See "An Introduction to Detective Monica" for Full Disclaimers.

Part Two

Hi, I'm back!  And oh, it was a  lovely dinner -- sorry I had to stop right in mid-stream like that last time, but you know how it is when you're cooking something and it's ready.  Amazing; Duncan's the first man I've ever met who really  understands about that!  Of course, since he was doing the cooking, maybe that shouldn't be quite so surprising, but still . . .

Oh, yeah -- the strange event!  Well, it was awfully strange.  Scary, too; and now that I'm actually writing about it . . . Gaaahhhhhh.  Hang on, you'll see why the shudders.  You'll never believe it, either.  Remember that red-headed chick with the Groucho glasses??  Yeah, from wayyyyy back when I was first scoping out Duncan's garbage?

She seems to be here in Paris!!!

Duncan just looked at me patiently when I grabbed him  real hard and pulled him to a stop when we were in sight of the barge; Jeremy, of course, kept right on going, so Duncan got distracted and didn't see what I thought I saw.  And okay, yeah, it  was starting to get dark by then, and kinda hard to see -- plus I  swear the redhead was wearing the good ol' ACME SUT.  (Remember that?  Yeah, the one I threw away and Groucho-glasses rescued.)  Anyway, she sure was hard to make out, it seemed like she just blended right into the barge -- except for all that bright red hair, y'know, and then of course when she ran down the gangplank, well, that was kinda obvious -- but Duncan still didn't see her!

So naturally he gives me  another patient look when I start babbling about red hair and Groucho glasses -- well, hey, by then even Jeremy was giving me a patient look.  You could practically see the two of them trying not to roll their eyes and exchange that glance that says, "Women!"

Equally naturally this didn't make  me feel too hot; I glared at both of them (especially Jeremy, the little traitor), dropped Duncan's arm and stomped off towards the barge.  Let Duncan and Jeremy fight each other the last couple of hundred feet, I didn't care!  By this time I hoped both would sprain something--like their stubborn necks.

Well, stomping isn't too satisfactory on a gangplank -- 'sides, it tends to start going up and down when you do, kinda like a suspension bridge, which can make things iffy as to the question of staying on said gangplank.  So I had to quit stomping.  Which didn't help my temper any, and I nearly flung open the door to the cabin without noticing what was stuck under it.

And what was stuck under the door, you ask?  Well, I didn't find out right away.  Since I was ticked at Duncan, I was damned if I was gonna let  him in on any secretive goings on.  If he wasn't gonna believe me about Red (hey, gotta call her something), then phooey on him!  I'd just keep my mouth shut.

All I did was grab the envelope -- yeah, that's what it was, big surprise -- and give thanks that I was out of sight of Duncan where he was, still about 50 feet off down the walk.  Then I dived inside -- making sure to give a quick look for lurkers, but no one was inside -- and quick like a bunny hid the envelope in my (small) stack of "to read" snail mail.  (Most people email me, like you do; but you know, there are always some die hards out there who refuse to move with the times.  Good thing, in this case, huh?)

By the time Duncan got inside, I was in the kitchen banging pots and pans around.  Much to my surprise, I heard the clippety-clop of Jeremy's hooves after the door opened.  Duncan's been practically freaking every time we had Jeremy inside.  Then I poked my head out and saw them both wearing practically the same expression; a kind of hopeful one, like, "You aren't really as ticked as I think you are, are you?"  Well, in Jeremy's case, it was more, "Does this mean I get a goodie or two?"

Of course I saw through Duncan right away; I mean, it was obvious.  He didn't know precisely why I'd gotten huffy, but was hoping that by letting Jeremy inside he'd wheedle me back into a good humor.  I was giving him one more glare, just for good measure, when Jeremy snorted and nudged Duncan impatiently.  He staggered a bit, gritted his teeth and patted Jeremy while mumbling something about I was the one with the goodies.  Well, I  had to giggle at that; Duncan brightened up and smiled at me, and before I knew it he was in the kitchen and we were forgetting to check that the kiddy-gate in the doorway was latched.  It wasn't.  Which is why we stopped kissing really fast, so we could get Jeremy out of the vegetable bin.

