by Lisa Djahed
“Did you see Bev?” Trying to gage his reaction.
“Yeah, that tart looks pretty good don’t she?” added Hank. “Yeah,” was all could say to that, smiling.
That was pretty much all we had to say to each other and we all knew we had run out of things to say, so when in doubt, bring up the Florida weather.
“What do you think is it going to turn cold anytime soon, feels like this summer never ended.” Ben was always the one to keep a conversation going.
Just as they brought that up, I realized I had left my wrap in the funeral home. I excused myself and went in. The room was almost empty except for, interestingly, Pam and Bev, flanked by her two sons. And they were talking, furiously it looked like. I pretended to drop my scarf so I could spend more time in the room, but the only thing I heard was something about “back rent” from Pam. Bev noticed me and shushed up and threw me a dagger look. I waved my wrap at them and went on my way.
I could see Ben was having more trouble in the conversation with Mr. Skidmore since the weather had run it is course, so I quickly piped in, “we have to go honey” as I took his arm and he strided and I wobbled on my heels back to the car.
“Ok honey, when I went back in Pam and Bev were talking in not so nice tones, the only thing I heard was something about back rent” I garbled out wanting to dissect the whole day and get his reactions to things.
“Yeah, they clearly don’t like each other so that makes it weird that Bev is renting to Pam, unless Pam found out about Drew and that he was available and jumped on it.” Ben speculated.
“Yeah, that could be it. But what did you make of Bev lying about being on Jesse’s list.”
“We’ll just have to wait and clarify it with Jess when he calls,” Ben’s so pragmatic it hurts, I wanted gossip not advice.
“But what do you make it of, where has she been?” And as we were pulling left out of the parking lot we saw him, Mr. Hunk-a-doo, in his red Nissan ZX, across the street, parked in a restaurant parking lot.
“Look honey, it’s the boy toy what’s he doing?” And Ben slowed the car as I whipped around, subtle as an overdone pork chop, to stare and Mr. Hunk-a-doo was glaring right back at me. And just like that started his car. I whipped back around and said, “honey, I think he’s pulling out.” Did Bev know he was there? Did he drive her? Or did he follow her there? Inquiring minds wanted to know.
“Turn around Ben, turn around, let’s follow him.” I said, clearly getting into the drama of the situation and knowing my Ben, he took the bait. We eased up on the on-ramp to 1-95 with boy toy’s red sports car in front of us. Ben stayed enough back that we tried to make it look like coincidence. Luckily, we “could” get home this way too, it is just a bit longer, instead of going down Malabar to Jupiter, we went the long way up 1-95 to our Palm Bay exit, which was just the way Mr. Hunk-a-doo was headed.
“Don’t follow him too closely, or better yet, get in that lane and pass him, he’ll just think we are going home.” I said.
Sure enough we passed him on Palm Bay Road but because they had widened the lanes, we could see him two cars back in the next lane over. We pretended to drive slowly home just to keep him enough in
line to see where he was turning. As soon as he turned on Minton and then again onto Emerson, I had an inkling.
“I think he’s either going to Drew’s house or to Bev’s-didn’t you say Bev’s was on Americana” I said, and sure enough, in back of us the Nissan turned left off Emerson onto Jupiter headed off to Bev’s. A quick by-pass through on Lamplighter would bring us back around to where we could intercept, although much behind him.
“Pull up down the street.” As Ben did, I scrunched down watching what I assumed was Bev’s and Pam’s house. We saw the red Nissan, but with no sign of Mr. Hunk-a-do around, Ben was getting impatient.
“I’ll be right back,” he said and I knew what he was going to do and there was NO WAY he was going without me. I took off my heels and carried them as we slowly made our way down the sidewalk, hand in hand, trying to pretend we were just a nice married couple dressed up and out for a walk in the middle of the afternoon. As we peered around the corner of the hedge next door to Pam’s we saw him, boy toy himself, NOT near the mother-law-suite that was Bev’s but at Pam’s house, around the side, peering in the what we assumed was the bathroom window. Just then he ducked around back and we lost sight of him. I had to hold Ben back from following him further and we hushed/yelled at each other-he wanted to keep following, I wanted us back in the car. I won. I was holding the heels and could poke him.
