The card itself had a rather passionate picture of two silhouettes embracing with wine glasses in hand, something suited more for a lover than a daughter. On the inside, it said tee-hee! Love, Mom! Also included were pictures of her on a beach with a guy at least a decade younger than she was. Both of them were dressed in swimsuits and smiling cheekily to the camera. My long bouts of being single bothered my mother intensely; she couldn’t last a month between relationships. Having a man gave her a definition, almost a container for herself. Without that, she could not keep hold of who she was.
The guy was wearing the tiniest pair of swim briefs ever made, and it was not a pretty sight. A thick mat of hair on his chest and a big gut protruding above the hem of his suit, he had goggles making a second set of eyes on his forehead. Mom looked the same as ever: clinging to a man with too much makeup on and her hair sprayed out like a lion’s mane. It was dyed fire engine red.
Now I had to find the energy to vacuum. Dammit, Mom. Ferrying the card and envelope directly to the trash, I dumped everything in before more glitter could escape. Then I washed my hands, the tiny pieces of sparkle sticking on stubbornly.
What did people do with parents like her? Parents who were essentially impulsive, temperamental kids riding around in adult bodies? If I sent a glitter bomb in return to mess up her house, she would either be delighted I was playing along or else furious that she had to clean it up despite doing the same to me. If I told her I didn’t appreciate the prank, she would scoff and dismiss me as having no sense of humor. Or worse, she would get tearful about how she just wanted to be close and why did I make everything so hard on her? If I ignored it, she would ask incessantly if I’d received her card and then send another one.
There was no way to win. There was never any way to win with her. Over the years I had moved past the need to win, but I just wanted stupid little things like this to stop. The calls from strange men, the prying into my personal life and the terrible sexual over-shares she liked to make, sending me subscriptions to porn or perfect home magazines, depending on her mood, the information packets from reproductive centers given my address . . . All I wanted was a nice, normal relationship with my mother. Not someone who thought I’d like to know about her boyfriend’s erectile dysfunction problems or how she had made two hundred dollars supplying her feet for a fetish party at a BDSM club.
The next time she sent a card, I would return it unopened. And when she called to demand why, I might be tempted to actually unload the truth. Unless she could act like an adult, I wanted to be left alone. Let her throw a tantrum and tell Mr. Tiny Briefs what a horrible, ungrateful daughter I was. I had to stop caring so much about her feelings because she certainly didn’t care about mine. She was worse than dealing with an actual teenager, because teenagers eventually grew up and matured. Mom wasn’t ever going to get any more mature than she was now.
When I got to the station, it was full of tense anticipation. The night had been quiet but tips had come in in a steady stream. They were sorted into credible and not credible, and the credible ones needed to be investigated. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how one looked at it, most were not very credible. A homeless man at the Cheerio Gas on Fourth was asking for money and just looked like a killer. Two psychics thought we were looking for a woman instead of a man; Psychic Sue called back in a rage that we hadn’t followed up on her previous reading. Someone called in to say that Chloe Rogers was a prostitute and Francisco Hernandez was her pimp, and the government had had the two killed for stumbling over state secrets in a zip drive found in a john’s pocket.
“Guess there’s always a chance of that,” Halloran said, and then we picked up a list of newly discovered phone numbers for volunteers and sat down at our desks to call.
No addresses, only initials for names, we were a few minutes in when Reuter came over and said, “Alice Shacter contacted me again. She remembered something about the partitions last night that would help us identify if they used to belong to Pan-Tastic. She used to go to work with her father when she was a kid, she and her younger brother, and the two of them would get bored. They’d sit on the floor in an empty cubicle and try to poke holes through the partitions with pencils, pens, a letter opener, whatever they could get their hands on.”
“Those partitions are already pretty chewed on,” I said.
Reuter blinked at me oddly. “The holes they made would be down real low to the floor. They did it there hoping nobody would notice. And they’d stick gum wrappers and candy wrappers inside the partitions they messed around with before taping or gluing the hole back up.”
