Twice as Dead

by Sue Ann Jaffarian

  “No,” Clarice said, leaning forward herself until our faces were about a foot apart. “I did not kill Shirley. It could have been someone from her past.”

  I straightened myself in my chair. I didn’t trust Clarice, but I was curious about exactly how close she was to Shirley. “Yes. I was told Shirley took part in a bank robbery years ago. She was known as Doug Pearson then, correct?”

  Finally, a look of surprise crossed Clarice’s face, then it quickly faded to bland. “So, you know about that, do you?”

  I wasn’t sure if she was asking if I knew about the bank robbery or about Shirley once being a man named Doug. I decided to assume she meant both.

  “The cop who questioned me about my phone number being found on Shirley told me her name was really Doug Pearson, a man connected with a bank robbery in Minnesota years ago. I was also told that Doug Pearson died and was cremated.”

  “Once again, Odelia, you surprise me with how much you know about things that are supposed to be private.” Clarice took another drink of her water—a smaller, more dainty one this time.

  “What can I say? The cop was chatty.” I’d decided to leave Dev Frye’s name out of the conversation. No need to alert Clarice that I was close to the detective on the case. She could find out on her own or when I was ready to tell her. She wasn’t the only one who could play coy.

  Ignoring my remark, Clarice continued, “Doug was Shirley’s real name, but she hadn’t used it in years, not since her death was faked.” Clarice paused. “Her first death, that is.”

  “Had you known her a long time?”

  Clarice nodded while she examined her perfect fingernails. “Yes, we met at a charity event about ten years ago and became good friends. She was working for an event-planning company, with dreams of having her own. I’ve never known her as Doug. To me, she was always Shirley, though I did realize soon after we met that she was really a man—a man who desperately wanted to be a woman.”

  I fought to hide my surprise. I’d never figured Clarice as being the open-minded type. But she’d met a woman who’d turned out to be a man and seemed to have accepted it with no problem. Maybe she wasn’t the uptight bitch I thought her to be. Maybe she was just a bitch.

  “So who do you think killed her? Any ideas?”

  “A couple,” Clarice told me without looking up. “I think it was someone involved with the bank robbery.”

  “That’s just one idea. How about a lover, past or present?”

  “No,” Clarice slowly moved her head back and forth as she spoke. “Shirley wasn’t seeing anyone. She wanted to wait until after the medical procedure. She thought it might be less complicated.”

  I didn’t see how letting that cat out of the bag to a future lover would be anything but a major complication, but I kept my mouth shut. First of all, Shirley would never get the chance. Secondly, it was none of my business.

  “Are you sure there wasn’t someone who wasn’t happy with Shirley’s decision to change gender?”

  “Everyone who knew Shirley was very supportive of her, even encouraged her. I’m telling you, I think it was someone from that robbery. It’s the only thing in Shirley’s past that was shady.”

  “Did Shirley tell you who was in on the robbery with her?”

  Clarice looked up at me. “No. But I did get the feeling they were still out there, and that was one of the reasons she staged her death all those years ago.”

  That, I thought, and to throw the police off her scent. Getting up, I walked across the wood floor in my stocking feet. I had a lot of questions and wanted to sort them out. “Who was the dead guy they cremated?”

  “The what?”

  I stopped and faced Clarice. “The dead guy. Back in Minnesota. A corpse was passed off as Doug Pearson and cremated. Who was the dead guy?”

  She looked surprised by the question. “I have no idea.” Clarice gave a slight shrug. “Probably some body they got from a local mortuary or coroner’s office.”

  “Who are ‘they’?” I set my eyes like laser beams on her face.

  “They,” she answered, “is whoever helped Shirley, I suppose.” Clarice frowned, but her face was so tight hardly a line showed on her forehead, in spite of her intent. “That was a long time ago, Odelia, and I didn’t know Shirley then. How in the hell am I supposed to know that?”

  “Shirley never discussed it? Never got in her cups and boo-hoo-hooed about it just between you girls?”

