It was a perfect plan. A brilliant plan. But it was a double-frame job, and that made it a complex plan. He had to make it look like Mary Margaret was behind Kathryn Nolan's disappearance, on the surface, at least. But when it came right down to it, he had to make it something deeper. He intended to make Regina look like she was responsible for framing Mary Margaret. It was complex on the whole, but when he sat down to think it through it, piece by piece, it at least seemed much simpler. But still, expensive.
There was work to be done with this, work he couldn't be seen doing, work he couldn't actually do physically because he might be too slow, or it might arouse suspicions. So, he hired Dove's cousins, damn near all of Dove's cousins. It felt like every last one of them had a job to do or was reporting to him. Marc was already watching David. He'd put Stan on watching Emma Swan while Dove assisted him with Kathryn. He finally broke down and tasked another cousin to watch Mary Margaret and one to keep an eye on Regina from a distance and another for Sidney Glass, first because he wasn't going to make the mistake of underestimating him again and second because he had plans for him later. Hell, he'd even gotten Dove to put his old friend Will Scarlet on the payroll. He'd asked him to stick to his job at Granny's as a new dishwasher a little more reliably for a while. Everything happened at Granny's; he wanted eyes and ears there too. If any of them suspected what they were participating in, they didn't question it. It was expensive, but it would be worth it if he could pull this off with the desired results.
He employed two more to go to Regina Mill's residence, where he told them to retrieve a shovel. They'd returned with one that was large and bulky, probably not the right choice for a woman, but he'd work with what he had. When they returned, he sent them to Mary Margaret's apartment with a skeleton key he'd gotten "on loan" from Regina earlier in the day and a hunting knife he'd had in the back of his shop collecting dust since the beginning of the Curse. It was likely one of Graham's, from the other world, but he'd never claim it now. And because he'd already seen to any evidence it had ever been in his shop, no one would ever trace it to him either. "Use this to get into Mary Margaret's apartment," he explained, handing the key over, "and be sure to hide this," he wrapped the knife in a cloth and gave it over as well, "somewhere in the apartment that is neither too obvious nor too difficult to find. Remember to wear gloves and don't make a mess of things. Oh, and while you're there, I need you to steal something, preferably a box, preferably something old or stashed away in a closet that the girl isn't likely to notice it gone for a while. And on your way back, I need you to go see Sheri Lewis, the butcher..."
A few hours later, they'd done their job. Extremely well, if he had to say so himself. They'd returned from Mary Margaret's with an old jewelry box they claimed they found in the back of her closet buried under some clothes as if for safekeeping. And from Sheri Lewis, former warlord turned butcher, they returned with a sheep's heart. He fetched another hunting knife from his back room and made sure to cut just below all the places Lewis had cut the heart himself. It wouldn't be an exact match, but at least it was two hunting knives that appeared to make the cuts instead of a clean butcher's knife. Then, after cleaning the blade, he placed the heart inside the jewelry box himself then returned to the front of the store and the men who were waiting. He handed one of them the shovel along with the small piece of the shovel he'd broken off himself while they'd been at Mary Margaret's.
"Bury this-" he motioned to the metal fragment, "under this-" he handed him the box as well, "using this-" he explained, handing them the now broken shovel. "Bury it under the old toll bridge." The place that Marc had told him David would meet Mary Margaret when they were seeing each other. "Were seeing," past tense, since his spies reported they were on the outs since the affair went public. "When you are done with that shovel, kindly return it to Regina's home to the place you found it. And please, both of you, remember not to muddy the future crime scene with your fingerprints or other potential evidence," he muttered, glancing down at their shoes. "You only get paid if the right people are implicated."
Breaking and entering, murder weapon hidden, soon enough Kathryn would be secure and missing...but it still wouldn't be enough. He would need DNA. He was a lawyer; he knew that would be the clincher to doing this right. But he had plans for that to be fixed at a higher level. Dove had a cousin who worked in the hospital. When Dove went to pick up Kathryn, he was under orders to get some of her blood and leave it in the mailbox when he arrived at the safe house. Once everyone of his players were asleep, he'd send another cousin to pick it up and take it to the cousin who worked in the hospital and now for him. That cousin would make sure results matched when the time came. In the meantime, he resisted the urge to take notes on who was doing what or start making name tags for all Dove's cousins. It might help him keep things straight, but as of right now, none of this could be tied to him, and if he made a list like that...
"Is it done?" he questioned when he received a call from Dove just past one in the morning a couple of nights after he'd had his conversation with Regina. He was utterly exhausted already. He'd wanted everything done and set by the time this call arrived. He usually was in bed strictly by nine, ten at the latest, but he'd waited up just to hear from Dove that one of the last pieces had fallen into place.
"Yeah, just finished getting her in and settled…if you call banging against a soundproof door settled."
"Did she give you any trouble?"
"No. The car stopped just like you thought. How did you know that would happen?"
"I have my ways, Mr. Dove. Everything else went as planned?"