“Why are you looking at me like I’ve got something hanging out of my nose, Reuter?” I demanded.
“I’m sorry, Detective. Did you know you have glitter on your cheeks?”
“Oh, for God’s sake.” I pulled a compact out of my desk drawer and opened it. A little glitter sparkled along my cheekbones like I was twenty-two and headed out for a night on the town. Grabbing a tissue, I wiped at my face furiously.
“What did you do last night, Blue?” Halloran asked with a snort of amusement.
“Partied hard,” I snapped. “The way I do.”
“I was wondering who would take all that trash,” Reuter said contemplatively. “But I guess it’s kind of obvious.”
“Please enlighten me then, because I don’t find it obvious,” I said.
“Either someone so dumb or desperate that they thought it was worth something, or a hoarder. Have you seen that show on TV?”
“Reuter, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“It’s called American Collectors, about people who pack their houses so full of stuff that they can’t hardly live in them anymore. Like ten thousand dolls or art supplies or plates, but they go totally overboard with it. There was a woman with a mansion full of toys that she’d bought for her kids and grandkids and friends’ kids, but she’d never given them. She just hung on to everything until every room of her home was engulfed in stuffed animals and sticker books and whatnot. And there was this woman who started collecting survival supplies for Y2K and she’s never stopped in all these years. She’s convinced the world is about to end at any second. Her whole house and the yard were filled with supplies in garbage cans and she was going broke paying for storage units to keep more. Some of the stuff wasn’t even good anymore, like the old granola bars and cans of soup, but she couldn’t get rid of them. Her neighbors were calling the county to complain about the state of her property and she was pissed off at them, saying they’d be singing a different tune once the apocalypse began and she was the only one prepared.”
I’d thought he was about to stop but Reuter kept on chattering. He’d come in at the same time as obnoxious Eller, but Percy Reuter was a sweetheart. He just talked too much. “One man had to walk two blocks to use a fast food restroom because his hoard of garbage was so bad he couldn’t reach his own toilet. It was the new episode that aired last weekend. His family has been trying for years to help him get rid of the trash, but he won’t let go of a thing. In his head, he’s saving the environment. His adult kids, they were twins, the two of them told their dad that it was them or the trash collection. He chose the trash and yelled at them to get out. It was a great episode.”
Reuter swiftly amended his somewhat callous statement as Halloran scribbled down the name of the show. “I mean, it was sad. So, anyway, that’s what the Pan-Tastic theft reminds me of, the guy who collected junk.”
After Reuter excused himself, Halloran said, “What are you thinking, Pengram?”
“We need to have Evidence go over the partitions,” I said. “If those really did once belong to Pan-Tastic Breads and if Alice Shacter’s memory is correct . . . but still, this was almost twenty years ago! Those could have landed in the perp’s hands by countless routes. I think we’re wiser to focus on these Service on Wheels employees and volunteers.”
Halloran grumbled and looked down at his list. “We aren’t getting anywh
ere with these. Last three numbers I called turned out to be little old ladies who haven’t worked for Service on Wheels in years.”
We weren’t getting anywhere with anything. I picked up the phone to call Evidence, my eyes already scanning down the numbers for the next person to contact when I was done.
Chapter Fourteen
The daylight hours were dwindling by the time I chased down two initials and an address that Fagelman had found in the Service on Wheels paperwork. It led me to a fairly wealthy part of Darby, grand homes sprawling out behind curved driveways and beautiful displays of flowers in the gardens. These were showpiece places for professionals, imposing and a little intimidating. The only people outside were laborers washing windows and trimming hedges.
The volunteer referred to as H. B. turned out to be a sullen blonde nineteen-year-old with lacquered nails, designer clothing, and a boatload of attitude. She was obnoxious as hell. The home belonged to her parents, with whom she still lived. Unimpressed with my credentials, not even interested in why I was there, Hannah Blatte didn’t make much effort to answer my questions in their stunning living room. She played a game on her cell phone, beeps and blips and music ringing out, while giving me terse and unhelpful responses.
