and a head on collision between two trucks full of aluminum cans. And over all that noise could be heard the yowling of a very angry cat.

“Oh my God! Corey! Are you okay?!” Trixie cried in alarm.

Corey groaned from where he was twitching on the floor. Trixie got up and ran over to help him, as many of the stunned and battered pursuers got up off the floor.

“Where are they?” Regan yelled. “Where did they go?”

The two master thieves laughed as they made their way to the front door. One pointed the remote control to all the haunted house party tricks at the door, and hit a button to make it swing open. They laughed again. Just as they were about to step outside, one of them planted his foot firmly on the pizza box. His feet slid out from under him, and as his partner hit him from behind, they ended up in a crumpled heap on the floor.

When they looked up, they saw a poncho wearing security guard pulling back the hammer on a Sig-Sauer P226.

“Hold it right there you pizza vandals! Now I’m mad!”

The mob was soon gathered around the two captured burglars in the living room.

The security guard left to find his partner, so Tom and Regan covered the two thieves.

“I don’t get it,” Mrs. Belden puzzled. “I thought you guys had looked into everyone the kids had put away.”

“That was an oversight on our part I’m afraid,” Mr. Wheeler explained. “When we looked into that, we had a list of names. The kids never knew the names of these two. We even looked into the whereabouts of Jake the Snake from that same case. When we found out he was still behind bars, we just assumed that these two were too.”

“I had a strong hunch, once the burns fell back on the old haunted house routine,” Trixie said. “And since these two always pull off very high yield scores. I started thinking about how much they had spent pulling off these burns, and suddenly realized that if they could afford Vera Wang gowns as part of their pranks, that this must be a distraction from an even bigger heist. But since Mr. Wheeler doesn’t keep his fortune in cash around the house, the only way to get at his money was through a computer. And since his computer probably had all the passwords saved to log onto all the banks where he has his money, that was the only way to get to it from here. It would be much easier than actually trying to roll over the bank, or hack from a different location. The party tricks were just to get us distracted enough for them to install the modem and clean him out.”

“But why have us all here when they are doing it?” Honey asked.

“That minimized the risk of someone accidentally finding one of them in the study. What better way to make sure that everyone is distracted and occupied than to put on a show? A show in a different part of the house.”

“I wasn’t certain until I realize that the power was only cut in parts of the house. And once Mrs. Wheeler was able to connect to the repeater with her cell phone, I figured that’s when the download would begin.”

“But why the mothers then?” Matthew asked. “Why burn the mothers, Miss Trask and Honey?”

“Not sure about that,” Trixie said. “But at least we caught these two before they cleaned you out.”

“You can let our sons go now!” a voice calmly but sternly ordered the group.

The crowd looked up in surprise. Standing up on the balcony at the top of the stairs above the main living room were two women.

The first was a very large woman that must have weighed two hundred pounds. She was still very lean looking and muscular, like a member of the Russian women’s Olympic shot put team. She was dressed plainly, but carried a large Smith and Wesson Model 29 .44 Magnum revolver. The laser sight mounted over the barrel now put a bright red dot on Mrs. Wheeler’s forehead.

The other was a wrinkled middle-aged woman with gray streaked hair, dressed like a stunt double for Thelma and Louise. She had a cheap cigarette in her mouth and held a sawed off shotgun covering the rest of the crowd, now stunned into silence.

Honey was the first to recognize the first woman.

“Miss Lefferts!?”

Mrs. Wheeler was the first to recognize the other woman.

“Rachel?”

Trixie’s mind raced a million miles a minute trying to remember when she had heard those names before. She soon remembered her first night at the Manor House when Honey had told her about her old governess before Miss Trask. It took her a bit longer to remember that Rachel had been one of the first cooks to work at the Manor House and that Mrs. Wheeler had kept calling cooks Rachel long after Rachel had quit.

“That’s Miss Lefferts?!” Trixie exclaimed in disbelief.

“With about a hundred pounds off and a lot of work,” Honey replied.

“It’s called a makeover,” Miss Lefferts explained as she began down the stairs, her aim still unwavering. “And a fitness plan.”

“What’s the meaning of this?” Mrs. Wheeler demanded as she watched the pair come down and the stairs.