  “Never.”

  “And she never ever talked about the others involved with the robbery?”

  Clarice shook her head. This time she put more effort into it, making her hair move like a curtain in a soft breeze.

  I didn’t believe her for a minute.

  “I was informed that the money taken in the bank robbery was never recovered. Did Shirley have it? Is that how she got away and started her new life?”

  Clarice crossed one leg over the other, smoothing the skirt of her dress over her legs. “I have no idea what happened to that money, but I doubt Shirley had it—or, if she did, that she had any left. Otherwise, why would she need me to help finance Rambling Rose?”

  She made a good point, but I still wasn’t satisfied. “It seems Shirley was in the medical process of becoming a man. I’ve heard that’s very expensive. Who was paying for that?”

  “Maybe she did have some of the robbery money,” Clarice answered, her voice starting to crack with annoyance. “And maybe she didn’t. But if she did, don’t you think she would have had the operation years ago?”

  “Maybe.”

  Muffin had hopped off the sofa and was dogging my heels. I picked up the gray cat. No longer a kitten, Muffin was still small, especially next to Seamus. I held the animal in my arms and stroked her behind her ears. She purred with delight.

  “But maybe not,” I told Clarice. “It could have taken Shirley years to make a decision of that magnitude. A sex change operation isn’t like buying a pair of shoes or a handbag. You can’t return it if it doesn’t match an outfit.”

  “Rambling Rose was doing very well, Odelia. Shirley could have saved the money. Even if she did have all or even some of the money from the bank, it probably cost Shirley a bundle to disappear and start a new life. She also couldn’t have flashed money like that around without notice, at least not at first.”

  Clarice switched legs, uncrossing one and crossing the other. “But I didn’t come here to talk to you about Shirley—at least not entirely.”

  I put Muffin down and took my seat again, waiting while Clarice struck a pose right out of a 1940s crime movie. All she needed was a cigarette, and she looked like she wanted one. A cigarette with a long, dramatic holder.

  “I want to hire you, Odelia.”

  Well, shut my mouth. I wasn’t expecting that. “Hire me? You need a corporate paralegal?”

  “What I need is someone to do some nosing about, on the computer and off. You obviously have the nosiness down pat; the paralegal part will cover the rest.”

  “I have a job, Clarice. A steady job that I like.”

  “This isn’t a job offer, Odelia. It’s a one-time assignment. I need someone to find some friends with whom I’ve lost touch.”

  My mouth made the leap before my brain and common sense could stop it. “You want me to hunt people down so you can kill them?”

  Clarice’s face flushed like a ripe berry, and she popped up, taking her own spin around my living room floor. “I did not kill Shirley! In fact, she and I were going to hire you together.”

  Walking back to the sofa, Clarice plopped down on it in a very unladylike way and stared at me. To my surprise, there was something in her eyes I hadn’t noticed before—concern, genuine and solid.

  “Some people I know have disappeared, Odelia. Absolutely vanished. They’re people Shirley and I both know … knew. One of them was Roslyn.”

  “They owe you money or something?”

  “No, nothing like that. They have simply disappeared. Their homes are e
mpty. Phones turned off. Gone.” She snapped her fingers, the sharp sound causing Muffin to trot over to Clarice. “Just like that. We tried to find them but couldn’t. Then I remembered spotting you at the bridal boutique. I thought maybe you could help.”

  “Have you tried Facebook?”

  The scowl Clarice shot me could have frozen Niagara Falls.

  I leaned back in my chair, regrouping from the chill. “I don’t think so, Clarice. They probably just got a great and unexpected job offer and left in a hurry. I’m sure they’ll turn up once they’re settled.”

  “It’s not like that, Odelia.” She paused but never took her eyes off me. “I’ll pay you five thousand dollars to locate them.”

  Yowza! Did I hear right? Five grand to track someone down? But the offer also made me more suspicious.

