A Quarter for a Kiss

by Mindy Starns Clark

  “Your ministry?” Tom asked, and Stella looked at him defensively.

  “Everybody needs hugs,” she said, “but when you’re old and alone, no one ever touches you. So I go in there dressed like a teddy bear, and I hug all of the old folks. For some of them, that’s the only hug they’ll get all week.”

  Tom reached out and patted Stella’s hand.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I think that sounds wonderful.”

  “Anyway,” she continued, “Eli always picks me up at five-forty so we can make it to the Speedy Sailor for the Friday Night Special. You can get crab cakes and a bowl of oyster stew for a dollar ninety-nine if you’re in your seat by six o’clock.”

  “Wow,” I said, stifling a smile. Despite her healthy bank account, Stella was known for her eccentric money-saving habits.

  “Yes, but this time we weren’t going to make it, and I was mad at Eli for making us late. I came out of the nursing home at five fifty-five, and he was just walking up the street toward me from where he had parked the car about half a block away. Then, all of a sudden, he just fell down onto the ground. I was getting ready to fuss at him for being late, and the next thing I knew he had collapsed.”

  She went on to repeat the description she had given me earlier of the fall and then the distant gunshot and then the blood.

  “Thank goodness we weren’t alone. I started screaming and people came running. Pretty soon an ambulance and the police were there too.”

  “Were any other shots fired?” Tom asked.

  “No, and the cops didn’t catch anybody. They weren’t even sure what direction the shot had come from. It’s a busy area, with a lot of buildings. I’m sure it could’ve been done from any number of places.”

  “Do the police think it was just a random shooting?” I asked, leaning forward.

  “The cops are presuming it was random,” Stella said. “But I know better.”

  “What do you mean?” Tom asked.

  “As soon as Eli got shot, he told me, ‘Nadine said he was coming. You have to call Tom Bennett. Show him my notes.’”

  I looked at Tom, who seemed genuinely confused.

  “Call me about what?” he asked. “What notes?”

  “I don’t know. He just kept saying, ‘Promise me you’ll call Tom. Nadine was right.’”

  “Nadine who?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” Stella replied. “We don’t know anyone named Nadine.”

  “Tom?” I pressed. “Do you know someone named Nadine?”

  He shook his head no.

  “He wanted you here too, Callie,” Stella said. “He was kind of talking out of his head, but he said only you would know where the notes are.”

  I sat up straight, completely stumped. How would I know where his notes were? What notes? While we often spoke on the phone, Eli had never mentioned anything that even remotely gave me an idea about what was going on with him.

  “Stella, why would I know where he kept something like that? He’s never said anything to me about any notes.”

  She shook her head, the expression on her face one of desperation.

  “Eli’s been up to something,” she said. “Some kind of investigation. For a while now.”

  “Was he working for someone?”

  “Not that I know of. It started a few months ago, down at our vacation house in the Virgin Islands. One day he said something about ‘running a license plate.’ Next thing I knew, he was going out on surveillance and talking about security systems and rounding up all kinds of odd little tools.”

  “Tools?”

  “Like, detective things. I don’t know. I wish I had paid more attention, asked more questions. He’d been so bored since he retired, but once this case got rolling, it’s like the old spark was back. I was just glad to see him so alive and active. I let him do his thing and I did mine.” Her eyes filled with tears. “Oh, why didn’t I see what he was getting himself into? I should’ve been more involved.”

  I pictured Eli at the height of his game, back when he and I worked together in his detective agency. Between cases, he always seemed sort of lost and depressed, but once we were on the trail of someone or something, it was as though every part of him came alive. I tried explaining that to Stella, tried to make her understand that he had always been that way, that none of this was her fault.

  “But this time,” she cried, “whatever he was doing, he ended up getting shot! What if he dies, Callie? What if they come back again and try to kill him? You have to help us!”

  She grabbed the box of tissues on the side table, pulled out a handful, and then bent forward and sobbed into them. Tom looked at me intently over the top of her head.

  “First things first,” he said softly. “I’ll make some calls and get some round-the-clock security in here. Don’t you worry, Stella. No one’s going to get near Eli now.”

  He patted her arm, stood, and walked away, pulling out his cell phone by the elevator.

  “It’s okay, Stella,” I assured her, slipping my arm around her shoulders. “Whatever Eli was doing, whatever got him into this mess, I promise you Tom and I will figure out what is going on.”

  Three

  By 3:00 A.M. Stella was finally allowed to see Eli. They let her stay for exactly five minutes, and when she came back out, she was as white as a sheet. Apparently, her beloved husband was still unconscious, covered with tubes and wires and breathing through a respirator, his tenuous heartbeat flashing on a screen behind the bed.

  “They said the next twenty-four hours are the most critical,” Stella told us. “They don’t know if he’ll make it to the morning.”