“You tell me,” Miss Lefferts said with a evil smile. “You and your tomboy daughter and her friends think they are detectives. But first why don’t you put those guns down and stop pointing them at our sons.”

Tom and Regan slowly lowered their barrels and set their shotguns down on the carpeted floor.

“These are your sons?” Trixie asked them in disbelief as they slowly got up.

“Yes. They are such good boys. They go to such lengths to take care of their poor out-of-work mothers. Mothers out of work because of the whim of a spoiled brat who refuses to act like a lady.”

“What rank nonsense is this?” Mr. Wheeler demanded. “We would have kept you on as Madeleine’s secretary. You just didn’t want to work unless you could keep making Honey miserable. And you Rachel. We didn’t get rid of you. You quit.”

“I was so distraught after what you did to my friend here that I couldn’t bear to work for such spineless parents and hypocrites. . .”

“We’re good parents!” Mrs. Wheeler raged. “Maybe we didn’t raise Honey to be an old fashioned lady like you wanted, but at least we didn’t raise two sociopathic crooks with a warped sense of humor.”

The laser was soon fixed on Honey’s forehead. Mrs. Wheeler let out a gasp of shock.

“No! Please! Don’t hurt my baby! Just take what you want and go.”

“Oh we will,” Miss Lefferts told her with an evil laugh. “But we will have to take a few sensible precautions since you know who we are now. So first why don’t you all keep your hands where I can see them and back away from our boys. Then you can keep us company while they fix the modem and finish cleaning out your accounts.”

“So this is what this is all about?” Mr. Wheeler exclaimed with disgust. “A robbery?”

“What more appropriate revenge? You know we would have both left quietly. We would have been more than happy to part ways peacefully. Our boys were more than ready to take care of us. If they had pulled off their last heist successfully, we would have been laughing all the way to the bank in Brazil. But no. Not only did you have to ruin our lives by making our jobs here hell, or getting rid of us. Your insufferable brats had to not mind their own business and ruin that heist, and get our babies put in jail.”

“We’ve heard all this bullshit before!” Honey raged. “Why don’t you take some responsibility?!”

Miss Lefferts pulled back the hammer on her enormous hand cannon as the two women reached the bottom of the stairs. While Miss Lefferts’ aim remained fixed on Honey, Rachel skillfully covered the rest with her shotgun. It was very obvious that they had both underwent some sort of combat training.

“Honey! Please!” her mother begged. “Just do what she says!”

When Miss Lefferts got up to where Honey stood, she unceremoniously grabbed her by the arm and put the barrel of the revolver to her head. Mrs. Wheeler nearly fainted. Honey just looked really mad.

“And what Miss Lefferts says is that Honey is going to accompany us out of the country to make sure you don’t put the Feds on our trail right after we get out the door.”

“No!” Mrs. Wheeler sobbed, nearly hysterically. “Just go. We won’t call anyone.”

Trixie’s mind had already once again been racing at a million miles a minute trying to remember every last detail of the case at the Blaisdell Bed & Breakfast when they had first caught these women’s sons.

“Laughing all the way to the bank in Brazil eh?” Trixie finally commented. “I think your sons weren’t nearly so loving as you like to think they are.”

“Nonsense!” Miss Lefferts snapped. “It was all set up. And it would have worked if it hadn’t been for you meddling kids.”

“Here Scooby!” Corey called quietly. The Bob-Whites fought hard not to, but eventually couldn’t help but crack up. They fell silent as Rachel shoved a shotgun in Corey’s face angrily.

“They why don’t you ask them why they decided to bank in the Caymans,” Trixie continued when she regained her poise.

“I’m getting tired of your lies you little brat,” Miss Lefferts said angrily. “I swear you’re worse than Honey.”

“Oh don’t take my word for it,” Trixie said. “Why don’t you ask your boys? I heard them talking about it the night we caught them at the house they were haunting. And what’s more is that I recorded them talking about it. Or at least the NSA did, through my government issue sat phone. Maybe if you had been loving enough mothers to be there when your boys went to trial you would have heard it when it was presented as state’s evidence. Their alternate banking plans are now a matter of public record. But I suppose you were too busy planning your revenge and laying low till they managed to bust out of prison to worry about such things.”

