“We all know about Leonelle. She’s no murderer. You think you can you help her?” Maria asked.
“I don’t know.” Holly shook her head frowning.
“You don’t think Leonelle did it, do you?” asked Peppy.
“No, of course, I don’t, but the evidence is against her. Finding who really did kill Mrs. Hagel is the only chance she’s got, but I’m not sure I can do that.”
“Can we help?” asked Peppy.
The women spent the rest of the night talking about the case, until one by one, they fell into uncomfortable sleep, sitting upright with their backs against the wall.
48 FREE AT LAST
Holly awoke to the slam of the jail security door. For a moment, she didn’t remember where she was. One look around and it all came back to her. She was jolted out of her grogginess when Officer Rodriguez said, “Donnelly.”
Holly glanced at Rodriguez and then bent down to tie her sneakers. Before she finished, the ladies of the cell block seemed to come alive as if someone hit a cosmic “on” button. Holly looked up to see what was causing the stir. Standing behind Officer Rodriguez was Nick Manelli.
Claudette stood up, straightening her LBD. “Why, Detective Manelli! Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?”
“Si, Detective. You look muy guapo esta manana,” Maria flirted as she tugged her red dress into place.
“Yeah, Nicky,” Keesha added in a cheerful voice that made Holly turn and stare. “What’s the matter? Since your promotion, you don’t have time for us girls no more? We got the time for you, baby.”
The comments were followed by an assortment of sounds--the feminine equivalent of the taunts workmen direct at young women passing a construction site. Holly remained seated, just watching. Apparently Manelli had worked vice before homicide because each one of these women knew him by name. Manelli didn’t crack a smile and she wondered if he was enjoying the fuss.
“Donnelly, let’s go,” he said. The women groaned in disappointment.
“What’s the matter, Manelli? Lost your taste for brown sugar?” Claudette teased.
Holly’s eyes widened and she put her head down to conceal the grin that spread across her face.
“When you graduate to homicide, Claudette, I’ll be back for you,” Manelli replied. His tone was stern, but his choice of words made the women shriek like school girls. “Donnelly, move it,” he commanded.
Holly scrambled to get up. She’d been so entranced by the spectacle of Nick Manelli being flirted with by a cell block of hookers that she hadn’t moved. As she approached the cell door, Peppy called out, “Hey, Manelli, you better treat this woman right. She’s no criminal. Comprende?”
“Sí,” Maria added. “She only tries to help a good woman, Detective.”
Manelli glared down at Holly as she came face to face with him in the doorway. She lowered her head and quickly moved past him into the hall.
“Señora, recuerde. Llámenos si usted nos necesita,” Maria called after her.
“You know where to find me,” Peppy said.
Holly turned and said, “I do, and I’ll call you with that information about how to get your GED.”
“Move it,” Manelli said impatiently.
“Gracias. Adios,” Peppy called after her.
***************
Holly couldn’t stop grinning as Manelli led her to his car. She was surprised when he opened the front passenger door and gruffly said, “Get in.” Without looking at her, he walked over to the driver’s side of the car, got in and turned on the ignition. He pulled out of the parking lot, and they drove silently for a block or so. Holly finally broke the silence. “So you worked vice before homicide, Detective?”
Staring straight ahead, Manelli said, “You really enjoyed that scene back there, didn’t you?”
“C’mon. You have to admit, it was pretty funny, Nicky. May I call you Nicky?”
“No, you may not,” he replied.
Holly laughed loudly. “Seriously? Don’t you ever laugh?”
“No,” he replied again.
“Okay, be that way. I honestly don’t know why those girls seemed to like you,” Holly mused, turning to look out her passenger window.
“And what about you, Donnelly? Are you some kind of ‘felon whisperer’? Friend to man or beast?” Manelli asked. “You got a cell block of hookers telling you to call if you need them.”
Holly was taken aback. She suddenly realized that, aside from Manelli’s generally dour disposition, this morning he seemed particularly annoyed. Was it because she had made friends with her cellmates? Maybe he really did just do this to scare me. But something else surprised her.
