Jo-Ann Lamon Reccoppa - Jersey Girl 01 - New Math Is Murder

by Jo-Ann Lamon Reccoppa

  “My computer’s gone!”

  “Someone walked outta here in broad daylight with a desktop?” Officer O’Reilly asked.

  “I had a laptop!” I said. “A crummy old laptop! I write on that thing! Now what am I supposed to do?”

  “You’ll have to call someone to fix that patio door, for one thing,” O’Reilly advised me. “Then you should either get a burglar alarm or a big, scary dog.”

  The TV was still in the den with the Xbox right beside it, and the silverware was still in its box in the china cabinet. I ran upstairs to my jewelry armoire. Nothing was missing. I checked the kids’ rooms, but there was only the usual disarray.

  My mother’s voice rang out from the kitchen—a piercing shriek that always made me grit my teeth. “Colleen! Are you okay? Just look at this place! It’s like Bobby’s room—all over the house!”

  Officer O’Reilly shook his head, sympathetic, I’m sure, to the kind of evening I was in for. I ran to the kitchen to ward her off.

  “I’m fine. It’s okay, Ma. Really.”

  O’Reilly followed me in. “Everything’s secure here, Mrs. Caruso.”

  Over my mother’s shoulder, my father peered in from the deck. “You’ll be staying at our house tonight,” he told me.

  “Oh, no! I’m staying right here and making sure no one else breaks in and messes with my stuff.”

  “Do you think that’s a good idea?” my mother asked. “What, exactly, is there to guard—the crown jewels or something?”

  “No, but I do have a couple of televisions and a sound system with a zillion CDs, a few decent pieces of jewelry, and tons of other things. I can’t just leave it all here with a hole in the kitchen big enough to drive a tank through.”

  “A car, honey,” my father said. “The patio door isn’t wide enough for a tank.”

  My mother glared at him. “That’s it then, your father will stay with you.”

  “No way!” I told her. “Take Daddy home. I’ll figure out something with the sliding door and start cleaning up. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”

  I sent my reluctant parents home and walked O’Reilly to his squad car.

  “Go through the house carefully and make sure nothing else is missing,” he advised. “You’ll be able to pick up a copy of the police report for your homeowners’ insurance on Tuesday. Call a glass place right now to come fix that door, Mrs. Caruso. If a burglar doesn’t get you, the flies and mosquitoes will.”

  I called every glass place in the county, and they were all closed for the holiday weekend. I thought about hanging a couple of sheets over the opening in the kitchen and decided against it. If I had to stay alone in the house all night, I’d need more than a sheet to make me feel secure. I dialed Ken Rhodes’s cell phone and left a message about the break-in and my stolen computer.

  An hour later, he stood in the gaping hole in my kitchen. “Doing a little remodeling, Colleen?” he asked.

  I sprayed flying-insect killer in his general direction. “The room just screamed out for more light and air,” I told him.

  “I was in Philly when I got your message. Do you have any idea how long it takes to get here from Pennsylvania? I flew through that bottleneck on the turnpike that’s always around Exit 7. I had to ride the shoulder.”

  I shrugged. I didn’t have a clue how long it took. I only knew you pointed your car south if you wanted to go to Philadelphia and reversed the process in order to get home. Time didn’t matter. Rest stops did.

  “What else did they get besides the laptop?” he asked.

  “Nothing else, as far as I can tell. The police were here. Whoever took the computer came in through the kitchen,” I told him, as though Rhodes needed an explanation as to why my patio door was no more.

  “Were you home at the time?”

  “No.”

  “What about your kids?”

  “They’re away having fun with friends and relatives,” I told him. “I’m on my own this weekend.”

  “Where are your parents?”

  “I sent them home. They had me on my last nerve.”

  He looked around the room. “Okay, let’s see what we can do to block up this opening and keep the bugs out.”

  I tossed the near-empty can of insect spray in the garbage. “I thought about hanging sheets over the opening, but I think there might be some kind of wood in the shed.”

