Black Cat Weekly #15

ROMEO AND ISABELLE by John M. Floyd

ROMEO AND ISABELLE

by John M. FloydPete Nolan smoothed his lapels, tugged on the knot in his tie, pressed the fancy doorbell, and waited. Moments later a small white-haired lady opened the door. On her lined face was a look of mild curiosity; in her right hand was a walking cane.

“Ms. Florence Allen?” he said. “My name’s Nolan. I work for Aultmann Insurance.”

She studied him carefully. “And…”

“Well—I understand someone tried to break into your home the other night.”

She smiled, her eyes as blue as the autumn sky behind him. “That’s overstating it a bit. What happened was, someone threw a rock through my window.”

“Here on the first floor.”

“That’s right. I called your company to report the damage, and they saw to it right away. Commendable, I thought.”

Nolan hesitated, choosing his words. “Do you have any enemies, Ms. Allen? Anyone who could’ve done this?”

“Not that I know of. Just kids, I imagine.”

“Yes, but…it could’ve been a break-in attempt.”

“Not if you have barred windows. The rock came in between the bars, young man—a robber can’t. Unless he’s even skinnier than I am.”

Nolan nodded patiently. “Even so, I’ve been told to do a reassessment. Your homeowner’s policy with us covers all household goods and valuables.”

Another smile. “I see,” she said. “And I’m sure you know my net worth, don’t you.”

He didn’t, as a matter of fact. But he had a pretty good idea. The house, the focal point of a sprawling estate, looked like an antebellum mansion. “It’s in our files, yes, ma’am.”

For a while neither of them spoke. As they stood there a gray cat eased into the doorway, curled itself lovingly around the old lady’s ankles, and then wandered back inside.

Finally Nolan said, “Let me put it this way, Ms. Allen. You’re alone here—”

“My pets and I,” she said.

“Yes, you and your pets are alone here, and if there were a robbery, you’d have a lot to lose. Which means we, as your insurer, would have a lot to lose.” Another pause. “I’m sure you understand.”

“I suppose.” She backed up to let him step inside, then shut the door behind him. The room was a long and impressive entrance hall. “Now let me ask you something, Mr. Nolan.”

“Of course.”

“After you drove up just now…I saw you talking with someone, inside your car.”

“Yes. I was.”

“And it looked like my nephew, Oliver Caldwell.”

“You’re right,” Nolan said. “Ollie asked if he could ride here with me.”

“Why would he do that? My nephew and I haven’t spoken for the past five years.”

“So he told me.” Nolan cleared his throat. “I probably shouldn’t have brought him, Ms. Allen. He told me he wasn’t welcome here. But he said he wanted to see the lake again.”

She sighed. “Yes, he always liked the lake. He spent a lot of time here, as a boy.”

“And…”

“And has stolen from me, on several occasions. Oliver has stolen from others as well.”

Nolan hesitated again, then said, “He told me he’s through doing that kind of thing.”

“I hope so. Oliver’s lazy as his mother, rest her soul, and meaner than his daddy.” She seemed sad a moment, then gave Nolan a piercing look. “How do you two know each other?”

Nolan stared back at her. Instead of answering, he said, “Do you suspect me of something, Ms. Allen? Do you think your nephew and I have come here for some dark purpose?”

“Let’s just say I’m not as trusting as I used to be.”

He nodded. “I can’t say I blame you.” He took a deep breath and let it out. “Ollie and I went to school together. We happened to bump into each other this morning, downtown.” He paused. “If I’ve done wrong, in bringing him… I sincerely apologize.”

She seemed to give that some thought, then waved a hand. “What’s done is done. As long as I don’t have to talk to him.” She drew herself up a little straighter. “So. What exactly did you come here to see, or do, or ask?”

Nolan took out his cell phone. “Do you mind if I make a few notes?”

“On your phone?”

“It has a notes feature. I type them in, like texting.”

She shrugged. “If you like.”

He took a moment to look around the room. Another cat had appeared, and seemed to be watching him. And he noticed, for the first time, a fuzzy dog on a pallet near the end of the hallway and a hamster in a cage off to the left. Pets indeed. Plenty of them.

