Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

I am Mashie Niblick.  I am presently employed as the greenskeeper of the Hoity Toity Golf Club in the big city of Tracy. Pauline was just finishing her maternity leave after delivering St. Andrews Niblick.  She wanted to do something different with the children.

But this story is in third person.  I was not there for any of it.  Pauline told me about it, and Baffy ‘corrected’ her on occasion.

Pauline asked, “Baffy, let’s go to the dog park.”

Baffy squealed, “Yay!  I can bring my shovel and dig for gurglezoid fizzles.”

Pauline shook her head, “No, Baffy, leave your shovel here.  There are no sandboxes at the dog park, but there should be a lot of dogs.”

Baffy started jumping and clapping, “Are we getting a dog?”

Pauline shook her head, “Not yet.  Let’s go to the dog park.  We will ask the owners if their dogs are good with children.  If they are, we can pet them.  We might see if they like to play games.  They might fetch a ball.  Some dogs might know tricks.  Then if there is one type of dog that you really like a lot, we might look for that type of dog for us to have.  Okay?”

Baffy was a bit bummed out.  Going to watch other peoples’ dogs play did not seem to be much fun.  But she managed to say, “Okay.”

Baffy ended up having fun.  She used a St. Bernard as a pillow.  She ran with the beagle.  She threw a ball with the Labrador Retriever.  Of the three, Pauline was thinking of the beagle, but a beagle was an outdoor dog, a hunting dog.  Besides Baffy liking all of them, Andrew laughed more around the beagle.  The others were too big and intimidating, but nothing intimidated Baffy.  Pauline and Mashie did have woods behind their house and trails that led to the Yeggs and the Levys, but there was also a leash law.  That is why they had a dog park to let the dogs run free.  It was thought that the ball fields in the flood plain, as part of the P.L.A.Y. ground, would double as a dog park, or at least part of it.  But maybe we could have one of those fenceless barriers set up, if the neighbors didn’t mind the boundaries crossing their yard, they could connect their backyard to the trails in the woods and it would give their dog a place to hunt.  Of course, the rabbits might figure out the effective running area and jump just outside it to irritate the dog to no end.  And there were rabbits and squirrels in the woods.  If we play it right, the dog might spend time at the Yeggs house playing with Gigi.  Beagles are social dogs.

With all this planning in her head, a man in a business suit approached Baffy.

Baffy, with no stranger danger at all, walked up to the man.  “Where’s your dog?”

The man said, “I am here to find someone.  Do you know someone named Pauline Niblick?  I want to talk to her.”

Baffy said, “That’s my Mommie!  She is Docker Pauline Niblick.  I am Baffy.”

“Baffy?” the man asked, “Shouldn’t that be Buffy?  Like the vampire slayer on TV?”

Baffy giggled, “No!  It’s like a Baffing Spoon.  It’s a golf club! My Daddy keeps green things at the golf course.”

The man laughed, “A greenskeeper?”

Baffy nodded with her entire body in motion, “Yeah, yeah!  My daddy’s the best.”

By then, I was right behind the man.  He asked, “And where is your Mommy?”

Baffy giggled uncontrollably, “Right behind you.”

He wheeled around quickly.  “Mrs. Niblick, I am Julian Pondford. I once knew a friend of yours who worked with her husband in Central America.  I work for ATF, and my agency got the runaround as to where they are, but a secretary said that the Niblicks lived in Tracy and were a little easier to find than my old friends.  They were called the Stanhouses then, but that was a made-up name.”

Baffy said, “He has a gun!”

Julian groaned, “I am with ATF.  I can show you my credentials.”

Pauline said, “No, let me just remove the weapon and you keep your hands in the air.”

Julian said, “But usually the police do their frisking while another cop has a weapon drawn.”

Baffy said, “My Mommie’s hands are her weapons.  Just don’t move, Mr. Bad Guy!”

Pauline purred, “Now, Baffy, be nice.  He may be who he says he is.”

Julian said, “I am who I say I am.”

Pauline was working her hands along the holster.  The holster was in the way in case she needed to do her non-death non-grip.

Baffy yelled, “I see a finch.  Deaf Gip!  Deaf Gip!”

Pauline said, “Baffy, be quiet.”

Julian said, “A finch?  Are you bird watching?  What’s a deaf gip?  Is she talking about …  No, no, no.  Don’t do…”

Pauline got to the right spot, and he was out cold.

Pauline quickly took a photo of Julian and sent it to both Jacob and Dinah.  Dinah texted back, “Why do you have a photo of Freddie taking a nap?”  Pauline admitted what she had done.  She asked Polly Pulice if she was on patrol, and she was.  Then she asked for a favor.  Polly got a sleeping Julian, or Freddie into the Levys panic room before he woke up.  Along the way, a reapplication of the non-death, non-grip was needed to prevent him from knowing where he had been taken.  Polly cuffed him and then left the rest to the Levys, and of course, Pauline.