“You speak Spanish?” she asked.
“We’re not all racist cretins,” he replied.
“I never thought that,” Holly said, a bit chastened. That is exactly what she’d thought. After a minute she continued, “Look, maybe we both formed opinions of each other that were not entirely accurate.”
“Maybe,” he replied, still looking straight ahead.
Holly wasn’t sure what to say after that. For the first time since she met him, she wondered what it must be like to be him--to do his job. If you had any empathy or compassion for the people you dealt with, you couldn’t show it. Had she misjudged him? Was the tough guy persona just an act?
At Lafayette Street, Manelli put on his turn signal and made a right-hand turn. “Where are we going?” she asked. “Please. I’ve learned my lesson. I just want to go home. My sister is probably frantic by now.”
“I’m taking you to see your sister,” he replied.
“What?” Holly asked, bewildered. “This isn’t the way to my house.”
“Your sister is at St. Francis Hospital,” Manelli said
Holly felt as if the air had been sucked out of the car. She couldn’t breathe. Her heart started pounding in her chest and she felt her muscles quivering.
“What happened?” she managed to croak out.
“She was mugged in your driveway yesterday. She had a concussion, but she’s okay.”
This is my fault, completely my fault.
For the first time, Manelli glanced over at her. This time she looked straight ahead as the tears rolled down her cheeks. He pulled up in front of the hospital and Holly opened the car door and ran to the front entrance not looking back. At the desk, she asked for her sister’s room number. The nurse handed her a visitor’s pass and she ran to an elevator where a couple was just coming out. As she pressed the fourth floor button, she looked up and saw Manelli coming towards her. She pressed the “Close Door” button, leaving him in the lobby. This is your fault, you jerk. If you would have just listened to me instead of arresting me, my sister wouldn’t be here right now.
She was shaking by the time the elevator reached the fourth floor. When the doors finally opened, she rushed off and asked an orderly the way to room 403. She tore down the hallway and as soon as she saw her sister with a bandage on her head she started sobbing. “Oh, Ivy. I’m so sorry. So sorry.”
Ivy, who was sitting up, opened her arms in invitation and the two sisters embraced, Holly now weeping uncontrollably.
“It’s okay, Holly. Stop crying. I’m all right. I had a concussion, and they just kept me here for observation. I think Detective Manelli thought I’d be safer here overnight. He really was very concerned about me.”
Holly pulled back angrily and said, “Seriously? He was concerned about you? If macho man had listened to us in the first place, none of this would have happened. I hate him.”
Ivy looked over Holly’s shoulder and saw Manelli standing in the doorway. She grimaced and said, “Hello, Detective. Holly’s just a little upset.”
Holly turned and glared at Manelli. “What are you doing here? We don’t need you now.”
Manelli looked at Ivy and asked, “How you doing?”
“I’m fine. The nurse said I could leave as soon as you arrived,” Ivy answered.
“You mean as soon as I arri
ved, don’t you?” Holly snapped.
“Holly, Detective Manelli is just trying to protect us,” Ivy began.
Holly’s eyes widened and she felt as if the top of her head was about to blow off.
“Protect us?” she yelled, looking from Ivy to Manelli.
Before she could say any more, Manelli looked at Ivy and said, “I’ll wait for you in the lobby.” He turned and left.
“Don’t bother,” Holly shouted after him. “We’ll take a cab.”
“Calm down, Holly,” Ivy urged.
“No, I won’t calm down. What’s wrong with you? He’s the one who wouldn’t listen to us. He’s the one who arrested me just for the kick of seeing me behind bars with a bunch of prostitutes. He’s the reason you were home alone, and he’s the reason you’re here. Don’t you see that?”
Ivy sighed. “Holly, don’t forget that you’re the one who wouldn’t turn over the matchbook to him yesterday, and if you had done that, he might not have arrested you. That matchbook is why I’m here. Besides, whoever did this to me, didn’t mean to do it to me. They meant to do it to you.”