The burglars’ expressions suddenly grew worried and troubled.

Miss Lefferts turned and looked at her boy with a look of suspicious outrage.

“What?!”

“Ma! It was nothin’. We were just going to properly invest our share of the money.”

“That wasn’t part of the plan!” she exclaimed. “You were going to ditch us?! You were going to cheat your poor mothers out of their share?! After everything we did for you?”

The burglars broke and fled. Miss Lefferts gave an outraged cry, but kept her gun pressed tightly against Honey’s head. She gave Rachel a nod.

Rachel nodded in return and raised her shotgun, tracking the fleeing boys as they ran towards the door. The boys ran behind the crowd of Bob-Whites and parents, and as Rachel’s barrel followed and swept over the crowd, Regan, Tom, Mr. Wheeler and Mr. Lynch instinctively crouched and pushed everyone they could reach down on the floor. Everyone out of reach dove for cover.

Rachel waited until the boys were right at the door when she gave them a seat full of buckshot with one of the two barrels. The blast was deafening, and they fell to the floor whimpering. Brian and Jim immediately headed over to give first aid.

But before they could even begin, all bedlam broke loose again.

It is widely know amongst police, SWAT teams, and hostage rescue professionals that it takes a hostage holder three seconds to react to something, even if it is to pull the trigger on a gun being held to someone’s head. Therefore, many of these professionals are trained to deal with a hostage taker before that three seconds are over. This skill is also true of civilian shooting enthusiasts who compete in International Practical Shooting Competitions or ISPC. The events all revolve around combat like shooting drills that involve fast drawing handguns and fast precision shooting. IPSC champions are often able to land 6 bullets on three man sized targets in under three seconds. Some shoot even faster.

Charlie Burnside was just such an IPSC enthusiast who shot much more than he needed to, to qualify to carry a gun when he worked as a security guard. And in the first second of Miss Lefferts three, he had already quick-drawn his .357 and put a bullet into the cylinder of her gun, sending it sailing across the room. Then, in the first of Rachel’s three seconds he put another into the her shotgun, causing to her yell in surprise and drop it.

But even as Tom and Regan quickly went to retrieve their own shotguns, Mrs. Belden, Mrs. Lynch and Mrs. Wheeler moved up to face the two angry women, blocking any of the men from getting a clear shot or covering the women.

Standing in two lines, the groups of women faced each other down like cowboys in the old west, giving each other evil stares.

Mr. Wheeler was about to say something when his wife cut him off.

“Are those boys hurt too badly?” she asked calmly.

“No,” Brian replied. “It was only dove and quail shot. Most of it didn’t go in very deep.”

“Then you keep them covered. They are escape artists. They manage to break out of even maximum security federal prisons. Don’t be caught off guard because they’re injured.”

Tom, Regan and Charlie quickly complied, moving to cover the fallen burglars with their guns. Madeleine’s tone had left no room for argument. That didn’t stop them from looking over in wonder at what was going to happen, and wondering what Madeleine intended to do about the two women.

Trixie and the other Bob-Whites soon figured it out though. All three women had kicked off their heels. Mrs. Lynch was cracking her knuckles. Mrs. Wheeler was unbuttoning the slit on the side of her evening gown all the way to the top so as to have freer movement with her legs. Mrs. Belden threw her shawl over her shoulder much like Clint Eastwood would do with his serape to show the guns he wore on his belt. But since Helen had no guns, she simply pushed up the sleeves of her dress.

Miss Lefferts simply planted her feet firmly and held her arms down in front of her making two fists with her hands. Rachel simply doubled up her fists and raised them up like a boxer.

Without warning, the two lines of women stopped staring each other down and the Bob-White mothers ran at them, yelling like Vikings.

Mrs. Wheeler was the first to reach Miss Lefferts. She began to flail wildly, trying to scratch her face. But she soon learned what Miss Lefferts stance really was. Not only had she lost weight and become more fit, she had also learned jujitsu. Miss Lefferts turned slightly to meet the charge. In one seamless motion she grabbed Mrs. Wheeler by one of the straps of her evening gown and her sash, bent down, pulled her, brought her rolling over her back and then threw with all her might. Mrs. Wheeler went down with a crash, breaking a coffee table when she landed.

