by Elaine Viets
“And change it to quarters first,” I added, as I slammed down the phone. I’d feel guilty about this later. It felt good now.
I crawled under the bed to find the pepper spray, then righted the bedside clock. It was seven thirty-six. Then I went back to bed and tried to go back to sleep. It didn’t work. I kept replaying the events of last night in my head. Was someone really after me? Why? Because of my search for Leo, or the Doc in the Box story? I couldn’t tell which one was going nowhere faster. The whole thing had to be a mistake, but that wasn’t any comfort. People get killed for mistakes, too.
After half an hour of useless speculation, I gave up, got up and got dressed. I went out on the back balcony, a grand name for a slightly sagging porch with no exit. It was a brilliant spring morning, and the new leaves on my maple tree were a heartbreaking lime green. A squirrel skittered in the branches. I could see a neighbor’s big old lilac bush in bloom by her back fence, heavy with sweet-smelling purple flowers. She’d also planted her ash pit with purple and yellow pansies. Years ago, South Siders burned trash in concrete ash pits back by the garage, until the city outlawed it. But we can turn anything into a decorative planter, from an old truck tire to a toilet.
These homey scenes didn’t reassure me. I still felt jittery. The police thought someone with a gun was after me and I didn’t know why. I hated guns and would never use one, but I needed protection, and I wasn’t about to hire a bodyguard. What was I going to do?
Get a grip, that’s what.
I went back inside and hauled the chair away from the top of the stairs, feeling pretty silly. What kind of protection was a chair? Then I started carrying the pots and pans I’d stacked in front of the doors back upstairs and put them away. I had a Dutch oven, three dented aluminum sauce pans, and a cast-iron skillet, and I still had to go back for a stack of muffin tins and pie plates. Did I really carry all this stuff downstairs at five-thirty A.M.? This had to stop. I refused to be spooked. There was no way that guy in the drugstore was looking for me. I wasn’t the only tall person in St. Louis. Probably just another city crazy. I wasn’t going to hang around the house and worry about it. Even if it was a Saturday, I was going to do some work. It was the only way to handle this. I grabbed my briefcase, took the pepper spray off my bedside table, and carried it in one hand. It wouldn’t hurt to be a little careful.
I opened the front door cautiously and heard an odd scraping sound. There on my doormat was a pile of needles and clear plastic tubing, a surrealistic pincushion trimmed in red. The pile was about three feet across and a foot high. I bent down for a closer look, careful not to touch it. That’s when I saw what the red trim was, and felt my stomach lurch. The tubing had blood in it, dark red and unreal. That meant it was used, and so, I guessed, were the needles. Someone had left a pile of dangerous medical waste on my doorstep, and I’d nearly stepped on it. A slip of plain white paper was stuck on one needle. Printed in blue ballpoint were four words, “Quit asking stupid questions.”
Hands shaking, I shut and locked the door, and called 911. Then I sat on the couch and waited for the police, pepper spray clutched in my hand.
After the strange gunman last night, the police officers took this doorstep surprise seriously. They sent for an evidence van, and the tech gingerly removed the bloody pincushion present and my doormat. I’d be really embarrassed if that worn-out thing was ever used in a courtroom. Exhibit A: Francesca doesn’t have time to go to Kmart for a new mat. The tech fingerprinted my front door, and took my fingerprints to exclude them. He said they’d also try to get fingerprints off the needles and tubes.
The police beeped Mayhew, and he showed up. He wanted to know what stupid questions I’d been asking, but I didn’t know. Too stupid, I guess.
I told him I’d been working on the stripper story and he guessed I’d been poking around in the Doc in the Box matter, but I said I’d had no success with either. He said I must be more successful than I thought—I’d upset someone. He wanted the names of the last four or five people I’d interviewed. I refused. Officer Friendly had enough problems without a real police officer bothering him. I didn’t want Mayhew talking to my other interviews, either. I wasn’t going to upset my sources by siccing the cops on them.
“At least move in with someone for a while,” Mayhew said. “The killer knows where you live.
“No point,” I said. “If he can find my home, he can find out where I’ve moved. All he has to do is follow me there.”