Anyway, the rest of the day progressed normally enough.  Dinner and taking care of Jeremy, then some after-dinner cuddling up on the couch with a nice big fire in the woodstove and a couple of good books to read, along with some nice wine.  It wasn't until I decided to take a long, hot bath that I had a chance to get to the envelope that had been stuck under the door.  I told Duncan no, I didn't need help washing my back, I needed to catch up on my snail mail, and soaking the envelopes open was going a bit too far.  Besides, last time I'd let him help me take a bath, we'd ended up mopping clear out to the cabin afterwards!  Something about baths instead of showers makes Duncan playful.  He likes to splash . . .

Well, that's neither here nor there.  To get to the point, as soon as I was nicely settled and soaking away, I pulled out the manila envelope -- about 6x8, it was so obvious I was relieved Duncan hadn't noticed it.  Not at all like the rest of the mail people normally sent me; the rest of it was all note cards or regular stationery, you know.

Not to mention that the lack of an address or anything except my name was a dead giveaway that it wasn't regular mail.  Whoever it was knew about me being a detective, too -- it had "Det." in front of my name on the envelope!  All this made me a little nervous, but I figured poison-pen letters were a thing of the past, and if anyone was still using something like that, well, it was too liable to kill anyone who just handled the envelope -- so it was already too late, may as well open the sucker.  So I did.

This is where it got weird.  See, there was a perfectly normal typed or printed letter inside; no date or address or anything, but other than that, completely ordinary looking -- except for the red ink.  Well, I've heard of red-letter days, but this was the first time I'd had one.  Next, there was a couple of pictures enclosed, 5x7 b&w glossies, to be precise -- and you'll  never guess of whom!!  I nearly dropped the whole shebang in the bathtub when I took a look at the first one, I was so surprised!  There, right in sharp black and white, was Green Robe!!  Holding a katana and dressed in regular clothes, apparently doing a kata in a park . . . just as I'd seen him the day I'd been kidnapped by Mahoud's goons.

Well, yikes, I nearly choked over that one, of course.  Then I looked at the second picture and nearly slid under the bubbles!  Two people, this time -- Green Robe as I'd first seen him, in robe and fuzzy slippers and katana -- talking to Rosebud!  In her raincoat and the gold catsuit with the roses on it, just as they'd been while on that street corner back home.

Unbelievable.  I spent a minute or so staring at the two pix, gurgling a bit and wondering madly what the hell was going on.  Then I remembered the letter.

Okay, so, it didn't explain too much.  Well, no; actually, it  did explain a lot, but still . . . No, what I really mean is . . . Okay, so it made about as much sense as a comic book!  I won't bore you with the whole gol-durned thing, but here are the high points.

1) Red (for convenience' sake, that's Groucho glasses' new nickname.  Groucho glasses is too much of a pain to type all the time.) All right, Red was indeed the person who'd stuck this envelope under the door.  She didn't identify herself, just said very cagily that she worked for ' . . . a consortium of concerned professionals' -- professional what, she didn't say.  (Thieves?  Spies?  Stockholders?  Retired Postal workers?  Mercenary soldiers?  Bored ex-Communists?) The upshot of her somewhat rambling letter was that they were  very impressed with the way I'd handled my last two cases (!!!) and wished to draw my attention to the mysterious personage in the enclosed pix -- to wit, one 'Green Robe', so known for his habit of wearing said robe every time he could get away with it.  (My gawd, they even used  my name for him!) (No mention of the fuzzy slippers, though, nor his reason for wearing them.)

She never did come right out and say it in so many words, but it soon began to impinge upon me that Green Robe, far from being the reasonably harmless, mildly crazy street person he posed as back home, was in reality a Very Bad Man; and they would really, really appreciate it if I could see my way to keeping an eye on him with a view of eventually Doing Something about him.  Which reminded me a lot of Duncan's expression about 'taking care of' people.  (And no mention of money, either; what, they think I'm a charity detective or something?  Nor helpful suggestions as to exactly what I could Do About him.  Do they want him dead?  Permanently incapacitated?  Jailed?  Like, give me a clue, people!)