At last he said, “Can you tell me who else has a key to your front door?”

“Only I have a key. And I seldom use it.”

“Excuse me?”

“I rarely go out, Mr. Nolan.” She smiled at the cat and said, “My little friends and I are happy right here. So I seldom use the key, and people don’t come in unless I let them in.”

A telephone buzzed quietly, on the hallway table. Ms. Allen ignored it, and after the fourth buzz an old-fashioned answering machine kicked in and asked the caller to leave a message. A bright female voice said, “Hello, this is Brittany with Tropical Cruises. You have been chosen to receive a discount on our exclusive vacation package…”

Nolan and Ms. Allen remained silent until the monotonal recording ran its course. “Sorry about that,” she said. “This is my only landline phone, and I long ago turned the ringer volume down because I never answer it anyway. My few friends know to call my cell—I’m not sure why I even keep this one.” She refocused on him and added, “Where were we?”

“You were telling me no one comes in unless you let them in.”

“That’s correct.”

“You must have housemaids, gardeners, maintenance staff. What about them?”

“Anyone who comes in,” she repeated, “is admitted by me, and me alone.”

“Personally?”

“You mean do I stand here like this, and open the door for them? Sometimes. But in all cases, the door is activated by voice commands. My voice.”

“I’m not sure I understand…”

“Six months ago I hired Zandervelt Electronics to install a system by which I can control, through spoken instructions, my lights, TV, heating, air, and so on. And my outside doors.”

“Can you show me?”

“Of course.” Raising her chin, Ms. Allen said, “Isabelle, lock the front door.”

Behind him, Nolan heard a CLICK.

Then: “Isabelle, unlock the front door.” Another click. He watched the door ease open, in a smooth arc. Slowly Ms. Allen moved past him, used the end of her cane to push the door shut again, and told it to lock. Once more the mechanism clicked.

She faced him as if to say, Satisfied?

He wasn’t. “What’s to prevent someone else from using that same command, to gain entrance?” he asked. “From outside?”

“Two things. First, the system responds to my voice only. Second, the doors can’t be opened that way from outside—the sound sensors are mounted on this side of each door.”

“Then how do you open it when you’re outside?”

“With my key,” she said.

“And, again, you are—”

“The only one who has a key.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “What about your valuables?”

“What kind?”

“Any kind. Cash, stock certificates, jewelry, anything worth keeping and guarding.”

“Most of that’s in my safe, upstairs.”

“Can we take a look?”

“I suppose so.”

Ms. Allen stumped down the hallway and past a wide staircase to a set of double doors that slid open automatically. Motion sensors, Nolan thought. After they stepped aboard the elevator she said, “Isabelle? Second floor.”

Moments later the doors opened and he followed her, phone in hand, into another hallway and around a corner to a vast library. Two cats he hadn’t seen before scurried out of their way, along with a chihuahua that looked like a skinned rat. Ms. Allen stopped and pointed with her cane to a gray metal square tucked into a wall of otherwise floor-to-ceiling bookshelves.

“Could you demonstrate it for me?”

Amusement twinkled in her eyes. Watching him, she said, “Isabelle, unlock the safe.”

The sound this time was quieter, the click more muted. The safe door eased open an inch or so and stayed that way. Moving carefully, Ms. Allen made her way there, pushed it shut, and said, “Isabelle, lock the safe.” This time he barely heard it.

“Isabelle?” he asked.

“Yes. She’s sort of a high-end, all-powerful Alexa. The installers of the system allowed me to choose the name myself. Isabelle Walcott was a bridesmaid at my wedding.”

Suddenly Nolan frowned. “Was it okay for me to say the name aloud, just now?”

“Yes. I told you, she responds only to me.”

“She?”

“It, I suppose. I think of it as she.”

Nolan squinted, deep in thought. “What if…what if someone recorded your voice and edited your words together into a command? Could that be played back to fool the system?”

“No. It would detect the difference in inflections and cadence. It’s foolproof.”

He noticed something, and frowned. “All these windows in here are open.”