  An hour later, the house felt somewhat secure. The wood in the shed wasn’t wood at all. Neil had bought fake tile panels a few years back to use in the upstairs bathroom and stored them away, then forgot all about them. Rhodes hammered them into the door frame to form a makeshift wall. The thin panels would do nothing to keep out an intruder. They were adequate to cover the opening in the kitchen, however, and gave the room an antiseptic, hospital feel.

  “I don’t know about you, but I’m starved,” Rhodes said after he pounded in the last nail. “Do you have anything edible around here, or did they steal your food too?”

  “My cupboards are bare. I can call for takeout if you brought money with you.”

  “The burglar stole your cash?” he asked.

  “Neil’s been late with the temporary support and my freelance checks are few and far between. Maybe if you paid me more?”

  “I’ll spring for takeout,” Rhodes offered. “I assume the phone still works.”

  I nodded. “At least whoever stole my computer was kind enough to disconnect the line.”

  “You mean you still have dial-up?”

  “No. I have DSL. Why?”

  Rhodes smirked. “Nothing. Nothing at all. I’m just surprised you know what that is. Go on and call Vincenzo’s for a pie while I sweep up the rest of the glass.”

  I made the call from my bedroom and came back to help in the kitchen. We were nearly done by the time the pizza arrived. Rhodes felt comfortable enough to go through the cabinets and find the booze. I helped myself to two cans of diet soda, and we ate the slices straight from the box at the dining room table.

  I barely made it through two slices. Rhodes had four and washed them down with scotch and water.

  “What I don’t get is why your computer was taken,” Rhodes said as he eyed the leftover slices.

  “Beats me. I have all of my articles on there and my Jason Whitley notes. I also started a spreadsheet to help me keep my checkbook straight. I didn’t get very far. I never did get the hang of Excel.”

  “So either Whitley’s killer broke in here and stole your laptop or your husband took it,” he said.

  “Neil?”

  “Yeah. Neil.”

  I didn’t see the connection. “Why would Neil want my computer? It’s old, it’s slow. It isn’t worth a dime.”

  “Maybe he needed something stored on the hard drive.”

  Neil would have no use for any information on the computer. He was more interested in the color of Theda’s panties than my checkbook balance.

  “Think about it,” Rhodes continued. “Maybe there’s a file that means something to him.”

  “No way.”

  “Was anything of his on the computer—something he wouldn’t want you to find?”

  “Like what? Incriminating evidence? I already know about his bimbo partner. The laptop was strictly a home-use computer. The kids used it, I used it, and Neil only used it now and then. For all I know, he could have been searching for porn sites.”

  “Maybe he had his own spreadsheets—with a little creative Caruso and Oates bookkeeping.”

  Rhodes had a point. Everything I thought I’d known about my husband turned out to be a lie. He’d hidden money from me. Cheated on me. Deliberately kept me in the dark. Neil might very well have had his own files. It never occurred to me to look.

  I lifted one of the two remaining slices from the pizza box and nibbled. We stopped talking, intent on polishing off the pie, and listened to insects splat against the panels outside the kitchen.

  “Did you hear that?” Rhodes asked.

  “Moth
s,” I told him.

  “Not moths. They’re drawn to light. There’s no light going through those panels I nailed in. Something’s scratching against them.”

  I swallowed the food in my mouth and listened more closely. It didn’t sound like insects at all.

  “What is that?” I asked.

  Rhodes left the table and went to the dining room window. I followed about half an inch behind him and crashed into his back when he stopped to look out the vertical blinds.

  Rhodes shook his head. “Yeah. Well, it’s a little big for a moth.”

  I looked through the glass and let out a small, startled shriek. A face pressed up against the other side of the window—smashed nose, maniacal eyes, and a mouth stretched open wide like a demon.

  “It’s Neil!”

  21

  I grabbed the broom from the kitchen and flew out the front door. By the time I reached the backyard, Neil was off the deck and around the other side, heading toward the street.