49 BACK HOME
A nurse arrived with a wheelchair and Ivy said she’d explain everything when they got home. She didn’t think she was up to waiting for a cab, so Holly reluctantly agreed to get back into Manelli’s car. She held open the front passenger door for Ivy, got in the back seat behind her, and didn’t say a word during the short drive home. When Manelli parked in front of the house, Holly jumped out, opened Ivy’s door and tried to help her out of the car.
“Really, Holly, I may not be up to weeding the garden, but I can get out of a car by myself.”
Holly held the gate open for Ivy and closed and latched it behind them. Manelli followed, unlatched the gate and let himself in. At the front door Holly realized she didn’t have keys. She turned to Ivy. “Do you have the keys?”
Ivy glanced at Manelli. He reached in his pocket, pulled out the keys and held them out to Holly. She turned to Ivy and scowled at her.
“You gave him the keys to my house?”
“Calm down. Detective Manelli was kind enough to offer to take care of Lucky when I went to the hospital.”
Holly bit her lip and reached for the keys, careful she didn’t touch Manelli’s hand. Turning she opened the door and reached down to pet Lucky who was waiting, tail wagging. Lucky accepted the pat, then brushed past Holly, going straight to Manelli, ears back, butt wiggling flirtatiously.
Holly glared at Lucky, turned and ran up the stairs to her room.
Ivy said, “Come in and have a seat in the kitchen. I’ll go up and get her to come down.”
“She has to talk to me,” Manelli said.
“I know. Just give me a minute.”
******
Upstairs Holly undressed and jumped in the shower. When she came out of the bathroom, Ivy was waiting.
“Holly, you have to come downstairs and talk to Manelli.”
“No, I don’t.” She walked over to the dresser and started to brush her hair.
“Yes, you do. He’s a policeman, and if you don’t come down to answer his questions, he can have you brought downtown again. Is that what you want?”
Holly stopped brushing her hair and pivoted around to face Ivy. “Did he threaten to arrest me again?”
“No, he didn’t, but you listen to me. I got a phone call last night. Whoever saw you in Mrs. Hagel’s yard saw you take the matchbook. He said he wanted it back. He threatened me--well, you, really. That’s when I decided I had to take the matchbook down to Manelli. I called his cellphone and when he didn’t answer, I left a message. Then I called the Police Department and said I was coming in with evidence and they should let Manelli know. I got in your car and backed out of the garage, but I realized I’d left my driver’s license upstairs. The last thing I remembered was getting out of the car. Manelli found me and got an ambulance to take me to St. Francis. And all that happened, not because of him, but because you were right. The matchbook was incriminating evidence. Whoever talked to me on the phone and knocked me out thought I was you. You’re in danger. Now get downstairs and talk to Manelli, or I’m going to call the airline and take the next plane home, and he can put you in jail until this murder is solved for all I care.”
Holly stood for a moment, then sank onto the bed, and started to cry. “You could have been killed.”
“You, too.”
“What are we gonna do?”
“I’m going to go downstairs and make coffee. You’re going to get out of that bathrobe and into some clothes and follow me. Then we’re going to put ourselves in the hands of that policeman. I trust him completely, and you have to, too. So get a move on.”
50 THE MATCHBOOK
When Holly entered the kitchen, Ivy and Manelli were sitting at the table eating honey oat bread smothered in Nutella. Lucky was lying on the floor at Manelli’s feet. She went over to the cupboard, got a mug and poured herself some coffee. Sitting down, she grabbed a slice of bread, smeared on some Nutella and took a bite. Manelli waited until she’d eaten a few bites and drunk some coffee. He got out his pad and pen and began.
“Your sister said she explained to you what happened last night. I got the phone number of the caller from your caller ID. We’ll check it out. Now I want you to tell me exactly what you did when you entered Mrs. Hagel’s backyard yesterday.”
Holly put her mug down on the table. “I looked for Lucky. When I reached the backyard, I realized, besides crossing the police barricade, I was trespassing, so I decided to knock on the back door of the house just in case someone was there. Nobody came to the door. Then I saw a bush moving in the back corner of the yard and figured that had to be Lucky, so I headed straight back there.”
