Disclaimer: These characters are not mine and I make no profit from them.

Rated: K

Feedback: Comments welcome at tunecedemalis@yahoo.com

Author's Notes: Early, very early-just a few weeks in.

Thank you, Owl and SusanZ, for all the beta efforts.

Sarah had been gone for nearly a week now, but was expected back in the morning. Hardcastle's parting words, as he'd left for the post office, had been, "Geez, McCormick, ya gotta straighten this place up a little." Never mind that it was the judge's study, and to Mark's casual eye, it didn't look that bad.

All right, he'd helped eat the popcorn the night before, and when you watch a John Wayne movie and eat popcorn at the same time, a certain amount of it is going to wind up on the floor, and fallen in alongside the chair cushions. Not to mention the bowl itself, which hadn't made it back into the kitchen.

He heard the truck departing. He sighed. He dispatched the bowl and went in search of the vacuum cleaner, and the attachment for sucking popcorn out of crevices. As he set to work, it suddenly occurred to him, in the moment of silence that preceded him turning the machine on, that he hadn't been left alone in the main house before.

It had happened rather casually, without any comment or cautions from Hardcase. He supposed he ought to take that as some sort of milestone of trust. It would have gone down better if there hadn't been vacuuming attached, but he figured there were trade-offs for everything.

He'd finished dealing with the popcorn, and had formed a vague notion of trying his hand at dusting, when the phone rang.

It was right next to him, on the desk. He almost jumped, then started to reach for it instinctively, halting after a moment with his hand on the receiver. That's his phone, how the hell are you going to answer it? 'Hardcastle residence, ex-con here?'Anyway, he's got an answering machine.

On the other hand, he was here, and it might be important. He knew Hardcase had a couple things on the front burner, and, besides, the old donkey would probably ask him why the hell he hadn't picked up the phone, if he saw the answering machine blinking when he got back.

All of this reasoning had been run through in the space of two additional rings. Then Mark had the receiver in his hand, and all notions of a humorous greeting slipped away.

"Hardcastle residence," he answered, in the most matter-of-fact tone he could muster.

"Oh, my," a female voice of mature years said peremptorily, "he's gone and got another one. What's your name, dear?"

"Ah, Mark," he heard himself reply, almost before he'd had a chance to think. "Um, Mark McCormick."

He heard a quick 'tsk', and straightened his shoulders a bit; maybe he'd mumbled. "I, ah, work for the judge."

"He's got a new one," the voice said, not very adequately muffled, though obviously speaking to someone other than him. "He says his name is 'Mark'."

A lighter, more distant voice, replied, "I hope it's not an alias."

"It's what's on my birth certificate," he muttered testily.

"Oh, I'm sure it is," the woman replied in a soothing tone. "Never mind May; she's just a little imaginative, and I'm Zora. We're Milton's aunts."

Mark had heard them mentioned in passing by the judge, not a week earlier. He'd made a comment of his own, about their presumed advanced years, but the woman on the phone sounded astonishingly perky.

Before he even had time to digest these facts, she inquired politely, "And what were you sentenced for?"

The question had been slipped in with such unexpected ease that he found himself replying, "Car theft," without a moment's thought.

A sigh from Zora, and then, "How long?"

In for a penny, in for a pound. It wasn't like they wouldn't get all the gory details from the judge himself.

"Two years, San Quentin," he answered resignedly.

"San Quentin? Two years?" Zora tsk'ed again. "That's seems a little harsh, even for Milton."

"Second offense," Mark replied quietly. "The statute calls for up to four years. Two is actually light."

"Well," Zora sighed, "I'm sure you won't do it again, will you?"

"No, ma'am." Mark was suddenly glad that the conversation had not gone toward the events that had immediately preceded his move to Gulls Way. "But . . ." he hesitated-he wasn't sure if this was such a good idea-there was something about Aunt Zora's tone that made him think he really ought to just throw himself on the mercy of the court and not try to explain further.