“I can’t help you if you’re going to be stupid,” he said.
“Like my questions,” I snapped.
“Please, Francesca,” he said, softer this time. “Please listen to me. Move out for a few days. What’s the big deal?”
I didn’t want to get anyone else involved in my troubles. And I didn’t have anywhere to go. But I didn’t say that. Instead I said, “I’m not leaving.”
Besides, I had a bodyguard. Mrs. Indelicato was fluttering in the background, a steel-haired guardian angel, wringing her hands and talking about the neighborhood going downhill. She’d watch my place better than a platoon of Pinkertons, and she had the ideal post in the confectionary downstairs. She’d see everyone who approached through her plate-glass window, and she could hear anyone on my porch. God help the mail carrier if Mrs. I heard him before she saw him.
That took care of home security. I’d take my pepper spray with me for protection. It was after nine by the time the police left and Mrs. I was sufficiently reassured that I’d be okay. Then I headed over to Uncle Bob’s for breakfast. I told myself it was for information, but I really went there for comfort. Uncle Bob’s was the only family I had. I was secretly pleased when Marlene greeted me with, “What’s happened now? You look like the last day of a hard winter.”
I told her the whole bizarre story while she kept me in decaf coffee and after a while I began to feel better.
“It has to be the Doc in the Box story that has this person upset,” I said. “What do needles and tubes have to do with a missing stripper? They use them at the hospital for chemotherapy.”
“Makes sense to me,” she said. “I remember those tubes and that awful inch or so of blood that accumulates in the IV from when my mother was going for chemo. The nurse always throws the tubes and needle into the biohazard bin, and often it’s overflowing at the end of the day. Anyone could grab a handful, provided they weren’t afraid to handle hazardous waste.”
“But why would they go after me? I don’t know anything.”
“He—or she—thinks you do,” Marlene said.
“Great. Now I have to convince someone I don’t know that I don’t know anything.”
“Either that,” she said, “or you could solve it.”
Before I left Uncle Bob’s, I called Georgia’s house to see how she was. No one answered. Was she sick again? Was today going to be a repeat of yesterday? I called the office to see if she’d checked in. Instead, Georgia herself answered her phone.
“You’re at work? You feel okay?” I said, anxiously.
“I’m fine, and I’ll be even better if you’re not fussing over me like some old biddy.” Ah, abuse. The sound of good health. We made a date for radiation Monday.
Then I got out my pepper spray, and Marlene escorted me to my car while Tom the cook watched out the back kitchen window. There was no one lurking on the lot, but I still felt nervous and exposed, even with Marlene and Tom watching. I wondered how long I’d have to keep feeling afraid. I had to solve this and get my life back.
The Family section was deserted on Saturday. I planned to get a lot done with no one around to bother me. After I read the weird wire service features. And piddled around on the Internet. And e-mailed jokes to my fifty closest friends. At three o’clock, I called the Heart’s Desire strip joint. Steve the manager said there was still no word on Leo. Steve was clearly suffering down to the roots of his dyed blond hair. “The police aren’t taking this seriously,” he said. “I know Leo is dead. I just know it.”
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I knew it, too. “I’m sure they’ll find him,” I lied soothingly.
“They’ll find his body. Maybe,” he said. “But none of my ladies will want to look at it.”
Bodies. That reminded me I was supposed to call Cutup Katie and see if she’d talk to me about the Doc in the Box killings. We played telephone tag for most of the afternoon. I reached her about four P.M. and set up an interview for Monday at the morgue. I left the office an hour later, having accomplished little besides a few phone calls. I felt nervous and jittery. I jumped at every strange sound, and on the walk to my car, I nearly pepper-sprayed an empty paper cup rolling down the street.
CHAPTER 9
Mrs. Indelicato was waiting for me when I came home from work. She handed me what looked like an undersized white speaker.
“What’s this?
“A baby monitor. The batteries are new. Mrs. Geimer loaned it to me.”
“Mrs. Geimer is eighty-six. Why does she have a baby monitor?” I said.