“Through the weeds?”
“Yeah. That’s when I saw Lucky had a groundhog pinned between the bush and the back fence.” Holly scratched the back of her head, picked up her mug and drank some more coffee.
“After she killed the groundhog, what did you do?”
“I called Lucky and put her on the leash. When I turned to walk back to the footpath, I stopped for a minute and just looked around. That’s when I understood why two of the neighbors didn’t see anything the day of the murder. Only someone in the vacant house could see Mrs. Hagel’s yard and house.”
“Then what did you do?”
“I followed the path away from the shed, but couldn’t get through because the rose bush has overgrown the path. I headed back to the shed, and that’s when I spotted the matchbook under the rosebush beside the shed. I picked it up, put it in a plastic bag and walked out the same way I came in.”
“Why did you find a matchbook, when my forensics team didn’t?” Manelli asked, looking at his notepad.
“Because when you were there the rose bush was in full bloom and the red matchbook cover would have blended with the rose blooms. Since then the buds have started to fade and drop.”
Manelli stared at her for a few seconds, then wrote something in his notepad. “You didn’t see or hear anyone?”
“No.”
Manelli looked up. “Why didn’t you give me the matchbook yesterday?”
“Ivy and I talked and sort of agreed that it probably wasn’t a clue. She was going to call you.”
“But why didn’t you give it to me when I came to arrest you?”
“You kind of just answered your own question. You came to arrest me. I was angry and I wasn’t thinking straight.”
Manelli looked at Ivy. “So the matchbook was taken from your bag last night?”
“Wait a minute!” Ivy exclaimed, jumping up from her chair. “I almost forgot. Holly, you’re going to love this. I scanned the matchbook. It should be on your computer downstairs.” She got up and headed to the basement. Holly and Manelli stood up simultaneously and just looked at one another. “After you,” he said.
Downstairs Holly turned on the laptop. “I think I did it right,” Ivy said to Holly. “It said ‘Scan Saved�
�� when I finished.”
Holly went to her scan folder and opened the most recent document. The red matchbook cover appeared on the screen.
“I did it right, huh?” Ivy grinned looking at Holly.
“You did it right,” Holly confirmed smiling back. “Uh-oh.”
“Something wrong?” Ivy asked.
“The scan of the inside is blank. We lost the phone number.”
“Too bad.” Ivy frowned.
“But I did a reverse lookup and the number was registered to Hagel Printing and Paper,” Holly said, looking at Manelli.
“Can you print the cover for me?” Manelli asked.
Holly reached over, turned the printer on and sent the document to print.
“Will this be of any use to you, Detective?” Ivy asked.
“We’ll see,” he answered.
When the scan printed, Holly looked carefully at the red cover. “Is it possible to get a print off a scan?” she asked as she handed the sheet to Manelli.
“I don’t know about the printout, but I want you to email the scan to Officer Rivera. You still have her card?”
“Yes.” Holly turned back to the computer and opened her Outlook. Manelli’s phone vibrated. He looked at it and stepped into the laundry room to answer the call.
Ivy smiled at Holly. “Gosh, I hope this helps. I’m so sorry I lost the matchbook.”
“You’re kidding. I almost got you killed, and you’re sorry?
Ivy smiled and squeezed Holly’s shoulder, as Lucky started barking upstairs. “I’ll go let her out,” Ivy said.
Holly turned back to the computer, typing in Yolanda Rivera’s email address. As she hit ‘Send’, Manelli came back into the room. He pulled up a chair and sat down facing her.
“I arrested you because, in addition to an irate phone call from Steven Hagel, the Paramus police confirmed the Nowicki car crash was no accident. Your friend had been forced off the road by a box truck, which was reported stolen that morning, and found abandoned in a parking lot later that day. With no direct threat made against you, I couldn’t justify police protection for you. We don’t have that kind of manpower. I figured the only way I could keep you safe was to lock you up in a jail cell.”
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