  “What are you gonna do, Colleen? Sweep me to death?” Neil said.

  Sweeping him never occurred to me. I brought the broom up to my shoulder and took my best shot. Neil turned to escape, but I ran faster. I caught him in the small of his back.

  “Are you out of your mind?” he screamed, more shocked than hurt.

  I took aim again, but Ken Rhodes caught the broom in mid-swing and pulled it from my hands.

  “You can’t assault the guy, Colleen. Unless you have a restraining order against him, he’s simply trespassing.”

  “I’m not trespassing!” Neil argued. “This is my house! My mother-in-law called me! She told me about the break-in and said I should get over here right away.”

  “It figures,” I said. “That was three hours ago, Neil. Good thing I wasn’t in any real danger.”

  “She didn’t call for me to come save you, Colleen. She called to blame me for leaving. She said it’s all my fault the house got broken into!”

  “You didn’t happen to crash through the sliding door this afternoon and steal my laptop, did you?” I asked him.

  “What would I want with your laptop?”

  “I don’t know. Nothing at all, I guess. Maybe just some financial records you’re trying to keep from me!” I yelled.

  “Come on, Colleen. Do you honestly think I’d leave that stuff behind for you to find?” he argued.

  “Why not? You left enough papers and bank statements here to keep my lawyer busy for the next four months,” I said. I took a deep breath to get my emotions under control. “Okay. At least the computer’s not irreplaceable. The homeowner’s policy should cover it, along with the patio door. I’ll give the insurance agent a call on Tuesday—but even he can’t replace my lost files.”

  Neil stared down at the grass, afraid, I knew, to meet my eyes. I had a bad feeling about this.

  “What?” I asked.

  “About the insurance …”

  “You stupid cheapskate!”

  I made a grab for the broom, but Rhodes kept it away from me.

  “I’m sorry, Colleen,” Neil said. “I forgot all about the insurance when we paid off the house last year! It was always included in the mortgage payment. I made a little mistake.”

  He didn’t sound the least bit sorry. “You forgot? Just like you forgot to tell me about your other bank accounts, you conniving snake!” I yelled.

  I went for Neil, but Ken reached out and pulled me back. Behind my ex-husband, Officer O’Reilly’s squad car pulled up to the curb.

  “This should be interesting,” Ken muttered.

  From the ear-to-ear grin on James O’Reilly’s face, it looked like he thought it would be interesting, too. “One of your neighbors called into the station …” he began, and Neil jumped right in to state his case.

  “This woman assaulted me, and I want her arrested!”

  “Excuse me?” the young cop said.

  “She battered me! My wife hit me with that broom!”

  “Ex-wife,” I said automatically.

  “She accused me of stealing her computer, and she beat me!”

  “Mr. Caruso, please. The caller said there was a disturbance at this address, not a beating,” O’Reilly informed him.

  Neil’s face flushed red with rage. To prove his point, he lifted his shirt and turned around. “See? Just look at my back! I’ll bet there’s a welt or a black-and-blue mark or something!”

  O’Reilly barely glanced Neil’s way. “Sorry, Mr. Caruso. Your back looks fine to me, and I didn’t see Mrs. Caruso with the broom in her hand. I’m only here responding to a call about a disturbance. I guess your neighbors thought things were getting a little rowdy. Try to keep it down, okay?”

  The young cop wouldn’t give Neil an inch. My soon-to-be ex knew when he was licked. He walked to his Lexus and opened the door, but couldn’t resist a few parting shots before leaving.

  “By the way, Colleen, the property taxes are probably due soon—they’re paid quarterly. And since your lawyer wants you to have the house, I won’t be paying them.”

  Thank God Rhodes and O’Reilly were there to hold me back or I might have killed him.

  * * *

  Inside the house, I cleaned off the dining room table and carried the empty pizza box outside to the garbage can. The sun had set, and the air felt thick with humidity. The moon appeared hazy, bright, and sinister.