Mr. Wheeler winced and turned away. Before Madeleine could get up again, Miss Lefferts leapt through the air and pounced on her like a professional wrestler. Madeleine let out a loud OOOMPPH as the two hundred pound woman landed on her and knocked her wind out. Miss Lefferts quickly got her in a scarf hold and used her free hand to start hitting her in the ribs.

Mrs. Lynch, the biggest and the strongest of the three, quickly came to her rescue. She opened with a vicious kick to Miss Lefferts’ ribs and then yanked the large women off of Mrs. Wheeler by her hair. Miss Lefferts yelled in outrage and pain, but quickly rolled to her feet, falling once again into stance. Centuries of martial arts tradition however, hadn’t prepared her for the old Lynch Rope ‘a Dope. Mrs. Lynch’s fast fists gave Miss Lefferts two rights and a left to the face, and left her with a broken nose and no front teeth.

But as this happened, Mrs. Belden was already tangling with Rachel. Rachel proved to be fast and gave Helen several quick punches to the face. Helen cried out in pain and outrage. She brought her hand around to slap Rachel across the face and then got low and kicked her squarely in the knee. Rachel yelled out in pain and quickly leapt back to keep it from bending too far back the wrong way. As she hoped around on one leg yelling, Helen slapped her again. She then picked up a vase off an end table and stopping for only half a second to wipe off a spot of dust, she broke it over Rachel’s head.

Rachel looked up angrily, finally putting her other leg on the ground. She got low like a linebacker and rushed, spearing Helen in the gut with the top of her head in a flying tackle that sent them both sailing to the floor. They were soon rolling around, clawing and grappling at each other.

The husbands and many of the Bob-Whites initially had every intention of intervening, but soon all they could do was stand and gape in horrified stunned silence at the savagery of the fight they were watching. It was like watching a cat fight on Oscar night. Very frequently they had to quickly get out of the way as the fight roamed around the spacious living room.

The tiny Madeleine ended up getting thrown around quite a bit by the hefty Miss Lefferts. It seemed that each time she was thrown further and landed harder. At various points she smashed into a glass end table, knocked over a large recliner and did a graceful dive, face-first, into the living room home entertainment cabinet that left her groaning on the floor as she was quickly buried with raining CD’s and DVD’s. If the observers hadn’t been so horrified and concerned, they probably would have held up signs with numbers like 10, or 9.8. But after each throw, she simply got up even madder than she was before and more determined to open up a can of whoop-ass on Miss Lefferts.

But Mrs. Lynch saw to it that Miss Lefferts took her lumps too. Shortly after she had thrown Madeleine, they squared off against each other again. Mrs. Lynch started off the new round of attacks with a vicious head butt to her broken nose and a long punch to the stomach that sent her stumbling back yelling. She advanced quickly and grabbed her bra strap through the back of her torn shirt and swung her around with all her might like she was throwing a side arm fastball or a discus. Miss Lefferts spun wildly, trying to regain her footing when she stumbled backwards into the couch. She hit the couch with sufficient force to fall back and do a backwards summersault into the coffee table.

Mrs. Belden and Rachel had torn each others clothing so much already that Jim, Brian and Mart had already turned around in embarrassment. But as soon as Mrs. Belden was able to get up again, she fell back on her tried and true tactic of battering Rachel with some sort of weapon. Rachel had soon been hit or clubbed with everything from a coffee table picture book, to a TV remote, to a broken table leg to a potted plant. Rachel always retaliated by tackling her, and they would wrestle till Helen could get free and find another weapon.

Their fight soon turned savage as Rachel, tried of being battered from out of reach, quickly removed her belt and started to lash at Mrs. Belden, and backing her into a corner. Her pants were sufficiently torn however, that without a belt, they fell down around her ankles as she tried to quickly advance on the retreating Helen. Helen took immediate advantage of this delay to find another weapon, and soon she was savagely clubbing Rachel with the flat metal bottom of the fireplace ash shovel. She quickly beat all the belligerence out of Rachel and left her gasping on the floor, completely subdued. She finished her assault with a swift kick to the groin which made Rachel cry out in pain and curl up into the fetal position on the floor.