We sat in the car down the street and waited. And waited. And heard a slight crash. I think boy toy, Mr. Hunk-a-do was breaking into Pam’s house. 0-M-G as Jules would say, 0-M-G. Burglary in progress.
“What do we do? Do we call the cops?”
And before I could say anything, Ben had dialed 911.
Chapter Six
“Let me get this straight, you were just stopping by to drop off a casserole and heard a window break?” said Officer Krumpke, not too happy to see us this time. “At the house of Drew’s current girlfriend AND ex-wife.”
“Well see, I thought about doing two casseroles, but I know Bev watches her weight and Pam really seemed like the one to organize everything.” I was gibbering because we had NO casserole in the back seat and I was nervous Officer Krumpke would dupe us out and take us in for false reporting of possession of a casserole.
“And they BOTH live here, that’s right?” asked Officer Krumpke.
“Yes,” clarified Ben urging me with his eyes to shut up. “Can I ask how you found out where Pam lived?” Officer Krumpke asked casually for such a loaded question.
“We asked her at the funeral, we told her we wanted to come by,” I piped up as Ben nearly broke one of my ribs with his elbow. I was clearly not letting my strong, amazing husband “handle” the current situation and needed to fast if I valued my ribs and marriage.
“Is that so?” Officer Krumpke stated off-handedly as he looked to wear Bev and her boy-toy were conversing in not so nice language.
After we called the cops and stayed in our car and they had pulled up and “caught” Mr. Hunk-a-do in action in the house, he claimed he had just mistakenly forgotten his key, and knew where a spare key was kept. A simple and unlikely story from a seriously dumb guy. Unfortunately Bev was backing him up and although Mr. Hunk-a-do was in handcuffs, he was likely not to be brought up on charges. Pam had arrived first and was hysterical, still, out on the front walkway, seems her cat had cut it is paw stepping on the glass Mr. Hunk-a-do had broken and that upset her more than the fact that her house had just gotten broken into. What a group I thought. Apparently he was going to pay to replace the window and the vet bill and that was all Pam was concerned about. And thus it was US that looked like the fools in front of them all, Bev, Pam, the boy toy, Officer Krumpke, all thought we were a meddlesome duo.
“Can we leave now?” I asked, wanting to be on our way before our casserole story got out.
“Yes, that’s fine, I know where you live in case I need anything.” Said the officer.
“Yes, anything you need,” I said and I got another jab from Mr. Unhappy Husband.
As we pulled away I couldn’t help but say, “what was all the jabbing about.”
“I was trying to get you to shut up, seriously Bee, you can run off at the mouth sometimes,” and I could feel my irritation starting to boil.
“I was only trying to help,” we both got silent. I hated when we disagreed, even in the littlest way. It really got under my skin. I patted his leg and said, “Well, I thought you were great.” A little honey for the bee?
“What I’m more concerned about is why Pam wasn’t going to press charges, don’t you think that is strange?” asked Ben in that far off look he gets when he’s thinking.
“I guess she believed lunkheads story.” “What’s his name, his full name?”
“Oh, I forgot, I got his card the other day when I went to the
gym to try and track him down for Jesse” and I fished around in my way too jammed purse for the card, finally found it.
“Ray LaRosa it says.”
“Hmm.” Was all Ben said as we got home.
And I knew right away what he was going to do. I could describe it to a T. He went in the house, undressed, put his boxers on, got a beer and went to the computer with the business card in hand. Tap, tap, tap went my honey into his own world of investigation.
I busied myself in the kitchen until I heard “check this out” coming from the other room. I ran in.
“THREE burglaries. THREE, I wonder if the cops even ran his name?”
“If they did they would have found this”
“Look they are in the 90s but look 95, 96, 98 and then nothing. It is like he turned into a pumpkin.”