  “Something’s not kosher about this, Clarice.” I got up from the chair and stood looking down at her, ready in case she did something stupid. “Five grand just to locate some old friends? And right after the death of another friend? Not to mention, I know Roslyn Beckworth also faked her death a few years back.”

  Another short flash of surprise flittered across Clarice’s face, and again she recovered quickly. “Someone needs to stick a cork into that cop.”

  I ignored her comment. “What’s really going on here?” I demanded.

  When she didn’t answer, I put my hands on my wide hips and narrowed my eyes at her, hoping to give her a dose of my own stubborn bitchiness.

  Again, she remained silent.

  I pushed. “You don’t think it was the bank robbers who killed Shirley at all, do you?”

  Clarice raised her face and threw out her hands. “It could have been them. They could have found her after all these years.”

  “Could have, yes,” I told her. “But more likely, you and Shirley started digging around into something, and someone didn’t like it. Something’s telling me you hope it was the bank robbers.”

  Clarice set her jaw. “I have to find these people. I have to know what happened to them before the same happens to me.”

  “Before what?” I dropped back down into my chair, confused. “Are you afraid Shirley’s killer might come after you now? If it were the other bank robbers, they wouldn’t know anything about you, would they?” I switched my voice into a more soothing tone. “You need to go to the police, Clarice. The sooner, the better. Whoever killed Shirley could have killed those friends of yours.”

  “No, I don’t think so. But I do think they ran.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said, pointing an index finger at her. “Are these friends of yours also on the run like Shirley and Roslyn? What did they do wrong?”

  Clarice fixed me with another arctic stare. “People don’t always need a legal reason to disappear, Odelia.”

  My head was about to explode. On the run. Not on the run. Clarice, seeing my confusion, produced a folded piece of paper from her purse and handed it to me. On it were scrawled a couple pairs of names, two on each line—two lines, four names.

  “These people, Odelia, for one reason or another started their lives over, like Shirley, and in some ways like me. They re-created themselves. Now they’ve scattered to who knows where.”

  Like roaches, I thought, but kept it to myself.

  I looked up from the list to Clarice. “Is there some sort of club you all belong to? ‘People on the lam, meeting every other Thursday at the public library.’”

  “Don’t be so sarcastic, Odelia.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Coming from you, that’s rich.”

  “These people are not running from the law,” Clarice insisted. “At least, I’m not. And neither was Roslyn. I just didn’t want to pick up my old life.”

  “I’m not buying that, Clarice. You had money and position. I understand you were even cleared of any suspicion about John’s murder. Seems he was killed by an international hit man.”

  “I still have money and position, Odelia. I just choose now to live under the radar.”

  “Didn’t you have a daughter from your first marriage? The one before John Hollowell?”

  “Leave Jackie out of this,” she snapped. “She knows nothing of my life, and I want it kept that way.”

  Clarice was definitely afraid of someone or something.

  I studied the paper in my hand, going down the list of names.

  “The name on the left is the name they use now,” Clarice explained. “The name on the right is their old name.”

  I noted the first name. It was for a Roslyn Stevens, who used to be known as Roslyn Beckworth. “Stevens is my married name,” I said to Clarice without looking up.

  “I know, though I doubt you’re related.” The remark was wrapped with a sneer. “This is her new name.”

  “And what is the name you use now?” I asked.

  “That’s on a need-to-know basis, Odelia. And right now you’re better off not knowing.”

  She was probably right about that.

  “I could understand one of the people up and leaving in a hurry,” Clarice told me, “but not all of them. Something or someone is scaring them off. I want to know who is behind it.”

  Or killing them off, but I kept that to myself, too. I ran my eyes up and down the list again. Something about it was bothering me. I absorbed the names one by one. The second name pricked my brain like a toothpick testing a cake. The name to the left was Alfonso Nunez. The name to the right was Alfred Nunez. The third name was Scott Joyce, who now went by Scott Johnson.

  It was odd, I noted silently, how the people didn’t steer too far from their original names. Maybe it was an identity thing—something about not wanting to give it all up entirely. A need to retain some shred of their former selves.

