3 Fat Chance

by Rhonda Pollero

  The server appeared, handed all of us menus, and took my drink order: “Iced tea, thank you.” After the server left, I ran my fingernail around the rim of my water goblet and agreed. “It was pretty disgusting.”

  “Mr. McGarrity showed me photographs of the house, and I can assure you, it looked nothing like that when I left.” She reached down, grabbed her purse, opened it, and handed me a folded receipt. “See? I even had it cleaned and the carpets shampooed. They charged me extra for cleaning the appliances, which proves they were in the house when I left. The only items I left behind were some clothing, but I made arrangements with a local charity to pick up the donation.”

  “The donations are still there, but the appliances are definitely gone.”

  Melinda looked at me. Her eyes shone with apology and a hint of anger. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Marc Feldman trashed the place intentionally.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “First,” she said, raising a finger, “he made the last few months of my tenancy unbearable. He wouldn’t fix anything, or if he did, his repairmen did a halfhearted job that lasted a week or two.”

  “So you think he was forcing you out?”

  She nodded. “Well, none of us knew that your mother would transfer the property to you, so I think Marc’s master plan was to force me out by neglecting the place, then earn himself a tidy commission selling it to a developer. It’s a darling cottage, Finley, but let’s face facts. It sits on prime Palm Beach ocean frontage. A smart investor would level the cottage and either sell the lot to one of the adjoining neighbors or build something more lavish on the site. And with all due respect, your mother never impressed me as a woman who would give away such a valuable asset.”

  “It was required generosity,” I explained, feeling the tension in my muscles abate. “Until yesterday, I didn’t even know about the cottage. It was Jonathan’s, and according to my mother, it was his wish that I have it.”

  Melinda smiled apologetically. “That sounds more like the Cassidy I knew when she was married to Jonathan.”

  “What made you leave New York and completely change your life?” I asked.

  “Have you ever felt as if you were destined to do something?”

  Only if you count my Rolex project. “Not really, no.”

  She looked almost wistful. “I still remember the minute it struck me. I was running in Central Park.” She smiled. “I still run, just not as far and not as fast.” She paused and sighed. “I saw this woman yelling and screaming at a child, completely out of control. Slapping him, knocking him to the ground. Something just came over me. I marched up to her and threatened to call the police. Well, she explained to me that the little boy was her foster child, so the police wouldn’t care.

  “I’d passed a police officer, so I ran back, found him, and insisted he do something to help the little boy. So he goes to the playground and has a two-minute conversation with the woman. Then he just walked away.”

  “He didn’t do anything?” I asked.

  Melinda shook her head. “Basically told me the kid said she wasn’t hitting him, and without a victim, he couldn’t do anything.”

  “Then why not stay in New York and help kids there?” Liam asked.

  “That was my plan, but when they did the home study they said my one-bedroom apartment was too small to allow me to take in children. I went to Jonathan for advice.” She stopped and gave my hand a squeeze. “He was a brilliant businessman, and I thought he might help me.”

  “A house on Palm Beach is more than help,” Liam remarked.

  “Yes, it was,” Melinda agreed. “But Jonathan knew about my surgery. He paid me for the six weeks of work I missed without batting an eye. He knew I could never have children of my own.” She looked directly at Finley. “He adored you so much that I always believed he did it because he knew how easy it was to love a child who had no biological connection to you. I loved my foster children very much.”

  “What happened to you and the kids in your care after you left?” Liam asked.

  Melinda fiddled with the pendant hanging around her neck. I was pretty sure the pinkish-orange stone was a padparadscha sapphire. Not cheap. “Losing my home of sixteen years pretty much forced me to give up my kids.” Bowing her head, she sniffed, then fished a handkerchief from her purse.

  She wore the same stones in her ears. Very matchy-matchy. Very expensive. “How many children have you fostered?” I asked.

  Melinda’s expression changed almost instantly. “Over the past sixteen years?” She tapped a perfectly manicured peach fingernail against her chin as she thought back.