“Check the last one, he must have done time”
“Oh yes, look, three years. So Mr. Hunk-a-do learned his trade, both of them, weightlifting and burglary in jail.” Said a very satisfied with himself husband.
“OMG, don’t you think we need to tell Pam or Officer Krumpke, I mean, Nunez? There is no way he was just going in for a key!” I said excitedly.
“No, we’ve been ‘officially’ interfering enough, this is information for us, if that cop wants to figure this out, let him, I’m done doing his job, now it is time for me to do mine.”
“What do you mean by that?” I said and said slowly emphasizing each word warily.
“What I mean is that no one is going to help Jesse, not even his mom, except us, if we want to figure this out, then it is up to us” said my oh-so-determined and strong, and sexy husband. I smiled and leaned over and kissed him and said “love you honey, you are so smart” cause that was what I wanted from the minute I saw them take Jesse away, was to figure out what the hell was going on.
“What do you need from me?” I asked hoping for an ‘assignment’ on our ‘case.’
“Dinner.” He said and turned away from me. I have to admit I was a little deflated but knew that my honey worked best alone with a full tummy.
After dinner we laid out all the notecards that my honey had put together, on the top of each card he wrote the name of the suspect and the likelihood of them having committed the crime and the possible motive.
Jesse:
Not likely
Motive: revenge for breaking up Taylor and he?
Bev: Likely
Motive: Drew’s money.
Pam:Not likely
Motive:?
Ray: Likely
Motive: Drew’s money.
Taylor: Likely
Motive: revenge for breaking up Jesse and her.
So those were our suspects. We decided to divide up the three top suspects, I’d be in charge of checking out Taylor and Ben would take the dynamic duo of Bev and Ray. We decided that I’d use the excuse of a visit to the jail to see if we could “give” Taylor a ride there and I’d see what I could get out of her about what happened that day. And how Ben was going to research the dynamic duo, he wouldn’t say but I’d soon find out.
Chapter Seven
It was raining and slightly cold, which for Florida, meant 74, but still, when it’s an eternal78 degrees, dipping down to 74 is downright nippy. Plus I knew I’d be in that awful visitor’s station again. So a sweater it was. Plus the ride there with Taylor, surely I’d want the windows down AND the A/C running. I have to admit going up to Taylor’s door and asking her to join me to visit Jesse felt so odd but I knew she’d jump at the chance and it was my only time and the only way Ben and I could think of to try and get Taylor alone away from her mom. It seemed for all her faults her mother was always around. She may be a drug dealer, but attentive and present she is. (Hey, it is gotta count for something). I nearly bust a gut when Taylor got into the Accord though, she clearly had spent a lot of time primping herself. The stringy brown hair was crimped and curly and spritzed and gelled to the maximum possible volume. The makeup was extra thick around the eyes, trying to be sultry, but ending up looking like a bad fist fight. Oh and the outfit. Oh, why o why is youth wasted on the young. She had a decent body, albeit a little skinny, but rather than downplay her bad features and uplift her good, she ended up with the reverse, so she was wearing way too tight jeans that gave even her skinny body a mushroom effect and a too short top that emphasized the donut around the middle. I think the look was intended to be sexy but it looked lumpy instead. Poor child, really needed a fashion coach and bad.
“How are you Taylor?” I said as she got into the car.
“Fine.” She said quickly. I could tell it was going to take a bit to get her to warm up to me.
“Are you excited to see Jesse?” I knew she would be and it was the best topic I could think of. I pulled out and started the 40 minute ride north thinking this is going to be a LONG ride. luckily I had my GPS programmed with the address of the jail so I could cruise along and pay attention to my guest rather than the road and ex it is ahead.
“Yeah, I guess” she said in that typical I could care less voice that teens use, why do that do that, why is it so un-cool to be excited about something, it seems every teen I knew downplayed good things and focused on the bad. like Jules. We had only one phone call from the girls all weekend, which was fine, but you’d think Jules would have more to say than, “fine” “no” etc. One word answers drove me to drink.
“I’m so glad you could come, I know it will really cheer him up so much, hey, do you know if his mom has visited him?”