"But, what?" she asked firmly.

"But I didn't really steal the car. I'd paid for it in the first place."

"Now, Mark," Zora said with all the reasonableness that he'd expect from someone with the last name of Hardcastle, "nobody gets put in prison for driving their own car."

"Well, no," Mark bit down hard on a stammer, "the papers were in my girlfriend's name, see?"

"You'd given it to her?" Zora asked. "A gift?"

"Not ex-actly," this time there really was a stammer. "I'd just put it in her name."

"Why?"

"Because if it had been in my name, the insurance would have been astronomical. I'd done time, and I'm a racecar driver."

There was a long, silent pause of palpable disapproval from the other end. This he should have figured. What seemed perfectly reasonable to nearly everyone else would not wash with people of the Hardcastle persuasion.

"So . . ." Zora said, a little stiffly, "you were trying to defraud the insurance company."

Mark let out a heavy breath.

"What a wicked web we weave, when first we practice to deceive," she intoned solemnly.

"Is that Shakespeare?" came the light, inquiring voice from the background.

"No, May," Zora said, after a brief moment's thought. "That's 'By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.'"

"I thought that was Agatha Christie." May sounded as if she'd moved a little closer.

"After Shakespeare, I believe," Zora mused.

"Macbeth, the witches," Mark said helpfully.

"That's right, May; it is Macbeth . . . he seems very well-spoken," she added, after a moment more.

"And I think it's 'tangled web', not 'wicked'," Mark added.

"Either way," Zora said sternly, "it's not a good thing."

"No, ma'am," he said apologetically.

"And you are a racecar driver?" Zora picked up that strand of the conversation as though it had merely been placed aside for later review. Tangled webs did not seem to be a problem for her.

"Yes," Mark hesitated, having a sudden bad feeling that there was such a thing as too much honesty.

"Is Milton racing cars now?" Zora sounded worried. "I knew that little racecar of his would be trouble."

"The 'Vette?" Mark asked incredulously. "No, that's a museum piece," he smiled to himself, only gradually becoming aware of a puzzled silence from the other end.

"But it's only a '67," Zora said, with astonishment overlaying the worry.

"He's not racing the 'Vette,' Mark added in quick assurance. "Really."

"Then what in heaven's name does he need a racecar driver for?"

Mark felt a great yawning gap of information opening up in front of him, poorly lit and obviously fraught with potential missteps. He stood, holding the phone silently for a long as he could get away with it, then he settled for, "I clean the pool."

Zora's laugh of disbelief was humbling in its acuity. When she'd finally mastered it, she repeated the line to May. A second laugh.

"Young man," she'd returned to the mouthpiece, "Milton would not bring home a racecar driver unless he intended to go somewhere very fast."

"Ah," he sat himself down on the edge of the desk and took a deep breath, "well, it does help sometimes . . ."

Silence. And a very demanding silence it was, too.

Mark wrinkled his forehead and searched for a good turn of phrase. He finally settled on, ". . .when we go after bad guys."

"Ah-ha," Zora chortled. "I knew all this talk of retiring and taking it easy was a ruse." She'd obviously turned to the side again. "He's investigating things, May. The scamp."

Mark was too busy turning the term 'scamp' over in his head, trying to put it in some kind of alignment with his image of Milton C. Hardcastle. He almost missed the next question.

"Is Milton there?"

"Oh," he wrenched his mind back to the matter at hand, "no, ma'am. He's out running an errand. May I take a message?"

Zora sighed again.

"Well, just tell him May and I would like to visit soon," she finally replied, and there was something in her use of the word 'would' that did not imply an option.

"Visit. Soon," he repeated quietly. "I'll tell him."

"And give Sarah our best, poor dear," Zora said with a sniff of sympathy. "And you behave yourself," she added cheerfully.

"Yes, ma'am," Mark smiled. There'd been something unmistakably confident in her request, as though, even after this brief conversation, she assumed it was a given.