Miss Lefferts however, proved to be much more resilient, and continued to soak up Mrs. Lynch’s and Mrs. Wheeler’s attacks like a sponge. Although Mrs. Lynch still had a lot of fight left in her, Mrs. Wheeler was starting to serious suffer the consequences of being thrown around so much. They finally decided to coordinate their attacks instead of the touch and go tag team they had been doing and gang up on her.

With another battle cry, they rushed her together from two separate directions. Mrs. Wheeler, using an overturned easy chair as a stepping stool, ran and leapt into the air and jumped on her back. Miss Lefferts reached back up over her head to throw Madeleine off again. As soon as her arms were occupied with trying to throw Madeleine, Mrs. Lynch took advantage of the fact that she couldn’t block. She landed a series of savage punches. Temporarily ignoring the woman flailing on her back, Miss Lefferts carefully, but quickly backed away from the advancing boxer. Right as Mrs. Lynch rushed to close the distance, she quickly stepped aside leaving out a leg, and pushed Mrs. Lynch over it. As Mrs. Lynch hit the floor, her head hit the edge of a broken table, and she was momentarily knocked senseless. Miss Lefferts then quickly made her way to a wall that she fully intended to throw Mrs. Wheeler into to hopefully knock her out too. She seized Madeleine’s arms and quickly bent over to throw her. As she quickly bent down, her forehead met one of Miss Trask’s steel-toed boots headed quickly up in the opposite direction.

She stood up quickly, and stumbled around reeling, unable to focus her eyes. Mrs. Wheeler quickly slid off her back and gave her one last kick. Miss Lefferts’ eyes rolled up into her head, and she pitched forward, out cold.

Mrs. Wheeler looked up at Miss Trask smiling. “Thanks Marge. That one almost got away from us.”

“Looked like you could use a little help.”

Mrs. Wheeler smiled, and then collapsed on the floor in pain and exhaustion.

A short while later, as the mother’s, all now in borrowed bath robes and towels were having their injuries attended to by Brian, Jim and Regan, Corey and Trixie went up to the still senseless Miss Lefferts.

Corey whistled in surprise. “You know,” he began, “these women might be your mommies, but I think these two just found out who their daddies were.”

Trixie laughed.

“Remind me to never piss them off. And if I do, remind me to pack a lunch. I mean can you believe that? And Miss Trask. That was some serious head booting. Next time you see Miss Lefferts, try not to let her drool on you too much when you are putting change in her cup. . . .”

****

The following Monday at school, Trixie and Di caught up to Honey, who was walking down the hall playing with her Palm Pilot.

“Hey Honey? Isn’t that the Palm Pilot Miss Lefferts gave you?” Trixie asked.

“And aren’t those the jeans she bought you?” Di asked, making note of what she was wearing.

“Yeah. Her presents really were very nice, even though she was being mean when she gave them to me. Certainly much nicer than anything she gave me when she was my governess,” she added with a giggle.

“So you’re just going to keep them?” Trixie asked.

“Sure. Why not? I can enjoy a few perks from our cases every once in a while just like you can.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Trixie asked in mock indignation.

“Mr. Lytell has never failed to have a least a case of Strawberry Pop in his store ever since the Ramsey case,” Honey told her.

Trixie and Di laughed.

“What about the dress?” Di asked

“I was planning on wearing something nice to prom, but I don’t think my parents would have spent 50-K on it, so that is waiting in my closet for that night. It really is very nice.”

Di and Trixie laughed again.

“You’ve earned them,” Trixie finally told her. “You were burned on this case more than anyone else was.”

Honey just smiled and continued to play with her Palm Pilot.

“So Honey?” Di finally asked. “Have you caught any more crap about what we saw in Computer Science class?”

“No. And from what I hear, I probably won’t. Ever.”

“Why is that?” Trixie asked.

“Even the football players are afraid that if they do, our mothers will kick the crap out of them.”

****

Although Madeleine Wheeler could have used another several days rest in the Hospital, against Doc Ferris’ better judgment, she signed herself out, and went home to make preparations for that night. She figured that if Julia Lynch could be up and around the next day, and Helen Belden could be back to her normal routine the very next day, that she was perfectly capable of functioning after four days in the hospital. She had taken the worst battering to be sure, but other than a few bruised ribs and a few bad cuts, she thankfully suffered no serious injury.