  “You know the approximate ages of these folks?” I raised my eyes from the paper to look at Clarice.

  Clarice gave the question some thought before answering. “Roslyn is thirty-something. Al is somewhere in his sixties. Scott is somewhere in between—probably his forties.”

  “How about a photo?”

  Clarice hesitated, her eyes scurrying up and down my face while she made up her mind about something. Finally, with a sigh of submission, she dug into her purse and produced a photo. It was taken at a party in someone’s back yard. In the background was a swimming pool. There were close to a dozen people. Some were were seated, and others were standing around them. Most were hoisting glasses and beer bottles toward the camera and appeared happy and having fun. I spotted both Clarice and Shirley right off. They were seated in the front.

  Clarice pointed to a very pretty African-American woman. “That’s Roslyn Stevens. On the far left is Scott Johnson.” She moved her finger over one spot. “And that’s Al.”

  I couldn’t take my eyes off of Alfonso Nunez. I knew him, I was sure of it. Several years ago, I had attended his funeral—or rather, the funeral of an Alfred Nunez.

  “I’m sure of it, Greg.”

  We had just finished eating and were cleaning up. Over supper I’d filled Greg in on both Dev and Clarice’s visits—and my suspicions about Alfred Nunez.

  “One hundred percent sure?” Greg was putting the leftovers into plastic containers while I loaded our plates into the dishwasher.

  I hemmed and hawed. “Okay, maybe 85 to 90 percent sure.” I shook the serving spoon in my hand for emphasis. “I’m telling you, I went to that man’s funeral.”

  “But did you ever meet him in person?”

  “Yes, a couple of times when he came by Woobie to see Joan or take her to lunch.”

  After putting the spoon into the utensil holder in the washer, I wiped my hands on a kitchen towel and picked up the photo Clarice had left me. It was still on the kitchen table, where it had been the centerpiece of our dinner conversation.

  I showed the photo to Greg again and poked a finger at Alfonso Nunez. “I’m telling you, Greg. This is Alfred Nunez, Joan’s father.”

  Joan Nunez is another paralegal at Woobie. She’s a quiet and serio
us woman who specializes in litigation. Joan’s been with the firm just shy of ten years. A few years after she started working with us, her father, Alfred Nunez, was killed in a car accident. He’d gone off the cliff on a winding road during a trip to Northern California and plunged to his death. The car had gone up in flames. Joan had been inconsolable. Kelsey Cavendish, another coworker at Woobie, and I are very close to Joan and had attended the funeral to support our friend.

  “What’s more, now that I remember, the car fire had pretty much cremated the body.” I paused to link some information together. “Just like the body used as a stand-in at Shirley Pearson’s first funeral and the one in Roslyn’s case.”

  “What about these other people?”

  “Clarice didn’t mention them at all. She was only concerned with these three.”

  Greg took the photo from my hand and placed it back on the table. “Sit down, sweetheart.”

  With a deep sigh, I put my butt in a chair at the kitchen table. Here it comes, Greg’s “be reasonable” speech. It’s never worked, but you have to give my hubs an A for effort and persistence.

  “Say this is Joan’s dad—have you thought about the effect this might have on Joan? All this time she’s thought him dead, only to have you charge in and say he’s not.”

  “I wasn’t planning on charging in, Greg.” My nose twitched.

  “There is no easy way to announce news like this, Odelia. And what about Mr. Nunez? If this is him, he’s gone to a great deal of trouble and caused a lot of pain to his family. Don’t you think he might have had his reasons? It’s not like he’s had amnesia all this time. If he had, Clarice wouldn’t know his real name.”

  “And there wouldn’t have been a body,” I pointed out.

  “Exactly,” Greg said, with too much enthusiasm for my taste.

  “Makes you wonder who did die in that accident, doesn’t it? And who was buried in place of Doug Pearson and Roslyn Beckworth years ago?” A horrible thought occurred to me. “Greg, you don’t think they’re murderers, do you? Could they have killed the people who took their places in death?”