Chapter 18

Kris wrote three more chapters at work that night. He took Lulu's idea about Lady Tinsley and had her offer to do anything Sir Quigley liked, if he would leave her daughter alone and ensure that no one else molested her either.

"She's of marriageable age," snorted Sir Quigley.

"And it is of great importance to me that she BE marriageable, upon our return," pled the matron.

"You would debase yourself on her account?" asked the gentleman pirate.

"I would do ... anything ... if only she remains pure."

"An admirable quality in a mother, I must admit," said Sir Quigley. He bowed. "I accede to your request, Madame Tinsley. If you please me, I will attempt to make your trials bearable."

Then he filled page after page describing how Judith Tinsley used imagination she wasn't aware she'd had up to that point, and found great, if secret, joy in attempting to please the pirate, as she insisted upon being ravished over and over again.

What she didn't know was that her daughter was in the locker nearby, bound and gagged, but able to see what was going on through the slats in the door. From Quigley's perspective, it was only fair that she be able to see what her mother was willing to suffer for her sake.

When he went off shift, he wasn't sure whether it was wise to go to The Early Girl again for breakfast or not. The kiss had done wonders for the steaminess of his writing ... but he hadn't remembered anything. That kiss convinced him, however, that she wasn't really angry with him, so he went.

"So," she greeted him, looking at him through lowered lashes. "Did you remember anything?"

"Um ... not exactly," he said.

"Not exactly," she said as she showed him to "his" booth.

"I wrote some things ... and they kind of came out of the blue, so I sort of figure I must have done some of them sometime in my past."

"I see," she said. "I'll be back," she said, looking through the window into the parking lot.

He watched as she went to the door and met Jessica. They put their heads together for what seemed like a long discussion. Then Jessica came straight to his booth and sat down across from him.

"You can tell Mitch about what you saw at the party," she said, without prelude.

"I can?"

"Yes, but you can't tell him I gave you permission," she said. "That part has to stay a secret."

"OK," he said, uncertainly. "I don't understand."

"You don't need to understand," she said. "You can tell him, but he has to think you're breaking your promise to me. Can you do that?"

"I don't WANT to break my promise to you," he said.

"You won't be," she smiled. "I gave you permission."

"But Mitch will think I'm breaking my promise," Kris pointed out.

"That's fine," said Jessica, as if that made sense. "And don't tell him what you told Lulu."

"What's that?" asked Kris.

"That you thought it would look better on her."

"Oh," he said, flushing.

"It's OK," said Jessica. "You're not supposed to lust after me."

"I wish I understood what was going on," moaned Kris.

"You will someday. Just remember what I said. You can do it. I have faith in you."

Then she got up and left.

Harper got out of the car and went into the apartment building. It was a strange time of day for a burglary in progress to have been reported, but the responding patrol said it was obviously a break-in and they had a perp in custody. He decided to talk to the witness first. She'd been identified by the 911 operator, but hadn't been interviewed yet.

Half an hour later, Harper once more thanked the powers that be for nosy neighbors. Janet Grimsley, a seventy-two year old woman, had a son, who had worried about her being alone back home in Oklahoma, where there were tornados and thunderstorms and all manner of dangerous natural situations. So he'd brought her to New York City, where there were muggers and rapists and all manner of dangerous human situations. He was an investment banker, so Harper figured he wasn't expected to have a lot of common sense.

She'd brought her sensibilities with her, though, and with nothing else to do all day, she sat and watched people through the window. It was while she was doing that that she saw the cat burglar, as she called him, climb up a fire escape, break a window, and enter one of the apartments across the alley from her son's building. She called 911 and the rest was history. Or would be once he interrogated the subject, collected the evidence, filed a report and the courts decided what, if anything, to do. Mrs. Grimsley had even served him tea and cookies, which, even after twenty years on the force, was a first for Jim Harper.

He went across the wide alley and up to the crime scene. The responding patrol had already put up yellow crime scene tape and he had to duck to get into the room. His eyes went to the broken window in one wall and the shards of glass on the floor. He surveyed the room, ignoring the cop standing behind a huddled captive, who was sitting on the floor. They must have gotten there quickly indeed, because he could see no evidence that things had been rifled through.

There wasn't much visible that was of obvious value, though there was a collection of art and art objects that might be worth something. It was hard to tell, these days. People would pay thousands of dollars for art that was created by a monkey or even an elephant. They looked like kid's drawings to Jim, but were sometimes worth more than a month of his pay.