"Yeah, I blindfolded her, convinced her I had a gun, and got her into the car, then waited until after dark to get her into the house. Blood's in the mailbox. She actually cut herself before I grabbed her, so no harm, no foul there. She's in the basement now. I left her some books and cards to keep her entertained; hopefully, she'll notice when she calms down a bit. Why do you have a house like this?"
"The former tenant wanted to start a band and make a recording studio. When he failed to pay rent, I saw the benefit in keeping what he'd done. Make yourself comfortable, Mr. Dove, check-in and call me if you need something. I'll see your needs are met."
Getting Kathryn, like the rest of the plan, was easy enough. In talking to Regina, he'd learned that Kathryn had confessed to her weeks ago that she'd applied to law school in Boston. Boston…David's affair with Mary Margaret wasn't a strong relationship, nor was his relationship with Kathryn. A little pressure and everything was sure to begin to crack. And with just the right pressure, then Kathryn would get herself to the perfect place to disappear for a while…the town line. Either she'd get there alone, and he could go through with his plan. Or David would go with her, and Mary Margaret would be devastated. One way, and he'd be happy, another and Regina would be. It was a careful bet. But it had paid off. The affair became public knowledge yesterday. Will Scarlet had reported that to Dove, who had let him know that the relationship seemed to be over. Tonight, he wasn't surprised that Kathryn had gone alone. Or attempted to, at least.
He was exhausted, sorely in need of a good night's sleep after all of this, but he wasn't done yet. This weekend was Miner's Day, a town holiday, and the morning after Dove took Kathryn, as the town prepared for a weekend of festivities, he realized that he had one more visit to pay. Regina was taken care of, and Mary Margaret was taken care of…now he had to handle the third person in this trio…Emma Swan.
Yes, he wanted Regina to think he was working for her, and yes, he wanted to let her think she was close to getting everything she'd ever wanted…again. But then he needed Emma to take it all away. Emma was the key; the wild card he needed to be sure was tamed. After what he'd done, in a normal police precinct, Mary Margaret would go to jail for life, without question, because there would be no reason for the police to look deeper into it. But in Storybrooke, Emma Swan was the sheriff, and even if Regina had forgotten who the enemy was, he suspected that Emma would not. With everything pointing to her good friend Mary Margaret she'd investigate, she'd leave no stone unturned. She'd be determined to look deeper and prove it wasn't her. What would she find? Regina. Not Mary Margaret, but Regina. He was paying good money for that.
But it wasn't enough. He needed to be certain that along with Regina's guilt and Mary Margaret's innocence, she discovered something else. Motive. It was time. All his visions in the Enchanted Forest had always been clear. Emma needed to face off Regina. If it wouldn't happen naturally, then he'd kill two birds with one stone and orchestrate the damn thing himself. In the midst of all this, he needed Emma to ask questions, and he needed her to think. Why would the Mayor of Storybrooke hate a simple schoolteacher so much that she was willing to frame her? Why would she murder someone just to put Mary Margaret in jail? Why would she care so much?
Those were difficult questions that required a difficult answer, but the time had come to give her something to believe in that went beyond what she could see. And how would he do that? Well…there was one step in his plan that he was most worried about, one step that he didn't want to leave up to fate. Mary Margaret running away. He had a plan for that, but unfortunately, he needed someone to help him, and he was fresh out of cronies. Fortunately, he knew someone he might be able to convince, someone who used to work for him, someone who hadn't wanted to see him again but wouldn't remember that in this world.
"Mr. Jefferson," he smiled when his old associate answered the door. He stepped forward to offer his hand in a friendly shake. "I don't believe we've met, I'm-"
"Rumpelstiltskin…what took you so long?"
Surprise! True story, Jefferson's appearance in this fiction was a bit of a surprise to even me! When I wrote the last chapter between Rumple and Jefferson in TDOC: The Dark Curse, I legit thought that was the last time Rumple and Jefferson were ever going to have anything to say or do with one another. And then I started working my way through season one. And I realized exactly how much control was required over the situation, and as I said before, I realized that Rumple couldn't leave anything to chance. If I followed that same logic, then that meant that there was no chance Jefferson wasn't part of his plot. We had to end up here. And so here we are, on the brink of a Rumple and Jefferson reunion, even if Rumple didn't know it until the end.
Thank you, Alarda and Grace5231973, for your reviews. Considering the end of this chapter, I am super excited to hear what everyone has to say about this! I am sorry that this chapter is short. Originally it was meant to be attached to the next chapter, but then that one got far too long, and the pair needed to be separated. Here was good enough. But hey, I tried to give you some good things in this chapter; Rumple as a mob boss, an explanation for why Scarlett had the keys to Granny's, and Rumple wanting to make nametags for everyone. Fun fact, I added that in for my benefit because there were so many I had to keep coming back to check who was doing what, and I'm almost positive I mess up somewhere in a future chapter. But now it's not a problem because it's established even Rumple knows there are too many of them. Whew! Got that off my chest. Up next we've got what I believe to be (truly, this time) the last in-person Jefferson and Rumple chapter for Chronicles. So, if you're ready, let's move forward. Peace and Happy Reading!