When Julian (Freddie) awoke, Dinah was smiling down at him.

Dinah said, “Hello, Freddie, you don’t have to talk to a friend of ours to see how we are, do you?  We meant so much to each other back many years ago, like thirty years ago.”

Pauline asked, “Is he the one?”

Dinah groaned, “One of them.”  Then she turned to Freddie, “Why are you here?”

Julian (Freddie) said, “Can I get out of these cuffs?  If I meant something to you decades ago, maybe I deserve that much?”

Dinah said, “I have to know that you are not here to do my husband and I some type of ill.”

Julian (Freddie) asked, “You’re married?!  I thought that was just a pretend thing?”

Dinah groaned, “He got me pregnant, and yes, we had a DNA test.  That is the reason why we came back in a hurry.  We were replaced.”

Julian (Freddie) nodded, “That is the time period I am interested in.  We found Julio’s body recently.  He disappeared about the time you and Lance disappeared.  But what is his name now?”

Dinah said, “Call us Hugh McAdoo and Sue McAdoo.  I do not want you knowing our current names.  We are semi-retired, and I do not want to change my name again and move.  I like this place.  So, you will leave here with a bag over your head or Pauline can use her death grip.  Okay, okay.  No one has died … yet.  Maybe Freddie will be the first.”

Julian (Freddie) said, “Hey, I got grandkids, and I got the name, Pauline Niblick, from my leak in your organization.  She said Pauline has some kind of mad skills.  Please, the bag over the head, not the death grip.  And if anyone needs a name change, it is Pauline Niblick.  Only one in the country lives in Tracy.”

Dinah got in Julian (Freddie’s) face, “Why are you here?  I did not play with Julio.  He was a nice guy, but neither Hugh nor I know anything about his disappearance.  We packed only a few private things, a helicopter took us to an airport, and we flew home.  You wasted the trip to Tracy, ex-lover boy.”

Julian (Freddie) said, “Please, take the cuffs off!  But who else would have killed him?”

Dinah snapped, “What do you mean, Freddie?  That Hugh or I killed him?”

Julian (Freddie) tried to shrug, “The replacements for you had either just arrived or they were not there yet.  They would not have known Julio.  I was the only other ATF agent in the area.  What else could it have been?”

Pauline asked, “Did this Julio play both ends against the middle?  From what I have learned about the operation, Hugh and Sue were monitors who identified people along the coyote trails that we did not want in the USA.  If ATF was involved, then there were people who acted as weapons or explosives mules, human transport of deadly weapons.”

Julian (Freddie) looked at the floor.  “I cannot confirm or deny.  Julio was not turned.  Sue had a penchant for making a lonely guy in a lonely business feel welcome.  We were hoping she had that kind of relationship with Julio, and maybe he whispered the information he had discovered that got him killed.  I was the senior agent.  I was supposed to look over his shoulder.  He never reported anything that was worthy of murder to me.  I feel responsible for his death.  I know.  This was a shot in the dark.  No attempted assassination of former spies.  No accusations.  I just wanted to tie up this one loose end, since the body was found.”

Pauline asked, “But after all these years, only bones would be left.  How did you identify the body?”

Julian (Freddie) said, “His ATF identification was found with the body and the bones match someone his size.”

Pauline shrugged, “So, you have bones that might be the bones of Julio.  Other than the ID card, you have no real proof that those bones are his.”

Julian (Freddie) growled, “Great!  Now, I am even further from the truth.  Now, can I get these cuffs off?  I just want one last kiss with an old friend.”

Dinah smiled and leaned down and gave him the kiss while Pauline reached around to take off the cuffs and to use her non-death non-grip.  She did not need Polly for transport.  It was less than a thirty-minute drive to the dog park.  His car probably wasn’t too far from where he had interrupted their search for the right breed of dog for the children.

As for Julian (Freddie), Pauline was long gone when he awoke, sitting on a park bench, weapon in the holster, clip in his right pants pocket, and rounds in his coat pocket.  Pauline wanted him to work for it if he awoke before she was gone.

The mystery of the disappearance of Julio would remain unsolved, but now we know that Dinah told a lie about only sleeping with one ATF agent and one coyote.  What other skeletons were in her closet?

Credits

The Perils of Pauline was a movie serial that started in 1914. It defined many serials that followed, including the Perils of Pauline “moment,” the cliffhanger that caused you to return to the theater for the next installment.

And I hope everyone figured out that Baffy’s “Finch” was a flinch, and “Deaf Gip” was death grip, even though it is not a grip and no one has died … yet.