The Mystery of the Lakeshore Ltd - An Eleanor and Lydia Mystery

Chapter Eight

Lowell had been wandering around Eleanor's house, turning lights on and off to give the appearance of life and movement for hours. Upon their return, he greeted them like an over-excited Labrador Retriever.

Lydia accepted his bear hug with an amused grin, and Eleanor gratefully took his arm and let him lead her into the kitchen where he bustled around making hot cocoa as if he'd cooked in her home a hundred times before.

"So, the gang's grown by one, I see." He banged a pan on the stove and filled it with milk. "Who're you?"

Chet slumped in the chair to Eleanor's right. With his long, skinny arms and legs splayed out, he looked like a half-melted piece of stretched out taffy. "I'm Chet."

"He's the kidnapper," Lydia said.

Lowell nodded as if that were perfectly reasonable, and then halted with a spoonful of cocoa powder in the air, halfway between container and pan. Apparently, the statement had sunk in. "Excuse me?" 

"Well, he's only one of the kidnappers," Eleanor explained.

Ignoring Lowell's sputters of disbelief, Lydia propped her forearms on the table and clenched her hands together. "Introductions are over. I saved your butt back there, and I need you to convince me I did the right thing, because there's a cop sitting in his car right outside the front door and I can get him in here in twenty seconds flat. Where's Larisa?"

The taffy melted a little further into the chair. "I don't know."

Lydia's knuckles turned white.

Clearing her throat, Eleanor took over the questioning. She decided to get straight to the heart of the matter. "Is the girl still alive?"

His eyes grew wide. "Wait, you guys think we got her?"

"Do you expect us to believe someone else got her?" Lydia asked.

"Well, I don't have her!"

His panicked trembling and bloodless face testified to his truthfulness.

"Where do you think she might be?" Eleanor asked.

"How am I supposed to know?"

Lydia scowled at him. "I don't believe you."

"Perhaps you should tell us the whole story, from the beginning, from your perspective," Eleanor suggested.

Hopping out of his chair, Lowell asked them to wait while he made popcorn. When he returned to the table where the boy sat, trembling and on the edge of tears and Lydia sat trembling and on the edge of homicide, Eleanor thanked him and Chet began his story.

"Riley and me, we've been friends forever, right?" He wiped the sweat from his upper lip. "But it was never really a two-way street, you know what I mean? Riley had everything, man. He's like the pampered young prince. It's always been that way. I was sweating over SAT scores while he was eating dinner with politicians who had young, single daughters. He let me tag along."

"And you were a grateful little brown-noser?" Lydia interjected.

He nodded emphatically. "Yes, I was. I was never blind to the benefit of having an in with the Cruise family."

"And you would have gone to any lengths to keep that in?"

"I didn't kill anybody!" He dropped his head into his hands and took a moment to steady himself. Finally, he looked up again and went on. "Not any lengths, but damn close. I knew that I'd never have what Riley has, but better a servant in a castle than the ruler of a backwoods shack."

Lowell washed down his popcorn with a sip of the cocoa. "Spoken like a true jackass with no self respect."

Chet glared at him, but he didn't argue. "Whatever, man. To each their own, right? But a few weeks back, Riley comes to me and he's freaking out. I mean," he held out a hand, palm up as if trying to offer a holographic image of what he'd seen. Since that didn't work, he had to go back to trying to explain. "Riley had been poking around in his dad's office, looking for who-knows-what. He's always getting into his dad's crap for one reason or another, but this time he found some stuff that looked serious. Financial papers with lots of red ink, you know?"