  Ken Rhodes made himself comfortable in the living room. He switched on the TV and caught the Mets winning for a change. I threw open the windows to let in the steaming fresh air and took the chair on the other side of the room. I didn’t feel much like watching baseball.

  “Isn’t there something else on?” I asked.

  “Not really. That’s the problem with central Jersey—no Phillies games,” Rhodes complained.

  “What were you doing in Pennsylvania this weekend, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “I do mind.”

  “I sure hope I didn’t interrupt your covert weekend with my personal problems. As you no doubt noticed, my life is an open book.”

  “Your life is an ongoing comedy. I never met anyone who fumbles through each day the way you do.”

  “It’s all Neil’s fault,” I whined.

  Rhodes lowered the volume on the Mets game and leaned forward. “Neil is incidental right now. It’s your fault, Colleen. Take charge. You can handle insurance payments and taxes.”

  “My mother got to you, right?”

  He smirked. “I’ve never even met your mother.”

  I got up from the chair and joined him on the sofa. “I not stupid. Naïve, maybe. Idealistic. I still can’t believe Neil could be such a schmuck. Geez, can they take the house if my taxes aren’t paid on time?”

  Rhodes put his arm around me. “Call the tax office Tuesday morning and see when they were paid last. Then call your lawyer.”

  “Do you really think Neil broke in here and stole my computer?” I asked, although deep inside me, my brand-new, almost-single self was asking, Neil? Neil who?

  “I’m guessing whoever killed Jason Whitley took your computer. He’s getting antsy now.”

  “Or she,” I said. “And I’m getting more and more convinced a woman killed Jason Whitley. My mother and I went grave hopping this afternoon. We saw Betty Vernon at Whitley’s grave. After she left, Jennifer Whitley, her little boy, and Kevin Sheffield dropped by. Jennifer Whitley spit on Jason’s grave when she was leaving.”

  “The infamous Jersey expression of love,” he said.

  Rhodes leaned back into the sofa and brought me with him. Somehow it didn’t seem so bad that I’d been nearly run over in a parking lot, drowned in the bay, and smashed by a bookcase. My life had been threatened and my house had been burglarized, and I wasn’t jumping out of my skin. Suddenly, it didn’t bother me as much that my finances were as shattered as my toaster and my house would probably be put up for auction because I owed back taxes. I sat on a soft sofa on a humid spring night with Ken Rhodes’s strong arm draped
comfortably across my shoulders. The Mets were just a haze of blue and white on the television screen, accompanied by the pleasant drone of the ballpark crowd.

  I felt safe and secure and very drowsy. My eyes grew heavy, and the living room blurred. I fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

  22

  Bobby burst through the front door at ten in the morning, full of energy from his trip with the Thompsons.

  “I need my uniform, Mom! We have a game at noon!”

  I had forgotten all about the Memorial Day baseball game against the Cardinals. “Hi, Sweetie! How was your trip?”

  “Great, but I’m thirsty!” He ran into the kitchen and stopped short when he saw Ken Rhodes.

  I felt the need to explain Rhodes’s presence. “Bobby, this is my editor up at the newspaper. He was nice enough to come over here to help …”

  “Mom, where’s the patio door?” he interrupted.

  “That’s why Mr. Rhodes is here. We had a problem,” I explained. “Someone broke into the house.”

  “Really?” Bobby sounded far too happily intrigued. “Wow! What’d they get?”

  “The only thing missing is my laptop.”

  My son gave me a huge, delighted grin. “Good, I’d miss the TV.”

  I reminded Bobby about his game, gave him a bottle of cold water from the fridge, and shooed him out of the kitchen. He bounded up the stairs and slammed his bedroom door. Sounds of shoes and toys being tossed around overhead made the kitchen walls vibrate. I knew he was searching for his cleats and stirrups.

  “I have to take Bobby down to the Little League field. I’ll call my mother to come over and watch the house. I know you have things to do,” I told Ken Rhodes.

  “I can stay,” he said.

  “And do what?”

  “I’ll find something to do—go through your personal papers, check out your underwear drawer …”