“For when her great-grandson Brian visits,” she said. “I talked to Mrs. Geimer today. She will watch your backyard. I will watch the front. You need to put this in your room. Then I can hear if this crazy person breaks in and attacks you in the middle of the night. My bedroom is right under yours.”
“You want me to use a baby monitor?”
Mrs. I’s mouth hardened like a line in concrete. “Everyone uses them,” she said. “Mr. Heinrich keeps one in his garage. His garage has not been broken into since he installed it. Mrs. Geimer has a monitor in a planter on her front porch. She heard two boys—fourteen years old, mind you—stealing radios out of cars. She called the police and they caught them. She also heard the Hendersons arguing about her mother coming to visit, and Miss Jerold propositioning the meter reader. Imagine. Asked him flat out!”
“My lord, is the whole neighborhood wired for sound?”
“It works and it’s cheap,” Mrs. I said, and that was the last word.
South Siders are naturally nosy, but I didn’t realize the eavesdropping had gone electronic. Some people resented this prying into their personal lives, but not me. I didn’t have a personal life, not since I broke up with Lyle. Mrs. I could plant microphones under my mattress and broadcast to the whole street.
Having arranged the twenty-four-hour security setup, Mrs. Indelicato now extracted her price. “Schnucks has a sale on geraniums and some nice petunias,” she said.
South Sidese, like Chinese, depends on voice inflection for its meaning. This was a command. It was time for the annual sacrifice of the flowering plants, which was the South Side version of throwing a virgin into the volcano. Every spring, we bought innocent plants—always geraniums and petunias—and put them in concrete pots on the brick porches to roast in the St. Louis summer. By August, they looked like they’d been hit with a blowtorch. It didn’t matter that they’d die a horrible death in the hell breath of summer. A proper South Sider put out flowers in the spring. Mrs. I’s neighborhood pride must be appeased. I would buy the doomed blooms.
Mrs. I and her starched shirtwaist moved stiffly back into the store. I could tell she was preparing more arguments in case I rebelled, but I was secretly amused. I’d been spending too much time in the world of missing strippers, murderers, and wealthy women who wanted their wandering husbands dead. I needed more time with normal people who put out petunias in the spring.
I checked my answering machine at work one more time, and was glad I did. A couple named Bill and Irene had invited me to their fiftieth wedding anniversary Monday. They were going to renew their vows at the place where Bill had proposed more than half a century ago—the Whispering Arch in Union Station. Then there would be a reception in the station hotel’s Grand Hall. They apologized for inviting me on the spur of the moment, but their daughter thought this might make a column.
Oh yes, I said, grateful to be back in the real world. I called Bill and Irene and told them I’d be glad to attend. Irene said the ceremony would take place at the Whispering Arch at noon. Her oldest daughter had hired a photographer, and I could use some of those pictures if I needed them. Better and better. It was hard to get a photographer on short notice at the chronically understaffed Gazette. The ceremony’s timing was just right, too. I’d see Bill and Irene, then go talk to Katie at the medical examiner’s at one-thirty.
I slept well that night, or as well as anyone can sleep with a canister of pepper spray at her side and a baby monitor capturing every snore. When I woke up, the sun was shining and the birds were singing, and my fears of three A.M. gunmen and stalkers who left bloody surprises on my doorstep seemed ridiculous. So what if someone left a pile of needles and IV tubing on my doorstep? It was probably some nut irritated by a story I did months ago. “Quit asking stupid questions” wasn’t much of a threat. I asked a lot of stupid questions. I couldn’t keep track of them all.
But I wished I was smart enough to get some answers this time. I didn’t know who was killing the doctors and medical personnel, and didn’t know how to find out. I didn’t know what happened to Leo D. Nardo, but I did know each day he was gone, there was less chance of finding him alive. I wondered if I’d ever see him alive again.
I knew one other thing: I was going to return to the normal world. I went to Uncle Bob’s for my usual breakfast. It would be crowded with churchgoing families on Sunday, and literally crawling with kids, but that was good. I needed to be with people who did wholesome, everyday things. This time, I left the pepper spray in my purse. I did park my Jaguar, Ralph, in the front of the lot between two big-doored cars, so I’d be only a short run from the front door. I’d still rather risk a ding on his door than get trapped in the lonely edges of the back lot.
