Carol Clark: Laced

The lake was still, and the green lawn added some color to the dreary, gray day. All was peaceful and silent, if a little gloomy. In the distance, Regan could see one of the many islands in the large lake. A boat departed from the castle dock every morning and afternoon for an hour-long tour of Lake Hennessy.

We should do that one of these days, Regan thought.

Twenty minutes later they were both dressed. As they left the room, they encountered a young room steward in the hallway about to enter the room next door.

“Good morning,” he said, nodding his head.

“Good morning,” Regan answered. “There’s some glass in the corner of our room. A print fell off the wall last night.”

“No problem. That’s the least of the hotel’s problems at the moment.”

“That’s great,” Jack muttered as he and Regan walked toward the main staircase.

Down in the lobby, the smell of smoke had diminished. The hotel was eerily quiet. It seemed that all of the other guests were still sleeping off the early morning disturbance. Regan and Jack helped themselves to coffee, which tasted wonderful. China mugs in hand, they walked through the archway to the small reception area just inside the front door, where a young woman was sitting at a computer.

“May we speak to the manager?” Jack asked.

“Certainly, sir.” She stood up and disappeared through a door to a back office. The inner sanctum. The doors behind the front desks of hotels always seemed top secret, Regan thought.

Jack turned to her-“Don’t worry, Regan. This honeymoon won’t be all about work. I love you.” As he leaned down to give her a kiss, a howl emanating from down the hall startled them both.

“Ahhhhh!” A moment later a rosy-cheeked housekeeper, wearing a gray dress and carrying a feather duster, came hurrying toward the reception desk. Her eyes were popping out of her head. “May Reilly’s tablecloth is gone! Someone shattered the case in the memorabilia room and stole it! She’s really going to haunt this castle now!”

Oh my God, Regan thought. I knew we should have gone up there last night.

The door to the inner sanctum flew open. A weary Neil Buckley rushed out. “For goodness’ sake, Margaret Raftery, calm yourself down, woman!”

“Calm myself down!” she shrieked. “May Reilly’s gorgeous tablecloth has been stolen. It’s been here for almost two hundred years. There’s going to be hell to pay!”

Regan and Jack followed the manager who raced up to the memorabilia room. The glass display case had been smashed. Large shards of glass covered the polished wooden floor.

Jack identified himself and Regan to a despondent Neil. “We’re here to help you,” he said.

“This room was locked at eleven o’clock last night,” Neil explained, his voice rising. “This must have happened during all the confusion with the fire.”

The housekeeper, who looked about sixty, appeared in the doorway. She was fanning herself. Sweat had broken out on her forehead.

She doesn’t want to miss this, Regan thought.

“Margaret, go home if you must,” Neil ordered. “The last thing I need is hysteria.”

Margaret nodded and took off.

But, then again, if you can get the day off, Regan mused.

“The fire could have been started to cause a distraction,” Jack suggested to Neil. “If thieves tried to steal the tablecloth during the day or even at night, someone might hear them. But with the fire alarm going off and all the confusion, they could move in quickly without being noticed.”

“Have any of the hotel guests checked out this morning?” Regan asked.

“Just one elderly couple. They were so upset about the fire and too nervous to stay here.” Neil’s eyes widened. “As a matter of fact, they left an envelope at the desk for you, Jack.”

Uh-oh, Regan thought.

They all raced back downstairs. A minute later Jack was ripping open a plain white envelope with his name on it. He pulled out a business card. Scrawled in black ink were the words

SORRY WE MISSED YOU! WE JUST LOVE LACE TABLECLOTHS,

ESPECIALLY ONE MADE BY A REILLY!

HAPPY HONEYMOON!

JANE AND JOHN DOE

“Jane and John Doe” were enjoying a gleeful morning. Driving away from Hennessy Castle in their mini Cooper as dawn broke, they had high-fived each other. Anyone who spotted them might have thought it odd to see two elderly folks engaging in a salute most often practiced by a much younger generation. But, of course, Jane and John Doe were not as old as they appeared.

They were both in their late forties.

Anna and Bobby Marston, aka Jane and John Doe, never used those names in public or on legal documents. They traveled under several aliases but had decided long ago to address each other as often as possible by the terms of endearment used by couples everywhere, monikers that wouldn’t raise suspicion from anyone who heard them.

Anna was Hon.

Bobby was Sweetie.

The few people they had met in Ireland knew them as Karen and Len Cortsman.

Now, as they traveled down the old country roads, they were satisfied with a job well done. They were heading home, their home in the Emerald Isle. They had bought an isolated cottage in a small village by the sea, just south of Galway, where they would retreat after pulling off a job or two. It was easy to slip under the radar screen of law enforcement in a place where the only signs of life for miles came from the blink of a bored-looking sheep or the swinging tail of a cow munching on the endless fields of grass. The village was quite a change from the bustling streets of New York, London, and Sydney, places that Anna and Bobby usually frequented. But at the cottage they would relax, listen to their dialect tapes, and spend time on the Internet researching upcoming charity galas. To anyone who crossed their path, they appeared to be an unassuming couple who craved the simple life.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

“Sweetie,” Anna said, pulling off her gray wig, “we’re so daring these days.”

Bobby waved his hand dismissively. “It’s fun. I just wish I could see the expression on Jack Reilly’s face when he reads our card. That’ll teach him to refer to us as lowlifes.”

“It’s still pretty mean to do this on his honeymoon.”

“Hon, we’re mean people.” Bobby started to laugh, a staccato sound that was unique and strange: henh, henh, henh. His cackle reminded Anna of a woodpecker. She had told him a million times to try to change his laugh, but it was useless. He was forty-one when she met him in New York City. She eventually realized there wasn’t much use trying to change anything about anybody once they had hit the big four-oh.

As Bobby drove, Anna removed the gray toupee from his head and fluffed up his thick mane of brown hair. No sense looking like an elderly couple. Sooner or later, probably sooner, the police would be on the lookout for them. Anna placed the “his and hers” hairpieces in a travel bag at her feet and ran her fingers through her own stylishly cut short brown hair. She was wiry, as was Bobby, and they both were in good shape, thanks to regular workouts. She was five feet six inches tall, and he was five feet ten. There was nothing remarkable or unremarkable about their looks, which made it easy for them to both blend into crowds and change their appearance.

Anna had been a makeup artist in New York City who’d been to many wealthy people’s homes to get them looking their best for anything from a television interview to a wedding or charity function. She saw how phony many of these VIPs could be. She heard them gossip about the other phonies out there. The amount of money some of them threw around was staggering.

One of her most fortuitous jobs was doing makeup for a magician who taught her a few sleight-of-hand tricks.