  It gave me an opportunity to get a better look at the ring and earrings that matched her pendant. “You have beautiful jewelry,” I commented as my tea was delivered.

  Melinda held her hand at arm’s length, then touched her earrings and finally clutched the pendant in her hand. “Thank you. It’s paste, of course, but I like it.”

  “Love the color, paste or not. Where did you find the pieces?”

  “At a swap meet in Pompano Beach.”

  Liam leaned close to me and asked, “Are we going to count foster children anytime soon?”

  Melinda blushed. I just grinned at him and enjoyed the fact that he was having to suffer through girly chitchat.

  “Between thirty and forty,” Melinda said. “Some stayed for years, others just for a night or two.”

  I pulled the decade-old photograph out of the envelope and passed it to her. “I found this photo in the Palm Beach Post archives. You were getting an award for your hard work. Do you remember these kids?”

  Her head tilted slightly as she smiled, nostalgically tracing the six faces with the pad of her forefinger. “I’d forgotten about this,” she said without taking her eyes off the photograph. “I forgot about that story,” she mused as she scooted her chair closer to mine. “This young lady here on the end is Bridget Tomey. She was only with me for about a month. An emergency placement until the Department of Children and Families caseworker could convince her mother to file the necessary papers to keep her boyfriend out of the house. He liked to use Bridget and her mother as punching bags.”

  Her finger moved over the next face. Male, Hispanic, and obviously very close to aging out of the system. “This is embarrassing. I can’t recall his name. I just remember he was short term, because as soon as he moved out, another boy moved in. I was only authorized for four children at any given time.”

  “There are initials on the bottom,” I prompted. “C.L.?”

  She shook her head. “I can’t place him, but maybe his name will come to me,” she said as she kept looking at the photo. “The girl next to him,” she said, tapping a slightly overweight blonde with vacant blue eyes, “is Megan Landry. She was a hard case.”

  “How so?” Liam asked.

  “Drug-addicted mother, absent father. The mother would get clean for a few months, regain custody, and then start using again. Sad, really.” She continued naming the kids in the picture. “Then I’m sure you recognize her,” Melinda said, smiling proudly as she pointed to the tall, slender brunette on the end.

  Taking the picture, I stared at the image for several seconds, then shook my head. “Sorry, I don’t.”

  Melinda leaned close to me and whispered, “Well, she has had some work done in the ten years since that picture was taken. The bump on her nose and a little enhancement to her lips. But I’m sure she’d prefer that that didn’t become public knowledge. She’s got enough trouble, with the tabloids calling her a gold digger and all.”

  I blinked and scrutinized the photo again. “I still don’t know who she is.”

  “Terri Semple,” Melinda said, barely above a whisper.

  “The one about to marry the Gilmore grocery heir?” I practically choked out.

  Melinda beamed. “Yes. And it couldn’t happen to a more deserving girl. Well, woman, though to me she’ll always be the gangly, shy twelve-year-old who came to live with me.”
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  “Terri Semple was in the system?” Liam asked.

  “Difficult home life,” Melinda said. “Her mother left her with her grandmother and took off. The grandmother had a stroke. Terri cared for the woman until she died. Twelve years old and a mother nowhere to be found. She hadn’t been to school for more than two years. But she was smart. Worked hard and caught up to grade level in less than six months. Terri always was a quick study.”

  After she answered Liam, I asked, “How long did she live with you?”

  “Seven years. Until she aged out.”

  The waiter returned, took our orders, hurried away. As soon as he left, Melinda continued reminiscing. Through it all, I got two dozen names out of her, with another half-dozen partials. I was discreetly texting the names to myself.

  It turned out to be a lovely lunch. When the check arrived, much to my surprise, Liam picked up the tab. He surprised me again when he looked directly at Melinda and asked, “So any idea who the girl found stuffed in the closet might be?”