“He said, yesterday on the phone when he called me-my mom only allows us one collect call a day, can you even believe that-that his mom said she couldn’t come to see him.”
“Doesn’t that seem weird, did she say why?”
“Well, you know, he’s never been close to her, not since the split anyway, she’s sees that guy Ray who is SUCH a jerk, did you know that Jesse and Ray got into a fight last month, Ray almost punched Jesse, but Jesse got one swing in at least, after that his mom said she didn’t want to see him until they could get along. Like it was Jesse’s fault, the guy’s a real asswipe.”
I tried to hide my cringe at her swear word, I can be such a prude despite my own tendency to make up swear words (Lordy-loo, gracious me o my, donkey balls) I really tried not to swear, or to reserve my swearing to those people and situations that deserved it. But at least it seemed Taylor was opening up a little.
“Really” I said, urging her on “when was that, what was it about?”
“I dunno, something about Ray thinking that Jesse stole something from him. A bracelet or a ring or some piece of jewelry, Ray couldn’t find it and said that Jesse had taken it, when he and his mom came to see Jesse, Ray stormed out of the car into the back where Jesse and I were just hanging and he started throwing a royal fit, pushing Jesse around, I’ve never seen Jesse so upset. I know he didn’t take it, whatever it was.” She said that last sentence authoritatively, as in maybe she knew what had happened to that little piece of jewelry. Or was I now just reading everything she said as a possible criminal act on her part. Ha. I’d never make it as a cop, I’d arrest everyone.
“Yeah, and after that his mom almost never called him, ‘cept once to tell him she’d be off on some cruise or something.”
“Who does that, doesn’t call their own son?” Isaid really disgustedly trying to bond with the little hoodlum hussy next to me.
“Right? I mean, come on. When I’m a mom, I’m going to be such a good mom, you know, always there. I’ll never treat my baby like that.”
I let that one sink in a bit. What was she saying?
“Taylor,” gulp, breathe, gulp, “are you pregnant?” I asked NOT wanting to know the answer.
“OMG yes!!! How did you guess, am I showing?” She said as she stroked her naked mid-riff. And suddenly her outfit came into full perspective.
I muffled out a congratulations and tried to smile but a thousand thoughts were ripping my head in two. On one hand, I was horrified, just
horrified for Jesse, on the other, I was completely self-absorbed in my own painful reality. Why-o-why does God test me this way? I knew, from my years of therapy on this subject that it was not God’s plan to make me infertile, that he didn’t have some special revenge ticket designed just for me, but damn-it it sure felt that way when a barely 16 year old with NO independent means could get pregnant at the drop of a hat and I had three miscarriages and was still paying off the thousands of dollars from our failed fertility treatments and nothing to show for it except two empty arms.
“So, it is Jesse’s right? Does he know?” I tried to bring that up as gingerly as I could NOT wanting to offend her, but I really did have to get clarification.
“For damn sure it is his” she said a little too righteously, “and NO, he doesn’t know yet, I’m going to tell him today, so don’t tell him, cause I want to, he’ll be so excited.”
I tried to gulp down my disbelief in a way that didn’t show that I was throwing up a little in my own mouth. Gag me with ten thousand spoons, lordy god in heaven almighty on a stick rubbed down with peppermint what in the hell are you thinking this time lordy? I just needed a private little swear session with my god in heaven so he and could sort through this. Five minutes in a room with a pillow I could throw around would do just fine.
“Does your mom know?” I asked still in a bit of disbelief, wait ‘til I told Ben this one.
“Yeah, she’s so excited too”
Of course she is. What is it about these women that insists on believing that if you can’t afford a child, have little to no education, that it’s a good thing to have and bring a child into the world. The divide between their beliefs and mine was so big. In my world, education mattered. Self-independence mattered. These things determined your life choices. But then again, here I was, forty and no children of my own. Who was I to say that having a kid at sixteen wasn’t a good thing? Was I that much of a cultural snob to want to push my beliefs on the world. What makes me right and oh so righteous?