2) Rosebud herself was -- again,  quelle surprise, I've been suspicious about that girl from the first minute I saw her -- one of 'Their' operatives.  (Again -- whoever the hell They were.) She'd managed to get kind of close to Green Robe back home in the states, but he was pretty much already involved with a woman.  (Some mention was made about this other woman, who seemed to be in control of the local racket in the fish markets back home, which surprised me.  Usually the fish market section of the local mob business is awful important, they're big money-makers; and you know how the mob is about women running anything.  She must have an awful strong personality!  Plus is apparently a pretty hot number, as well as influential; Green Robe was head over fuzzy slippers for her.  Of course, that didn't help here in France, but you never know when any info will come in handy, so I just filed that tidbit in the back of my mind.)

So Rosebud -- well, Rose, actually; remember the one now dating Richie and Adam?  Yeah, that's the one!  Anyway, Rose hadn't been able to get too far with him, so they'd pulled her off trying to infiltrate his organization.  She'd been on vacation back home, but due to her fortuitous involvement with Richie and Adam (which still boggles my mind; both??) she was definitely to make contact with me when they arrived in Paris in a few days, and provide me with any help or information she could.  (Again -- what do these people think I am, an entire  Mission: Impossible team???  I'm a bloody Detective Second Class!  With no budget, I'd like to stress.  If I'm gonna work here, I wanna get  paid; preferably in lots of folding green.  And why the heck should I care why a mysterious organization was worried about a nutcake like Green Robe, huh?)

3) In answer to why I should care about any of this (great, now they were reading my mind, too): Said Green Robe was financing his Nasty Activities (see below) with shipments of stolen luxury goods from Europe to American, selling them at outrageous markups for a mint of money.  Not to mention what he also made by not paying duty, taxes, etc., etc.  Rose had managed to divert one of his shipments with information she'd gotten, but that was a drop in the bucket, natch, compared to the sum total of his operations.  Green Robe, however, being the anal sort, had gotten all worried and dropped everything back home (including his main squeeze, the fish-market woman), to come over here to Europe and try to track down exactly what had gone wrong.  However, They strongly suspected that that was just a convenient cover for his  real activities.  (By this time my head was aching.  Not to mention that the bath water had gotten cold, and Duncan wanted to use the bathroom, but I'd absent-mindedly locked the door, so the poor guy had to wait.  I had to read the rest in a hurry.)

To make a long story short -- as I found out by skimming quickly once I'd rinsed off soapsuds and let Duncan get in the bathroom -- Green Robe had apparently been worried about his  real activities in Europe for some time, and looking into the disappearing shipment had been a convenient excuse to get over here and do a little direct supervision.  Which he had already started to do, within mere hours of his arrival, a few days after we made it over here.  (As proved by my sighting of him in the park.)

So, you ask, what the hell does all this have to do with me?  As in, what, me worry?  Boy, did I regret asking that question!  Apparently, for  some nutsoid reason, about which They didn't bother to explain, one of Green Robe's main Goals in Life was to kill various people all over the world.  Not just kill 'em, no, he had some sort of fetish about cutting their heads off, too.  (That again!  What  is it with all these weirdo's who like to chop off heads?  Here I thought I was all done with that now that we'd left Seacouver!!!  What, we've got a sudden resurgence of headhunters or something?) And one thing they'd managed to find out was that Green Robe's purpose for making all this money was so he could get together a group of hirelings to accomplish this goal.  One thing Rose  had managed to find was a list of the people he had put in a "most urgent" classification; the ones he wanted to whack ASAP, no ifs, ands, or buts.

Aha -- finally, Red was getting to the point! (By this time I was ready to scream and rip everything to shreds and eat it!) I skimmed faster; Duncan would be out of the bathroom any second and I wanted to hide this dratted letter fast.  And eventually I did get to the meat of what Red was trying to tell me.  The top 20 or so Most Wanted people on Green Robe's hit list.  The ones he'd come over to  personally supervise the, ahh, shortening of.

When I read the list, I kinda wished I hadn't.  No, make that I  really wished I hadn't.  I wished I'd never seen the damned envelope, or the pix, or Green Robe or Rose.  Not to mention Red.  I know I turned white as a sheet and nearly fainted; I had to sit on the edge of the bed and put my head between my knees for a few seconds, so the barge would stop going round in circles.  Meanwhile I was praying as hard as I could that Duncan wouldn't come out right then, but would stay in the bathroom a few minutes longer.