  If at first you don’t succeed,

  destroy all the evidence that you failed.

  seven

  MELINDA APPEARED NOT ONLY shocked but also appalled by the bluntness of Liam’s question. Too shocked and too appalled. Nothing about her seemed to fit. Great clothes, perfect accessories, classy, polished; none of it said foster mother. I was having a hard time reconciling what I knew with what I saw. I couldn’t help it. I had a sneaky suspicion based on absolutely nothing but gut instinct that Melinda knew something. Maybe not the name of the skeleton, but something.

  Her perfectly made-up face flamed, and her eyes glinted with anger. “I haven’t the first clue,” she snapped, spine and syllables stiff.

  “Please think back,” I said, trying to smooth over Liam’s thinly veiled accusation.

  “I kept close tabs on my kids,” Melinda said evenly before sipping her drink. “DCF made unannounced visits to check on their health and welfare. Believe me, if someone went missing, I’d have known.”

  “Unless you didn’t want one of your charges to get into trouble,” Liam suggested. “If they screwed up while in your care, wouldn’t a group home be the next stop?”

  Melinda nodded. “My kids knew that too. Yes, some of them were challenges, but they eventually came around. Most of them knew the system inside out, so they knew better than to walk away from a good thing.”

  “So you’re saying all your foster kids were success stories?” Liam asked.

  “Success is relative,” Melinda said, her tone flat. Clearly she wasn’t thrilled with the line of questioning. Too bad. Right now she was the only one with answers, and I had no choice but to milk her for answers. She turned her gaze on me. “I learned that working for your father.”

  “Jonathan was very successful,” I countered defensively.

  “Yes, he was, but not every single one of his advertising campaigns worked. And I’m not saying the failures were his fault. Sometimes it’s the product that’s the problem. The campaign for New Coke didn’t work because no one liked New Coke, not because the advertising was bad. Every now and then I’d get a kid too damaged to help.”

  “What’d you do with those kids?”

  “I didn’t do anything, and I resent the accusation. I’ve spent most of my adult life helping young people, not harming them.” In a theatrical move that would have given my mother a run for her money, Melinda tossed her napkin on the table. “Nice to see you again, Finley.” She turned on her Jimmy Choos and regally marched out of the restaurant.

  For a second I watched her weave her way between the tables, righteous indignation in every line of her body. I turned back to Liam. “Well done. Haven’t you ever heard of asking nicely? Now she’ll probably never speak to me again.”

  He shrugged. “She wasn’t going to tell us anything more anyway.”

  “And you know that how?”

  “I’m pretty good at reading people.”

  “Yeah, well, you just alienated the only person who might know the identity of the skeleton.”

  “She knows,” he said.

  “Again I ask, you know that how?”

  “She didn’t ID the boy in the photo.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That and fifteen years as a cop, seven of those as a homicide detective.” He flashed me a crooked smile that made my heart skip a beat. “Sorry, Finley, but c’mon, we both know you aren’t exactly the best judge of people.”

  Heat flashed on my cheeks. “How long do you plan on throwing Patrick in my face?” I picked up the photograph from the table and stuffed it back into its envelope.

  He leaned forward, close enough so I could feel the heat of his breath on my neck. He smelled like soap and the ocean breeze, which made me think of things other than the present conversation. Dammit. The man was insidious. “I wasn’t talking about Patrick. I was thinking about the way you came to my house that night. You assumed I’d—”

  I looked pointedly at my watch. “Gotta go.” I stood so fast I nearly knocked my chair backward. “I have to get back to the house. Thanks for lunch.” The memory of the way I’d tried—and failed—to seduce Liam chased me from the restaurant as if my butt was on fire.

  Gravel spewed from underneath my tires as I tore out of the restaurant’s parking lot. On my way back to the cottage, I ran through a drive-thru and grabbed a double-shot latte. To assuage my annoyance, I added whip. Caffeine with a fluffy mountain of whipped cream was my anti-anxiety drug of choice.

  The sun was a raging circle of fire almost directly overhead. I closed the sunroof, then dialed Sam. “Hi. Are you still at the house?”

  “Yes,” Sam said, his mood irritatingly chipper. “Harold and I are working out some of the renovations.”