Her mother wasn’t home but her father was. Doctor Aaron Blatte was an orthopedic surgeon at Darby Memorial Hospital, and his daughter’s rudeness was embarrassing him. Growing increasingly agitated in an armchair, he finally barked, “Put down your goddamned phone and stop wasting the detective’s time! Tell her what she needs to know!”
“I can’t with you here!” Hannah whined. “You make me nervous.”
I nodded to Doctor Blatte, who glared at his daughter until she turned off her phone and chucked it carelessly across the sofa. Then he stepped out of the room, crisp footsteps clipping away on the tiles.
I tried again. “Hannah, when did you begin volunteering with Service on Wheels?”
Sinking into the cushions with a sour expression, Hannah caught a lock of her hair between her fingers and flicked it back and forth. “It was after I graduated from Darby High, so a long while back. Fifteen months? I don’t know.”
“And you’re still volunteering there?”
She huffed and looked away like she was too bored to deal with me. “I guess.”
I wanted to ask what in the world that was supposed to mean, but I had a feeling it would backfire on me. “How many days a week do you work for them?”
“Tuesdays and Thursdays, four-hour shifts in the afternoon.”
“What do you think of the work?”
She rolled her eyes in derision. I was unsure if it was directed at Service on Wheels or me.
“Why do you volunteer there?” I asked.
Her gaze moved to the doorway that her father had passed through. “They told me I had to.”
“Your parents?”
She nodded.
“Why?”
She shrugged.
I stared at her until she got uncomfortable. At last, she said with profound petulance, “I wanted to take a gap year. Dad’s mad about that since my sisters didn’t. They went straight to college. I wanted to go to Europe, see things, expand myself like my friend Charlotte. Know what I mean? I’m not ready for college. I need a major break, like two or three gap years. But Dad wouldn’t let me go with Charlotte.” Her eyes rolled again as she scoffed at this deep indignity inflicted upon her.
“You’re not a minor. Why don’t you just go now?”
“I can’t afford that!” she exclaimed, her eyes widening.
Now I got it. Spoiled little Hannah Blatte had wanted to gallivant around Europe for a gap year or three on Daddy’s credit card. And while this was a very nice area, the homes belonging to doctors and lawyers and dentists and the like, it was not a neighborhood for the exceedingly wealthy. If Daddy was already shelling out for multiple college educations, without some other source of family wealth, he probably couldn’t afford Europe even if he had wanted to send her there.
In a resentful tone, Hannah said, “He and Mom said after my graduation that if I wanted to keep living here without going to college, I’d have to get a full-time job and pay them two hundred bucks a month in rent and buy my own food. All I could find was a part-time job at Checker. I’m in the clothing department hanging up the same cheap, shitty shirts all day long.”
She scoffed all through her statement to indicate how demeaning this was, and how unreasonable her folks were being. It sounded like good parenting to me.
“But since it’s only thirty-two hours a week,” Hannah spat vituperatively, “my dad said I had to fill up the last eight hours with something else. If I couldn’t find eight more hours of work, then he expected eight hours of ‘helping the community’ in some way.” Her air quotes were furious and her tone mocking. “He’s been such an asshole about everything. Mom got me the volunteer position with Service on Wheels, driving food around to geezers and cripples.”
Wow, I thought. This girl was quite the gem.
“And you’re still volunteering?” I repeated.
She wouldn’t meet my eyes.
“You’re not?” I said.
Lowering her voice to barely above a whisper, she said, “They let me go months back.”
She didn’t seem upset about it. She just didn’t want her father to overhear.
“What happened?” I asked.
Twirling her hair and tugging it hard, she said, “Mr. Dagmar found out I wasn’t running the food.”
Aha. “Why weren’t you?”