He'd almost finished the dusting, and was contemplating a wax job on the judge's desk, when he heard the sound of the truck returning. He looked up suddenly, then dropped onto the sofa, assuming the most convincing attitude of relaxed indolence that he could muster, the dust rag swiftly tucked under the cushion.

He heard the front door open and, a moment later, Hardcase stepped into the den, eyeing it with a look of criticism that quickly gave way to mild astonishment. He glanced over his shoulder into the hallway.

"Sarah didn't get back early, did she?"

"Well, thanks, Judge." Mark shifted himself to a sitting position. "Like I don't know how to use a vacuum." He shook his head. "I like that."

This got him a quick look of gruff chagrin, and an even quicker change of subject.

"Did Frank call about that guy from Toledo?"

"Nope," Mark settled back again. "No, nothing from Frank." He paused, gathering a little space for effect, and then, "Aunt Zora and Aunt May called, though."

Hardcastle had been turning away. He froze where he stood and cast a quick look at the answering machine-nothing blinking.

"You answered it?" he asked worriedly.

"Well," Mark shrugged, "yeah. I was standing right there. And," he smiled righteously, "I thought it might be Frank, you know?"

"You talked to them?" The judge had turned back to him, had gotten very focused. He stepped forward a few feet and dropped heavily into a chair. "What did you say?"

"Um, to Zora," Mark considered this slowly, for as long as he thought Hardcastle could stand the suspense. "Well, she asked me my name and . . . stuff."

"Stuff?" Hardcastle's voice rose a little. "Whaddaya mean 'stuff'?"

"You know," Mark pondered, "what, when, where: auto theft, two years, San Quentin-'stuff'."

The judge let out a breath. "I don't suppose," he said after a moment, "that it might've occurred to you to be a little less forthcoming about all of that?"

"You mean lie to your aunts?" Mark asked in shocked disbelief.

"No," the judge muttered. "No . . . it never works with them anyway." He scrubbed his face with his hands and then sighed. "Oh, well." Then he frowned and fixed McCormick with another hard look. "Did you get to the part about what you're doing here?"

"I told them I clean the pool." This got Mark a wan smile, which vanished a moment later when he added, "They figured the rest out for themselves. Anyway," he shrugged, ignoring Hardcastle's growing look of horror, "you told me they're a couple of nice ladies from Arkansas. They did seem kind of nice on the phone. We talked about Shakespeare . . . and Agatha Christie."

"Nice," the judge muttered, "yes, also interfering . . . and they have very, very active imaginations. They see mysteries and conspiracies everywhere. They're always looking for trouble."

"Well," Mark thought about that one for a moment, "you do too, right?"

"Yeah, but that's because, in my case, they're really there," Hardcastle huffed. "And I'm a trained professional. I know how to handle these situations."

"But I'm not," Mark grinned. "Strictly amateur."

"Yeah, but I'm showing you the ropes." Hardcastle pinched the bridge of his nose, and returned to the original issue, "And I didn't want them to know about my little project. They'll worry about that, too."

"Not half as much as I do," Mark forced the grin down into a more serious expression, but it didn't hold for long. "Anyway, they were bound to find out sooner or later, right?" he smiled. "What a tangled web we weave-"

"I thought it was 'wicked'," Hardcastle glanced up with a puzzled frown.

"Nope, 'tangled'. It's Sir Walter Scott."

The judge was looking at him now in frank disbelief.

"Trust me. So many people have said it to me along the way, that I finally looked it up. Scott. Tangled."

McCormick was on his feet, moving toward the door. "Guess I better get the side lawn done. Looks like we might have some rain."

He was up the steps and into the hallway, on the silence of Hardcastle's stark astonishment. He had one hand on the front doorknob before he turned halfway and tossed it over his shoulder.

"And they said to tell you they'd be coming for a visit . . . soon."

The low, painful groan carried him, still grinning, clear out the door.