“Yes. I like it that way, in the spring and fall. These aren’t barred like those on the first floor, but the ceiling down there’s so high these windows are twenty feet off the ground. There’s no risk, unless a wasp flies in. Besides, I close them at night.”

“You mean Isabelle closes them.”

“Yes. When I tell her to.”

“Actually, I wasn’t thinking about risk from entry,” he said. “I was thinking, what if you stood too close to one of those open windows, spoke your command to the safe, and someone outside recorded the entire command? No editing required.”

This time she was the one frowning. “Recorded it how?”

“I don’t know, maybe with a long-range listening device. One of those big parabolic-microphone things. Someone could be out there on the lawn, or at the edge of the woods.”

“I know what you mean—I own one of those. My late husband bought it for me.”

Nolan grinned. “So you could spy on your neighbors?”

“I guess I could’ve, if we had neighbors. I used it to listen to distant birdcalls. Although I admit he was a devious man, my husband.”

“Was he a spy?” Nolan was only half joking.

“He was a politician. My point is, I’m never standing near those windows when I speak the phrase to unlock the safe. And now that you mention it, I’ll make it a point not to.”

Before Nolan could reply, he heard a great fluttering of wings behind him, and whirled to see a huge white bird emerge from the hallway and glide past him to land in an open cage on the far side of the library. On its head was a white plume as long and full as a feather duster.

“That’s Romeo,” Ms. Allen said.

Nolan was still a little shaken. “Is he a parrot?” The damn thing was big enough, and had the same kind of beak—but Nolan had thought parrots were colorful.

“Cockatoo,” she said.

“Don’t the cats bother him?”

“They and Romeo seem to have an understanding.”

“Ah.” After a pause Nolan said, “Aren’t you afraid he’ll fly out one of the windows?”

“Why should he? Everything he wants is right here.”

That makes two of us, Nolan said to himself. Now that he’d seen the safe he was having trouble keeping his eyes off it. He could feel his heart thumping in his chest.

Then another sound interrupted his thoughts. A loud, splattering, pulsing noise like that of an automatic car wash. Nolan jumped as if poked with a cattle prod.

“Sorry,” she said. “That was Romeo.”

He turned to look at the cockatoo. “Are you serious?”

“Yes. He likes to imitate the washing machine. He uses the staircase to fly back and forth at night, but in the daytime he stays mostly downstairs in the laundry room.”

“Listening to the washing machine,” Nolan said.

Ms. Allen nodded. “Sounds just like it, doesn’t he?”

* * * *

Five minutes later Pete Nolan—real name Dwayne Perry—joined Oliver Caldwell on the footpath beside the lake, a hundred yards south of the house. Perry was a little irked to have had to come fetch him, but Oliver seemed unfazed. And in no hurry to leave.

“You were right,” Perry said. “Strange lady, your aunt Florence.”

“I saw her peeking at us through a window as we got out of the car. Did she ask how you and I know each other?”

“Yeah. I told her we went to school together.”

Oliver laughed. “True, in a way. We were both in the same carpentry class, in prison.”

“I neglected to mention that. I wish I had neglected to bring you with me.”

“Like I told you, I wanted to see the place.” Oliver was gazing at the lake, his face wistful. Perry remembered what the old woman had said about her nephew’s childhood. After a moment Oliver said, “Is there really a Pete Nolan who works for Aultmann Insurance?”

“I doubt it. Pete Nolan was one of the trail hands in Rawhide,” Perry said. “I like old Westerns.”

“What if she had phoned the insurance company, to see if you were legit?”

“You said your contact told you she didn’t like using the phone. I trusted you.”

“As you should’ve,” Oliver said. “The main thing is, did you get what we need?”

Perry glanced up at the house. He thought, just for a second, he could make out Romeo’s white feathers through one of the open windows of the library. “I got it, right here on my cell. I recorded her commands to unlock the front door and also to unlock the safe.”

“And you heard the call I made, on her answering machine?”

“Yep. The timing was just right. Came through clear as a bell.”

Which was something they’d both been worried about. Oliver had recorded the cruiseline robocall a few days ago on a burner phone and had been concerned about the voice quality if he called his aunt and played it back for the answering machine they’d been told was in the entrance hall. But to Perry the test run had sounded fine. One more item checked off the list.