Air hissed through her nostrils. “Because I’m doing shit, okay? If my friends at Checker got the day off and they invite me to see a movie, what am I supposed to do? Tell them I can’t go along since I’ve got to drive around like an idiot delivering groceries? So I found people to cover me.”
“Who was running it for you?”
One shoulder went up and down in a shrug. “Just random people. Whatever.”
I was going to strangle her, and I sincerely doubted any jury would convict me. “How did you find them?”
Again I waited until the silence became too uncomfortable for her. Then she deigned to answer. “Like at work, I offered people some money to do it. Then I would pick up the big coolers from the office, met the person somewhere and transfer the loaded coolers to their car, give over the address list and be on my way. To catch that movie or go shopping. I couldn’t go too far because I had to go back to our meet-up point and get the empty coolers so I could return them to the office.”
How very inconvenient for you, I thought sarcastically, but kept my face coolly professional.
“I got in big trouble last fall because the woman I paid to do it stole some granola bars out of a bag and the client complained they were missing,” Hannah said. “I had to pretend that I’d eaten them and reimburse the cost.”
“When did you start using other people to deliver for you?”
“I don’t know.”
I began to count to ten to stay calm. I didn’t usually encounter people at their best with what I did, but this entitled little snot was getting on my nerves more than most.
When I hit five, she spoke. “I was doing it myself when I first started the July before last. It was around September or October that I hired it out sometimes. I was so sick of doing it. I would deliver on Tuesday but wouldn’t feel like it on Thursday, for example, so I’d ask Bonnie in Electronics if she wanted to do it. She usually has Thursdays off and needs cash real bad since her ex-boyfriend doesn’t pay shit for their kid. If she couldn’t do it, we’d ask around until we found someone. Richie in Automotive did it a few times . . . and Hayley did it once, she’s a cashier, but she said the money didn’t cover the fuel her land yacht needs. Jorge liked doing it, but he usually worked on the days I needed someone, so he gave it to his brother . . .”
She trailed off momentarily, struggling to remember. “The girls working over at the Furbaby Mine next door to Checker spotted the deliveries fo
r me as well, or they got people in other departments to do it. One even asked a customer if he wanted to make some money and he took her up on it. Sometimes I didn’t know who they were at those meet-up points, someone’s brother’s best friend’s girlfriend’s half-sister’s coworker’s drinking pal’s uncle and so on. I didn’t even get their names. As long as they delivered, who cares?”
She had been lucky that only granola bars were stolen. It would have been all too easy for someone just to drive away with the loot. “Did you have the exact same route each time?” I asked.
“No, they changed from shift to shift. I’d end up going to the same places pretty often, but one shift I might be handling the clients in zones fourteen through sixteen, and the next shift I might have zone ten or eleven. Some zones are bigger than others and have more clients located there. I got a lot of the shit zones in Darby since I was new and just a volunteer. The older women there hog the good routes right by the office, zones one through ten, and send the rest of us out the farthest with zones eleven through twenty-five. We just sit in traffic and don’t get reimbursed for gas or anything.”
Snorting, she glanced out the window to the birds-of-paradise. “Meanwhile I could have been in France. That’s what I did all of those times I was sitting in traffic, pretended I was in France.”
“Did you ever visit the Wengly property? The pumpkin patch place?” I asked.
“Yeah, a bunch of times. I think the Wenglys were a Thursday delivery. The husband died last year sometime so then it was just the wife needing food. He was nice, always slipping me a five for a tip. We aren’t supposed to accept tips but I wasn’t turning down some money for the gas I was wasting. But she was a total bitch.”
“How so?”
“Always trying to keep me there longer to do all the chores. She wouldn’t even look over at me from her chair, just yelled out do this, do that and called me Wendy. It’s like, lady, I’ll take out the trash, but I’m not hanging out here to do your vacuuming or find your favorite wool sweater or dust off the pictures. They’re already taking up four hours of my time in the afternoon; I’m not donating any more. Other people are waiting for their deliveries, too. And who the hell is Wendy?”
Out of the Blue: A Pengram Mystery Page 11