  Once again, the thought of losing Eli made my stomach suddenly whoosh out from under me, like a giant drop on a roller coaster. Eli was always so full of life! How could he possibly die?

  At 3:30 A.M. the private security Tom had hired showed up, a big, muscular man with a crew cut, wearing a suit and tie. He went with Tom to speak to the hospital staff and iron out the details of Eli’s protection, and while they were gone I had Stella give me of a list of things she wanted from home. She wasn’t going to leave the hospital anytime soon, and I thought she at least might like a change of clothes.

  It was nearly 4:00 A.M. by the time Tom and I drove out of there and headed toward Stella and Eli’s condominium. I was very torn, because a part of me wanted to be with Eli as well, but another part of me was anxious to get to the house to see if I could figure out where Eli might have stashed the “notes” he had spoken of. If he was still in danger, the best way we could protect him was not by sitting around in the waiting room and staring at each other but by unearthing whatever had gotten him shot in the first place.

  The complex where Eli and Stella lived was an expansive community of pastel-hued buildings that lined both sides of a series of tidy, winding roads. The buildings looked so much alike—and there were so many of them—that if it hadn’t been for the giant street signs that marked every corner, we never would have found our way to their home. It was at the very end of the farthest street, in what had to be the priciest section of the entire community because of its proximity to the water. Careful to park in a “visitor” spot and not one of the assigned spaces, we got out of the car and headed up the walk. Theirs was an end unit, and by the light of the nearly full moon I could easily see around the side of the building to the wide sandy beach that lay beyond. Everything was so quiet and still I could even hear the gentle lapping of the waves in the distance.

  Stella had given Tom a key, but when he tried to put it into the lock, the door simply swung open.

  “What on earth?” Tom said as he reached inside and flipped on the light.

  We gasped.

  The living room had been completely destroyed, the couch torn to shreds, the drawers dumped onto the floor. Shards of glass littered the carpet along with dirt from a number of upended potted plants.

  Tom moved forward as if to check out the rest of the house, but I grabbed his arm and hel
d him back.

  “No,” I whispered. “Someone could still be in there.”

  I was thinking we could call the police from the car. We were just backing out of there when we heard the word “Freeze!”

  Looking up, we saw a woman across the room, standing in the shadows, holding up what looked like a gun. Instinctively, Tom moved in front of me, his arms held out by his sides.

  “What are you doing here? Who are you?” the woman demanded.

  I squinted, looking closer, and realized the “gun” she held was simply a small black blow-dryer. I stepped forward, pushing Tom’s arm down and out of my way.

  “We’re friends of Eli Gold,” I said calmly. “Who are you?”

  She hesitated, the blow-dryer visibly trembling in her hands.

  “I-I’m Jodi,” she said. “Stella’s daughter.”

  Stella’s daughter? From what Stella had told us at the hospital, Jodi was on an extended trip and couldn’t be reached.

  “We won’t hurt you, Jodi,” Tom said. “You can put down the gun.”

  “It’s not a gun,” I said dryly. “It’s a blow-dryer.”

  At that the girl lowered her arms and stepped forward into the light.

  “I remember you from the wedding,” she said, looking at me.

  “Is there anyone else here?”

  “No,” she said, and I could tell she was near tears. “Where is my mother? What’s happening?”

  “Have you called the police?” I asked, ignoring her questions for the moment.

  “No, I just came in and saw all of this…” Her voice trailed off.

  “I’ll do it,” Tom said.

  He pulled out his cell phone, dialed information, and headed outside. As he asked for the number of the local police, I convinced Jodi to walk outside also, away from the crime scene, and wait on the sidewalk with Tom. Then I went back in by myself and walked carefully through the entire condo to view the damage that had been done. It was awful. Every single room had been destroyed. Obviously, someone had been here looking for something. If Eli had hidden his notes in this place, they were no doubt gone by now, whether that’s what the person was looking for or not.

  I felt certain this confirmed that Eli truly was in danger, and that it had not been a random shooting. My guess was that he was on someone’s trail, and they had taken a drastic and potentially deadly step to stop him.

  By the time I went back outside, Tom was off the phone, Jodi was pacing back and forth on the grass, and the security guard for the complex was just striding up the walk. He was a short, chubby man in a navy blue uniform, and though he carried no gun he did wear a badge pinned to his crisp shirt.

  He seemed quite upset, and I realized he was afraid this incident might cost him his position. He kept wringing his hands and saying, “I told management this job is too big for one person!” Tom tried to calm him down by reassuring him that if someone wanted to break in somewhere badly enough, there wouldn’t be enough security in the world to stop them.

  The police showed up about ten minutes later, and though they weren’t using their sirens, the flashing lights and the sounds of their voices roused some of the neighbors. A large crowd gathered on the front lawn, mostly made up of senior citizens in pajamas and slippers.