Yeah, I know, I was reacting like a wimp.  But geeze, it's not every day you find out that your One True Love happens to be Number 1 with a bullet on someone's "Kill at Will" list!

****

Gawd, talk about a lousy night.  I've been yawning like crazy today, and feel like I've been dragged backwards through a knothole.  Even all the horizontal dancing last night didn't help.  Well, it helped Duncan; he slept like a rock.  I stayed awake worrying.

He knew something was wrong, of course.  That man picks up on emotions faster than anyone I know.  After I'd finished reading Red's letter last night, I hid it temporarily under the mattress.  Temporarily, I said!  Lousy permanent hiding place, but great for stashing a day or so.  I didn't think it was likely Duncan would do a mattress search any time soon.  And I was right; but boy, he sure clicked on the fact that I was upset about something.  I mean, there I was, just like every other night, curled up in bed and smiling at him; I'd pushed all thoughts about head-chopping nuts out of my head and was simply admiring the view as he came towards the bed.  Then he sits down, looks at me with this little frown and says, "What's wrong?"

It sure is a good thing I'm used to hiding my reactions from people.  I did  not let my jaw drop to the surface of the bed.  I merely hiked up an eyebrow and said innocently, "Wrong?  Nothing.  Just wondering when we're gonna hear from Richie and Adam and their new girlfriend, that Rose person.  Weren't they supposed to arrive this week?"

That was a beautiful red herring, it distracted him perfectly.  For some reason Duncan's worried about both the guys -- well, after finding out what Rose really was, sort of, I was kind of worried myself.  Anyway,  he started going round and round on them again, and although I felt guilty about it, I also mentally heaved a big sigh of relief.  If you're busy soothing someone else, you don't have much time to worry yourself.  And by the time I got Duncan calmed down enough to concentrate on other things, I was much calmer.  Then, of course, there was the distraction of -- well, you know; concentrating on other things.  Finally we settled down to sleep.  And even if I kept waking up, at least I didn't have to worry about Duncan doing the same and finding me staring at the roof of the cabin.  Or tossing and turning.  Or practicing my meditation ritual.  Or--well, okay, I tried a lot of things, and none of them worked.  I got a few snatches of sleep, but not much.  But at least I didn't have to worry about worrying him by making it obvious I was worrying about something.  If you catch my drift.

And I must say, if you've  gotta be the one staying awake and worrying, waste of energy though it is -- well, there is some consolation in having a big, strong, warm man to cuddle up to while worrying.  Especially when even in his sleep he can tell something's bothering you and he pulls you closer and holds you tight.  Of course, then you have to try to stop yourself from leaking a few tears here and there, because he's such a sweetie-pie and he's the one you're worrying about, and  no one's  ever done anything like that in their sleep before!  Not with you, anyway.  And it makes you love the guy even  more, and . . .

Oh geeze.  So here I am wasting time telling you how much I'm worrying.  That's even less productive than the actual worrying!  And Duncan's been sneaking concerned peeks at me all day, and was pretty easy on me during sword practice, which means I'm not hiding it nearly as well as I want to.  Finally I came out here to sit with Jeremy and write to you again.  That, at least, Duncan is used to.  Matter of fact, when I announced my intention, he heaved a silent sigh of relief and relaxed a little.  Guess he's figuring I'm back to normal.  Well, I'm not, really; but at least I've got  him thinking so, which is the whole point.  I mean, what the hell good will it do for me to tell him what I'm worrying about?  He'll wanna go haring off after Green Robe right  now, when we don't know much of anything, and the one person who could tell us more is still back in the States!

Yeah, Rosebud et al aren't due to arrive until tomorrow.  Which means I just have to sit tight and worry.  I'd much prefer  not to worry, but it seems my professionalism has suffered somewhat in contact with Duncan.  Dammit!