“As long as she doesn’t hear it ring,” Oliver said, “when we do it for real. She won’t, right? She’ll be asleep in her bedroom upstairs, and you said the only landline’s on first floor—”

“She won’t hear it. It buzzes, doesn’t really ring.”

“What about the answering machine? Doesn’t it record incoming calls?”

“That’s no problem,” Perry said. “We’ll just take the tape with us when we leave.”

“Yeah. Okay.” Both of them stayed quiet a moment. “Now the only thing is, what’ll the cops think, afterward? When she finds the safe empty and tells them what she told you—that the front door and the safe can only be opened on command, and by only her voice—they’re going to suspect exactly what we’ve done. And she’ll tell ’em I was here today.”

Perry shook his head. “I’m the one they’d suspect. And I used a false name.”

“But I’m from here, and you’re not. The cops know me.”

“So what? You could say you never saw me till today. We already discussed this—”

“Yeah, and it’s still a problem,” Oliver said.

“Not anymore. Things won’t get that far. When they take a close look at all this, there’ll be a logical solution to what happened, and it won’t have a thing to do with you or me.”

“How do you figure that?”

Perry grinned, and this time there was none of Pete Nolan’s friendliness in the smile. “I agree that your little housemaid contact fed you some helpful information—”

“Like the name of the insurance company. Damn right it was helpful. She also did a good job throwing that rock through the window last week, to set all this up.”

“I told you, I agree. But there’s one thing your contact didn’t tell you. Or if she did, you’re stupid enough to have missed it.”

“What’s that?”

Perry looked again at the library windows. “The old lady has a cockatoo,” he said.

“What?”

“A big white bird, named Romeo. And—get this—he imitates sounds that he’s heard.”

Oliver frowned. “You mean, like, voices?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. But some sounds, for sure. Like the washing machine.”

“The what?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Perry said. “As soon as she tells the cops about the voice-controlled doors and such, and they see the cockatoo, you know what they’ll assume.”

Now Oliver was grinning also. “They’ll think the bird did it. They’ll think it gave the command, in her voice, to open the front door.”

“Right. Inflections and cadence be damned—the idea of a parrotty-looking bird that repeats what it’s heard will be what they latch onto. They’ll think he not only unlocked the front door but the safe too. When she opened it for me awhile ago, it stood ajar an inch or so before she closed it. For all the cops know, the damn bird could’ve given the command to unlock the safe door days ago, maybe weeks ago, and she just never noticed it was open. I mean, she’s old, right? Probably forgetful too. Picture this: When the break-in—actually more of a sneak-in—took place, the thieves went upstairs and found, to their amazed delight, an already-open safe.”

“And these lucky burglars,” Oliver said, “just happened to try her front door on the very night that it just happened to also be standing wide open?”

“Yeah, that’s stretching things a bit, I know. But hey, stranger things have happened.”

Oliver let out a long breath. “I hope the local cops believe in coincidences.”

Perry fell silent, studying his former cellmate. “Tell me something, Oliver. You’re her only relative, right? Why do this at all? Why don’t you just wait until she croaks, and inherit the place, and the money too?”

Oliver barked a laugh. “Haven’t you been listening? She cut me off years ago, Dwayne, way before I went to jail. Her fortune’ll probably go to the ASPCA, or local pet shelters.”

“Well, I’m just saying, we could always back out. So far this has just been planning and preparation. No crime’s been committed.”

“Then maybe,” Oliver said, “it’s time to commit one.”

“You mean, like, soon?”

“I mean like tonight.”

* * * *

Just after two a.m. Dwayne Perry and Oliver Caldwell, now dressed in dark sweaters and jeans, parked Perry’s Ford Focus in a clump of woods half a mile from the Allen property and jogged the rest of the way. They circled the house once to make sure all lights were off and no cars were about, then crept through a carpet of fallen leaves to the front door. Perry watched as Oliver punched Ms. Allen’s landline number into his burner phone and held Perry’s phone up beside it. When the call went to the answering machine Oliver pressed a key on Perry’s cell that played back the words Perry had recorded the day before. “Isabelle,” Ms. Allen’s voice said, “unlock the front door.”

