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Lili followed as an airline assistant wheeled Martha off the plane and into the terminal at Boston’s Logan Airport. Martha’s neck was bandaged, but she was breathing normally. She could croak a bit, but she still needed her writing pad to communicate.
After getting their bags, a skycap wheeled their luggage to the C&J bus. Lili wheeled Martha out the door, but Martha was able to climb into the bus on her own. She was a little shaky, but she hobbled down the aisle and plopped into a seat. Lili sat down next to her and handed Martha her bag and a cup of ice water with a straw. Martha drank a few gulps and wrote, “I’m starting to feel a little stronger just moving around some.”
Lili smiled at her and asked, “How long is the bus ride?”
Martha wrote, “Just a little over an hour.”
It was a really nice bus. Once they got going, both women settled in for a nap. Lili woke up a bit later and watched the bus drive through the Boston suburbs. Eventually, they reached I-95 and quickly cruised up to the Portsmouth bus terminal. The late-March air was brisk under mostly cloudy skies. Lili summoned an Uber and they reached Martha’s house a few minutes later.
Martha lived in an older two-story white house with a one-car garage. The snow was gone, and the lawn was mostly green. The trees were bare and no flowers were yet in bloom. Lili brought in the luggage, and Martha showed her to the guest bedroom. It was cold, so Martha turned up the thermostat. The radiators started making a clunking noise. When Lili entered the kitchen, Martha pointed to the electric tea kettle and Lili said she’d love some.
Lili sat on a comfy chair in the living room and texted Gil that they’d arrived.
“How’s the weather?” Gil texted.
“Cloudy and cool. Trees are still bare.”
“Well I can’t wait till we’re together again and I can keep you warm.”
Lili chuckled.
Crash! Lili went to the kitchen and found that Martha had dropped a mug and it shattered. Martha was white as a ghost and pointing at the phone list on the refrigerator. Lili asked, “What’s the matter?” She found Martha’s pen and pad, and gave it to her.
Martha wrote, “Someone’s been in here! The phone list is backwards.”
“Wasn’t your neighbor here to check the house? Maybe she moved it. Which house is she in? I’ll go get her.”
Martha wrote, “101. Barbara.”
Lili came back with Barbara in tow. She went over and gave Martha a hug. “Oh, you poor dear! How are you feeling?”
Martha wrote, “I can’t talk yet, but it doesn’t hurt too much.”
Lili said, “Martha noticed that the phone list on her fridge is turned around. Did you move it while you were checking on her house?”
“Oh dear! No, I’m pretty sure I didn’t touch it. All I did was walk around the rooms and check that the doors and windows were locked. Maybe you put it back that way before you left?”
Martha shook her head. She walked over to her desk and sat down. She looked around at the piles of papers, pulled open the drawers, and wiggled the computer mouse. The computer was off. She knelt down by the side of the desk and turned on the power strip. She pushed the power button on the tower and the computer booted up. Martha wrote, “I don’t know what it is, but something doesn’t feel right.”
“Let me look around, a little,” said Lili.
Lili walked from room to room, went down into the cellar, and out into the garage. Nothing looked out of place.
Lili returned and said, “I don’t see anything strange, do you?”
Martha wrote, “Maybe I’m just being paranoid.”
“Let me make a call.” Lili called a digital forensics guy she knew at the Massachusetts Crime Lab. “Hi Ricky. How do I tell if a computer was booted up at some time in the past?”
Ricky started rapidly reciting some techno-speak steps to perform. Lili asked him to hold on for a minute. “Martha, let’s take a look at your computer. Would you sign on please? I have a friend from the Massachusetts State Crime Lab on the phone and he’ll guide us through this.”
Martha got up and let Lili go to work. Lili went through a sequence of steps as Ricky guided her. She described to Ricky the information on the computer, then thanked him and hung up her phone. “Okay Martha, your computer was booted up eight weeks ago. That was while you were in Florida and before the attack. Is there anyone who would have booted up your computer then?”
“Oh my god, somebody was here. There’s nobody I know who would have done that. Barbara doesn’t know how to sign on to my computer. Warren does, but there’s no reason he would have been here. He’s the only one who knows how to sign in.”
“Who’s Warren?” asked Lili.
“Oh, he lives across the street over there. He helps me with my computer.”
Lili said, “I’ll call him just to make sure. Is Warren’s number on your phone list?” Martha nodded.
Barbara said, “I’ll call him.”
Barbara phoned Warren, chatted a little, and hung up. “Warren says he hasn’t been here since last fall, when you were still here.”
“So, we have enough evidence to show that someone broke into your house,” said Lili. “I’m going to get the police over here.”
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THE THREE WOMEN ORDERED from 5 Thai Bistro. It was one of Martha’s favorite restaurants, but she could still only eat soft foods. As they finished eating, the doorbell rang and Lili answered it.
“Hi, I’m Detective James Berniski from the Portsmouth Police Department, and this is Officer Childs.” He held out his badge and Lili let them in. Officer Childs was holding a crime scene kit.