That’s why I wasn’t as alert as I should have been. I was still thinking about the missing stripper, wondering where he was. What I saw in the main dining room left me stunned as steer in a slaughterhouse. I just stood there stupidly. Leo D. Nardo was in a corner booth, looking happy and handsome in an expensive navy suit and power tie. A distinguished silver-haired woman with a merry smile and a well-styled gray pantsuit was next to him. Nearly empty plates of pancakes were in front of them. “Hey, Francesca,” Leo said, waving to me, “come over here. We just got back in town an hour ago. Meet my new wife, Nancy.”
I stared. Wife? She had to be seventy if she was a day.
“Pick up your jaw, sweetie,” Nancy said. “I’m old, but I’m not dead.”
I wasn’t ready to make nice with Nancy. I was still mad at Leo. “Where have you been?” I said. “We thought you were kidnapped. Murdered. The police are looking for you in two states. And you didn’t even have the courtesy to call.”
Leo kept silent. Nancy dismissed my concerns with a wave of her hand. She was clearly in charge.
“It was very spur of the moment,” she said. “I’d been pursuing him for months, and when I finally got Jack to say yes on the parking lot, I wasn’t taking any chances that he’d change his mind on me. It took me a while, but I found the argument that convinced him. I said if he’d marry me, he’d only have to perform for one woman every night, and I’d take care of him better than that strip club ever did. We could travel and see the world.”
“We’re very happy,” Jack said, looking into her eyes and smiling. I think he was. Nancy looked rich enough so he’d never have to work again. That rock on her finger could buy a two-family flat on the South Side. Her watch cost more than an Uncle Bob’s waitress made in a year.
“Excuse me,” she said, “I’ve been drinking coffee all morning,” and headed for the restroom.
I was still angry and let Leo know it. “We’ve all been worried sick. We thought you were dead. Your roommate was frantic. Your fans have been in mourning. Your boss filed a missing person’s report.”
“Ex-boss,” he said. “I’ll call him as soon as the club opens, I promise. I’m retiring. Leo is no more. I’m Jack now for good. Nancy persuaded me to run away with her and get married. We sailed from
New York to Southampton on the QE2 and took the Concorde back. She’s an heiress to a manufacturing fortune, you know. She talked me into it on the parking lot that very night, and I just up and went away with her. It’s the most impulsive thing I’ve ever done.”
“Why didn’t you call someone and say you were safe?”
“We didn’t think people would be so worried. And we wanted this time to ourselves.”
“Why didn’t anyone see you at the St. Louis airport?”
“Because we drove my car to Chicago and flew to New York from there.” He was studying his syrupy plate now. Something funny was going on. I let my voice get hard.
“Level with me, Leo. There’s more going on than you two wanting time together. Why did you keep your marriage secret for so long?”
Leo fluttered his long eyelashes. I was immune to his charm. I fixed him with a glare. He squirmed. Finally he said, “Okay, I guess I owe you that much, after all the trouble I caused. But please don’t put it in the paper. Nancy didn’t want her children to find out we ran off together right away. She thought they’d pitch a fit and try to stop her. I’m … well, I’m ten years younger than her son. Her daughter is a lawyer and Nancy was afraid she’d try to have the marriage annulled and get power of attorney. So we stayed for a while in Europe until things settled down. Nancy’s lawyers have the situation firmly in control, and I signed a prenuptial—or I guess it’s a postnuptial—agreement. Anyway, the money I get comes from a trust that belonged to Nancy’s mother, so it won’t cut into her kids’ inheritance, but I’m fixed for life.”
“I still don’t understand how you could up and leave like that. What about your clothes? You didn’t pack a bag. You didn’t take your vitamins.” I sounded like an accusing mother.
“She bought me new clothes. I didn’t want the old ones anymore. I dressed like a stripper. That awful purple muscle shirt.” He shuddered delicately and shot his medium-starch cuffs. The cufflinks looked like Cartier.