No, no, I don't really mean that, of course; I'm just scared.  I'm never this way when  I'm in danger; then I usually just get mad.  This is different.  I thought I used to worry about some of my boyfriends.  Stoker Harrison, the guy I mentioned before, for instance.  The one who crashed airplanes.  Repeatedly.  You'd think he'd have gone on to some  other experience after the first four or five wrecks; you know, like jet boats or Indy cars or maybe riding in the Grand National steeplechase over in England -- I mean, all of those activities provide  plenty of opportunities for smashing several bones and so forth.  Not only that, but  different opportunities for disassembling various and sundry parts of your body.  But nooooo.  He had to stick with airplanes.  Expensive ones.

Now, that was worrisome.  Which is one reason I broke up with Stoker, the maintenance-to-companionship ratio was just waaayy too high, y'know?  What good is a boyfriend who's usually in the hospital -- and when out of the hospital, is in an airplane plunging towards the nearest hard piece of ground?  Yah.  You get the picture.

Not that Stoker was the only boyfriend I worried over.  There was Weasel, of course -- and by now you should have an inkling why, I'm not gonna go into that again -- and then my fourth from last boyfriend, Aubrey Basingstoke Tetwiler III.  Talk about a mouthful.  And you're right, it's an awfully upper-crusty name.  Well, so was Aubrey.  He was rebelling, I guess, although he was very sweet and really did have a thing for me.  But when his mother actually keeled over in a faint on meeting me the first time, despite her iron-clad good manners, I figured our relationship wasn't long for this world.  And not just because I was barefoot and holding a wolf puppy.

I was right.  Unfortunately, it wasn't for any reason so innocent as Aubrey returning to the Bosom of his Family (or Mama's bosom, more like, what there was of it).  No, Aubrey  also had a hobby.  In addition to rebelling against Authority and Anti-Naturalism (he capitalized those words, you could hear it every time he said 'em), he was also hipped on Getting Back to the Natural Way of Life.  (more capitals)  Which meant living in a tent even during winter (in the Pacific Northwest??!) and hunting your own food.  Whee.  The Life Primeval.

Now, while Aubrey was a pretty good fisherman (which meant he was excruciatingly boring while doing it, 'cause he actually  concentrated), a hunter he was not.  Especially when he insisted that to truly be one with the prey, you had to be 'with the prey' as much as you could be.  Now, this did not mean 'get close to the prey.' No.  It meant getting into the prey's mindset, so you could  feel it and think like it.  Which in Aubrey's case included draping himself in a deerskin, strapping a pair of antlers to his head, and a few other odds and ends of disguise.  Plus using only a compound bow, not a rifle.

Well, as anyone could have told him, this was sheer idiocy.  Which I pointed out, several times.  Would he listen?  Well, duh, Wilbur.  No, of course not!

I should have known.  Talk about a total waste of worrying.  I mean, if you  know something's gonna happen, you should just cut your losses and quit your worrying, y'know?  There are some things not worth racking yourself over, because you can't change what's coming.  Although I was rather surprised to find that Aubrey was becoming one with the deer  after hunting season; but then, in a way it was poetic justice when it turned out to be another poacher that got him.  And the funeral was quite lovely, of course.  A catered wake, too.  You should have seen the expression on Mrs. Tetwiler II's face when the poacher showed up and contributed a deer carcass to the cause.  It almost made the whole affair worth dressing up for.  (I had to get used to wearing shoes again, and naturally they didn't have enough chairs.)

Anyway, as you can see, I've run the gamut of worrying about boyfriends in my day.  You'd think I'd be used to pretty much anything, now wouldn't you?  Hah!  Except for Weasel, not one of them had someone deliberately out to kill them!  Well, Rudy, yeah, but no one was hunting him, he went willingly.  (And by the time I found that out for Weasel, I would have cheered them on and offered to reload their guns for 'em.)  Not to mention Green Robe listing Duncan as his number one priority.

So I sat outside and ran through things in my mind while writing to you, and talked to Jeremy as he whuffled in my hair, and worried some more.  With the end result that after a couple of hours I was even antsier than before, plus smelled like horse.  The situation was getting desperate.

Well, desperate times, desperate measures . . . I did something I've  never done before.  Ever.  I went jogging.  On  purpose.

Continued

(Want to see the previous stories again before going further?
Here are the first and second stories in the series.)

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