“I’m Agent Lili D’Amico with the Massachusetts Crime Lab. This is Martha Eames, the homeowner and this is Barbara, her neighbor.”
“LeClerc,” said Barbara.
“So, you reported a break-in here, and you think it’s related to a crime in Florida?” asked Berniski.
Lili gave him the whole story. Berniski took a lot of notes and asked a lot of questions. “So, Ms. Eames, do you have any ideas about who would want to harm you or who may be after something in your possession?”
Martha wrote, “No! I’m just a retired widow who knits and watches TV. My husband George did secret work at Lincoln Labs, but that was years ago and he never brought anything home.”
“What kind of work did he do?”
“He was a semiconductor scientist.” Berniski’s eyebrows rose.
“Well, what I think we’ll do is gather evidence on the break-in here. Smart call on checking the computer. Officer Childs is a trained crime scene technician, so he’ll try to determine point of entry and see if there are some prints we can lift, or any other evidence we could use. Tomorrow, I’d like Agent D’Amico here to come down to the station so we can brief the Chief. If this is really related to the Florida case, we may end up bringing in the FBI. They’ll be able to look into Mr. Eames’s secret work.”
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BACK IN FLORIDA, GIL, Francine, and Francine’s husband Carl were nearly finished loading up Martha’s car with her belongings. Gil and Carl were dripping with sweat, but Francine seemed fresh as a daisy. “So Gil, when are you going to head back up north?” asked Francine.
“In three days. Tomorrow, I’m going fishing with my friend who has a boat. How about you guys?”
“Oh, we’re staying until the end of April,” said Francine. “This whole situation makes me nervous, though.”
“Well, it looks like somebody was after Martha, in particular,” said Gil. “It wasn’t a random home invasion, so I don’t think you have anything to worry about.”
“I’m sure you’re right, but I’m still feeling nervous.”
Carl said, “If anyone ever broke into our place, they’re the ones that should be nervous. I’ll bet you would beat them up. Or you would talk their ears off until they’d just run away.”
“You haven’t run away, yet.”
“Yet.”
“Gil, are you going to drive home or fly?” she asked.
“I’ll drive. I enjoyed the trip down, but I’m sure it was a lot easier with Lili driving half the time. Hopefully, I won’t regret my decision.”
Gil drove Martha’s car to the parking lot where a car-carrier truck would load it up for transport to New Hamsphire. Carl followed Gil so he could bring him back to Manatee Point.
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GIL, MIKE, AND BOB had set up their fishing rods on Bob’s to slowly troll in the gulf. The water was pretty smooth. Mike pointed to the ten o’clock position where a school of fish was roiling the surface and a lot of birds were diving for them. Bob changed his heading to troll by the school. Suddenly, Gil’s reel started zizzing. so Bob cut the throttle. Gil grabbed his pole and set the hook, while Mike and Bob quickly reeled in their lines. Gil’s fish changed direction, causing slack in the line. Gil took advantage of the situation to quickly reel in a lot of line. The fish changed direction again, peeling out the line. “Start the boat and follow it or I’ll lose my line!” said Gil. Bob scrambled to get the boat started and headed in the right direction, while Gil moved quickly to the bow.
Gil was able to reel in line as the boat moved slowly toward the fish. Suddenly, the line started peeling again. The fish was diving deep. Gil was dripping with sweat and his arms were getting tired. Mike yelled, “Ahoy, ‘tis the white whale! Man the harpoons!” Bob was laughing, but Gil was not.
Gil watched helplessly as the line on his reel dwindled. As it neared its end, the line went slack. Gil started reeling in furiously, and after a few seconds, he realized he’d lost the fish. When he finally reeled in all of his line, he realized that it had broken right at the end, where the steel leader met the braided line. “Nice fish.” said Mike. “What brand of reel oil are you using?”
Bob and Mike set up to troll again, while Gil was rigging up another lure. “What kind of fish do you think that was?” asked Gil.
“Maybe a shark, but we’ll never know,” said Bob. Another reel started to zizz. “Bob, it’s yours!” said Mike.
Bob cut the engine, while Mike reeled in his line. Bob ran back and pulled his rod out of the holder. He started to play the fish. It was a big one. Mike’s line tangled while his lure was still in the water. The fish was fighting like crazy, but Bob got it close to the boat. “Get the gaff! Get the gaff!” yelled Bob. Gil got the gaff hook and ran to Bob. The fish seemed to have lost its energy to fight, so Bob eased it over to the boat. “It’s a cobia,” said Bob. Gil hooked the gaff into the side of the fish and pulled it up. The fish started wriggling violently, and Gil fell to the deck with the fish on top of him. Mike pulled out his phone to get it on video.
Gil was screaming, “Get it off me!” Bob grabbed the fish by the tail, slid it off Gil and dragged it into the cooler. Gil got up and found a towel to wash off the slime.
They decided to call it a day, so Bob headed the boat toward the shore. Mike said, “Wow Gil, you went viral!”
Mike handed Gil his phone. There was a Facebook video with the caption ‘Fish attempts to mate with fisherman.’ There were already over a hundred comments. “Oh brother, I’ll never hear the end of this one.”