Neither Oliver nor Perry heard anything through the door—not even the buzzing of the phone moments earlier—but the spoken message must’ve gone through to the answering machine, because the door clicked once and swung open.

The two burglars wasted no time. They hurried into the house and silently followed Perry’s flashlight beam up the wide staircase and through the open door to the library. They saw no dogs or cats, which was no surprise to Perry. He’d already figured Ms. Allen would keep them with her inside her bedroom. Only Romeo was there to keep them company, flapping his wings occasionally in his open cage but otherwise staying quiet.

“Is that him?” Oliver whispered.

“Yep. That’s our alibi,” Perry said.

Oliver, still holding Perry’s cell phone, fast-forwarded the recording awhile and then pressed PLAY again. This time Ms. Allen said clearly, “Isabelle, unlock the safe.” The safe door immediately obeyed the command and Perry leaned forward to pull it all the way open.

Inside was just what they’d hoped to see: bundles of cash, stacks of stock and bond papers, and open containers of glittering gold-and-diamond jewelry. Propped in front of all that, though, bright in the glow of Perry’s flashlight, was a small notecard bearing a handprinted message:

HELLO, OLIVER. I SEE YOU HAVEN’T CHANGED YOUR WAYS.

For a long moment the two men stood there, stunned, peering at the card in the safe. Only then did they hear the deep, calm voice behind them in the room.

“End of the road, boys. You’re under arrest.”

Oliver looked at Perry and said, “I sure hope that was Romeo.”

Slowly they turned, hearts in their throats, to stare into the blinding beams of more flashlights.

“You can’t see it right now,” the voice continued, “but there’re three guns pointed at your heads. Get your damn hands up.”

Someone flicked a light switch, and Perry saw three lawmen standing there with weapons drawn. Behind them, dressed in a housecoat, was Ms. Allen. “Aunt Florence,” Oliver said dazedly.

Within seconds Sheriff Bud Garnett and his two deputies had handcuffed the squinting suspects and confiscated both cell phones. While Perry stayed silent, his mind reeling, Oliver dully asked the cops how they’d arrived so quick, and so quiet.

“We been here awhile, waitin’,” the sheriff said. “Your aunt told us this past afternoon she was expectin’ unwelcome visitors tonight. We parked our cars inside the barn.” He turned to Ms. Allen. “You got anything to say to these idiots ’fore we take ’em in, Miss Florence?”

“Just one thing.” Stonefaced, she looked at Perry. “You were right about those directional microphones, young man. But they work both ways.” She nodded toward one of the now-closed windows. In front of it, mounted on a tripod, was something that hadn’t been there earlier. It looked like a small satellite dish, pointed south toward the lake. Beside it were a pair of headphones. “Haven’t used that stuff in years,” she said. Perry groaned aloud.

“What was it you said to Oliver yesterday, on the footpath?” she asked him. “‘They’ll think the bird did it’?” She shook her head. “Shame on you.”

Perry still couldn’t seem to make his brain work. Glumly he asked, “Why did you suspect us? Because I’d brought Ollie along? Because I didn’t take any notes on my phone, after I said I would?”

“You mean how did I know to find my equipment and listen in on you, after you left?”

He nodded. Beside him, Oliver was waiting, too, for her answer.

“Let’s just say I’m not as trusting as I used to be.”

All of them seemed to ponder that for a moment. Then, as the sheriff was steering the two burglars toward the door, Romeo let out a rumbling, squirting, pounding, whooshing racket that lasted a full fifteen seconds. Everyone except the old woman stood frozen.

“What was that?” Sheriff Garnett blurted.

Ms. Allen, smiling, said, “I think that was the rinse cycle.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

John M. Floyd’s work has appeared in more than 350 different publications, including Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Black Cat Mystery Magazine, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, The Saturday Evening Post, three editions of The Best American Mystery Stories, and the 2021 Best Mystery Stories of the Year. John is also an Edgar finalist, a 2021 Shamus Award winner, a four-time Derringer Award winner, and the author of seven collections of short mystery fiction.