  “That’s great, but don’t do anything until I hear from Jane and—”

  “She came by and dropped off a budget and some bank stuff you need to sign.”

  “How tight is it?”

  “We can’t do everything I’d like, but when can you be here? I went and got my laptop so I could use ArchiCAD to do a 3-D plan. I think you’re going to be very pleased.”

  “On my way now.”

  I tempered my excitement by reminding myself that whatever money I pulled out of the cottage for the home equity loan would translate into higher monthly payments. Still, it was hard to contain my growing exhilaration as I crossed the bridge and made the left toward Chilian.

  Harold’s truck was parked in the driveway behind Sam’s LeBaron convertible. The front lawn was littered with clumsy stacks of clothing, and I noticed a dark green Dumpster on the right side of the house.

  Putting the car in park, I cut the engine as Sam came bounding out of the house like an excited puppy.

  After surveying the mess, I pushed my D&G sunglasses—75 percent off because of a missing rhinestone I’d carefully replaced—up on my head. “I thought the point was to improve the property.”

  Sam waved a dismissive hand at the clothing. “Harold’s airing that stuff out.”

  “Why?” I used a handy paint stick to lift a plaid something off the top of the pile. Ew! If everything else was as bad as the shirt, the clothing was all well worn and/or stained and/or so out of fashion even a homeless person would balk. I tossed the shirt back on top of the heap.

  “Doesn’t matter.” Sam grabbed my forearm and pulled me past the outdoor closet. The sound of a power saw buzzed, forcing him to yell to be heard. “Your bedroom is going to be a showplace.”

  In just under three hours, Harold had knocked out four walls and was busy sawing the larger pieces of debris into smaller ones. Sam’s laptop was out on the back patio, beyond the reach of the toxic dust field kicked up by the power tool. Harold waved to us as we walked through the house.

  Sam had his extra-wide-screen Mac open on a cooler that was serving as a table in the middle of four plastic lawn chairs arranged on the patio.

  “We’re going with a plastic theme?” I asked.


  “I made a Walgreens run,” Sam said. “I needed a surface to work on, and in case you didn’t notice, it’s hot as hell. Without a fridge, there’s no place to keep water.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t think about that.”

  “I did. And you owe me fifty-six dollars and change.”

  “For a cooler and four chairs? Four ugly plastic chairs?”

  Sam sighed heavily. “Plastic usually is ugly, but that’s a different conversation. These are from Jane,” he said, pulling a stack of papers out from under a pair of women’s shoes he’d used to keep them from blowing out to sea.

  As I took the papers, my eyes fixed on the heel of the shoes Sam had used as a paperweight. “Whose shoes?”

  Sam clutched his chest. “Oh, dear God, tell me you aren’t thinking of recycling shoes from the skanky collection.”

  So I could examine it more closely, I lifted one shoe with the paint stirrer I still held. “These were in the bag?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Sam said, plucking it from my hand. “As your friend, I can’t allow you to consider adopting a ten-year-old pair of used Enzos.”

  “Were there other shoes in the bag?”

  “No. And you’re not focusing.” He pointed to his eyes with two fingers, then waved them in front of my eyes to get my attention.

  “The heels are scraped,” I said, running my finger over the deep, vertical, even gouges in the beige leather.

  “Color me shocked. Used shoes in crappy shape.”

  I continued to examine the shoe, then did the same with its mate. “They’re in near perfect shape except for the heels.”

  “So have them fumigated, take them to a cobbler, wear them, and I’ll mock you about them forever. Could we please get to the rehab?”

  Something about the scuffed shoes bothered me, but Sam was right, so I reluctantly placed them on the ground and gave the financial documents my full attention.

  Apparently, I was going to open a line of credit and draw against the house’s value. Not exactly comforting. Dollar signs swirled around in my head as I read Jane’s neatly typed columns. My friend knew me well enough to know math wasn’t my strength, so she’d gone the extra mile to make a payment chart that about gave me a coronary. Running my fingertip less than halfway down the chart, I said, “Right about here I’ll have to get a second job just to cover the interest on the debt.”