If my daughter can stop being so frail and fragile, then I can too.

But wanting to be resilient was only part of her reason for insisting on being discharged from the hospital that day. In all honesty, if nothing else was going on, Doc Ferris probably would have talked her into at least one more night.

Today was the day that Matthew finished the necessary transactions in the city to finishing paying off the art treasures that she had wrecked during her various temper tantrums during this case. He was also putting a substantial amount of money into buying new pieces of art for the museum and making generous donations to many within the art community to get the Sleepyside Museum and art scene back in good standing with the New York museums and art scene.

She hadn’t had a chance to speak to him much about that, but was very worried, and determined to make it up to him. The amounts he had had to shell out would put a series damper in future investments for quite some time.

Normally for an occasion such as this, it would have meant new clothes, and an extravagant party. But given how much money she had cost him already, that was completely out of the question. She had enough clothes, that she figured she could make do with one of the numerous expensive designer outfits that she had originally only intended to wear once.

Much to her dismay, a lot of the older ones she was first considering in hopes that Matthew wouldn’t remember them, didn’t fit anymore. Having a cook armed with the Belden recipes, Honey wasn’t the only one that had gained a healthy amount of weight since they came to Sleepyside. She ended up in something a lot plainer and simpler than she originally intended.

She and Matthew ate alone that night, while Honey ate down at the Crabapple Farm, and on specific orders to the cook, they had Matthew’s favorite meal. Although Matthew was pleasant, he seemed distant and distracted. He seemed almost, but not quite indifferent to her efforts.

Time to crack out the heavy artillery, Madeleine thought to herself.

The silence after they had finished dinner was almost unbearable. With a quick, “That was good,” Mr. Wheeler pushed his plate back and sat back for a few minutes.

Madeleine did her best to stay smiling and pleasant.

“You know,” Mr. Wheeler finally said, “I’ve had a really long day. Trying to seem sufficiently awed and inspired by all that modern art really wore me out. Trying to think of nice things to say was even harder. If I have to hear one more speech about the hidden meaning and symbolism in a work of ‘art’ like a pile of sugar cubes on tie-dyed linoleum again, I’m going to lose it.”

Mrs. Wheeler giggled.

“So I think I’m going to call it day and hit the sack.”

Madeleine secretly exulted.

“You okay? Maybe you should get some rest too. You only just got back from the hospital.”

“Oh I’m fine,” Madeleine insisted. “But I am a bit tired. I may call it a night too.

****

About fifteen minutes later, Madeleine emerged from the bathroom. She had managed to cover up most of the physical evidence of what had happened to her with makeup, but she still felt very stiff as she walked.

Matthew was already in bed, reading to the light of a small beside lamp. He did notice with a smile that Madeleine was in a lacy black baby doll. It was his favorite. She walked up and gingerly climbed into bed next to him. She cuddled up next to him. He reached over and gave her a quick hug. Her eyes watered as he managed to find at least a dozen sore and tender spots, but she managed not to cry out in pain.

“Matthew Sweetie?” she finally asked him quietly and nervously several minutes later.

“Yeah?” he asked distractedly.

“I’m really sorry about all that money I cost you. And all the trouble I’ve caused.”

“You didn’t cause any trouble. Two of our disgruntled former servants did.”

“But I still broke all that nice stuff.”

“Didn’t need that five million anyway.”

Who are you and what did you do with my husband?

“Still. I’m sorry.”

Mr. Wheeler laughed and turned to give her a quick kiss. Madeleine finally relaxed when she realized it really was okay. About five minutes later he put his book down on the bedside table and turned to look at her.

“You know of course what I think about every time you wear that?”

“Pure sex?” she guessed with a giggle.

“And deep sex,” he added with a nod.

“And hard sex?” she asked.

“Yeah, and especially rough sex!” he said with a wicked grin.

Madeleine winced.

“Matthew Sweetie?” she asked a minute later.

“Yes dear?”

“Do you think we could leave out the hard and rough part? I’m still feeling like the survivor from an episode of When Meat Tenderizers Attack.”

Matthew laughed again. “I think I could handle that. . . . .”