"I'm NOT a thief!" exclaimed the burglar loudly.

Jim looked down and was surprised to see it was a woman. She was blonde and good looking in a slightly trashy kind of way. She was dressed all in black and there was a black stocking mask on the floor, where the patrolman had dropped it, probably after he wrestled the subject into cuffs and removed it. Harper couldn't keep a smile off his face. He already knew this was going to be an interesting case, if he was dealing with a burglar who wore that kind of outfit in daylight hours and then proclaimed loudly she wasn't a burglar.

"No," he said calmly. "You're not a thief. You're an ATTEMPTED thief."

"NO!" shouted the woman. "This is all a mistake!"

"So you mistakenly broke the window and climbed into an apartment you don't rent," he said, still smiling. "I can't wait to see the judge's face when you tell him that."

"No, you don't understand!" wailed the burglar. "I tried to tell this stupid flat foot, but he wouldn't listen. This is my boyfriend's apartment. I have every right to be here!"

"Is that a fact?" said Harper drolly. "Well, now, I suppose your boyfriend will have to be the one to verify your claim. Where might I find him Miss... ?"

"Henderson," she said. "Lola Henderson. And I don't know where you can find him. That's the problem. That's why I came here."

Harper looked at the beat cop, who was standing placidly, not really interested in anything but making sure his captive didn't get away.

"Did you clear the apartment?"

The cop looked pained and nodded. "Of course. There's nobody else here."

Harper looked back at the woman. "I'd like to hear what you have to say, but I need to get the scene processed first. We'll talk later, Lola. OK?" He looked back at the patrolman. "Take her downtown and book her in for B&E. Advise her of her rights on the way."

"Noooooooooooo," wailed Lola. "You can't arrest meeeeee. I can't go to jail! I'll be raped!"

Jim looked down at her. Tears were rolling down her face. Her makeup wasn't waterproof and she was starting to look like a zombie already.

"We'll put you in with only women, Lola."

"That w-w-won't mat-t-t-er," sobbed the woman. "Women g-g-go for me, t-t-too," she moaned.

"We'll tell them all to behave themselves," said Harper, trying not to laugh. "Just keep your legs closed. You'll be fine."

She cried and moaned all the way out of the apartment, but didn't give the patrolman any real trouble. It was pretty obvious she'd never been involved in anything like this before. Her appearance and her reaction to being arrested suggested that everything she knew about crime and justice had been learned from TV.

Processing the scene took almost no time. Whoever lived in this apartment kept things tidy. The only thing that appeared to have been disturbed was the desk. The computer had been turned on and all the drawers were open. Papers were scattered all over the desktop.

He took a few minutes to play with the computer, but it was securely passworded and the few tricks he knew didn't get him in. All the mail he found was addressed to Kristoff Farmingham. The postmarks on all of it were at least a month old, which seemed odd. He looked around for a phone, but didn't find one. It was getting rare to find an actual landline these days. Maybe Lola, if she actually knew Farmingham, would know his phone number, too. Jim would tell her that could be mitigating evidence, showing that she really did know the man. He wouldn't tell her that it would also establish probable cause that she knew whose apartment she was breaking into, which meant she knew it wasn't her own, which was one of the elements of proof for the offense of breaking and entering.

The crime scene tech arrived and Jim told him to collect the glass fragments, and process the desk for prints. He told him to collect all the papers that the subject might have touched, so they could be processed for prints as well, should it be needed. Jim didn't think that would have to happen. When they're caught red-handed, there's almost always a plea deal.

Jim sat, looking calmly at Lola Henderson, who was still a mess. He didn't care about that. All he cared about was what she'd said. He'd gotten a full and complete confession to the B&E. That she hadn't intended to steal anything, he actually believed. She was just another example of a scorned woman, who couldn't accept the fact that her boyfriend got tired of her and stopped contacting her. What he wasn't so sure about was her wild tale that Farmingham was an author who had disappeared off into the ozone while he wrote another book. Her tale there was disjointed enough that it sounded like she believed it. That didn't make it true, of course. The landlord had confirmed that the rent had been paid six months in advance, but that didn't prove anything either. Maybe Farmingham went to visit his mother, figuring to stay long enough that his girlfriend would get the message and move on. Who knew? At any rate, she seemed to believe he was gone, writing a book, and that supported her claim that she'd only been trying to figure out WHERE he'd gone by searching his desk and computer.

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For Want of a Memory

Lubrican

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