  As they learned of Eli’s shooting and the break-in, they seemed to grow quite upset. I was glad to hear a small cluster of women decide to go to the hospital later in the morning to sit with Stella.

  As for me, I tried to get as close to the action inside as I could, finally convincing the police officer manning the door that I was both a private investigator and a friend of the Golds, and that I needed to know what had happened for the sake of my own investigation into the matter. He didn’t ask for my PI license, which was fortunate since I didn’t have one for Florida. Chances are, one of the other states I was registered in had reciprocity, but I hadn’t had the time to find out. The officer did ask if I had a permit to carry a weapon, and I told him that I did not, that I was primarily a business investigator and that I never carried a gun.

  In any event he finally let me come inside and observe the goings-on there. The police seemed to be processing the break-in very slowly, which I supposed was good, considering the sniper shooting earlier in the evening. Though the detective handling the attempted murder didn’t actually come to the scene of the break-in, he did communicate by telephone. I was glad to see they were taking fingerprints of the whole place, and though Tom and I hadn’t touched anything inside, Jodi had, so the cops rolled a set of prints for her merely as an elimination.

  The sun was coming up by the time the police decided they were finished at the scene. They gave us the telephone number of a service that specialized in crime scene cleanup and suggested we call later in the morning. They also requested that Stella come home as soon as possible to look through everything and file a report on whatever might be missing.

  Tom agreed to stay at the condo while Jodi and I drove to the hospital to get Stella. I wasn’t too worried about leaving him there in any danger because, now that it was daylight, half the neighborhood was clustered on the lawn. Any criminal who might choose to return to the scene of the crime would have to make their way through a squadron of agitated senior citizens to get there.

  I hadn’t talked much to Jodi at the scene, but once we were alone in the car, she peppered me with questions about all that had happened. I tried to answer her as thoroughly as I could. She said she didn’t know Eli all that well, but he seemed a nice enough guy and it was a shame he’d been shot.

  “Now I wish I’d taken the time to get to know him better,” she lamented. “I wasn’t very nice to him at the wedding.”

  “How long has it been since you were home?” I asked.

  “Last fall,” she said. “I went to France to do some graduate work. Then I kind of got sidetracked.”

  “Sidetracked?”

  “There was this guy. He wanted to tour Europe, wanted me to go with him…you know how it is.”

  “I see,” I said, not really knowing how it was at all.

  From what I recalled of Jodi, she was a sweet person but rather immature for her age. She was somewhere in her mid-twenties, the kind of woman who looked quite striking when she was all done up with fancy hair and makeup—and quite plain when she wasn’t. I met her at her loveliest, at Eli and Stella’s wedding several years before, and when I saw her the next morning in her housecoat and glasses, with no makeup and her hair askew, I barely recognized her.

  She more closely resembled that person now, wearing dirty jeans and a faded button-down shirt, her hair pulled back into a messy ponytail. She seemed very tired, and as she described the hours and connections it had taken her to fly back home to the States, I understood why.

  “I had been thinking about coming home for a while,” she said, “and yesterday there was a flight available, so I took it. I didn’t think I’d miss Franco at all, but I do.”

  She wiped at her face, and I realized she was crying.

  “Franco?” I asked gently.

  “My boyfriend. Ex-boyfriend. We broke up yesterday.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry.”

  “He just wanted me for my money.” She shifted in her seat, leaning her head against the glass of the passenger window and closing her eyes. “I just had my twenty-fifth birthday, and that means now I can have access to the trust fund my daddy left me. I’ve been thinking a lot about the money and what I’m going to do with it. When I told Franco that I’ve decided to give it all away to charity, he went nuts. He was like, ‘I’ve waited all this time for you to get your inheritance, and now you tell me you’re just getting rid of it? You’re just giving it all away? I’ve been wasting my time.’”

  “Wow.”

  “I’m such a sucker when it comes to men. I have always made bad choices.”

  We reached the entrance to the hospital, and I slowed to turn in.

  “I thought I was getting older and wiser,” she added, “but once
all this happened with Franco, I realized I’m still making the wrong choices. I decided I needed to come home, get back into therapy, and maybe let Mom take care of me for a while.”

  We were silent as I parked the car, but before we got out, I turned to look her in the eye.

  “You understand that that’s no longer an option,” I said. “At least not right now.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your mother’s husband has been shot. Her home has been destroyed. If anyone needs to be taken care of, Jodi, it’s her.”

  She looked back at me, rather startled, and then she finally nodded.

  “Of course,” she said softly. “Of course.”

  As we walked into the hospital together, I warned Jodi that her mother would be wearing a fur costume thanks to hug day at the nursing home.

  “That sounds just like her,” Jodi said, rolling her eyes. “She once picked me up from school in a full beekeeper’s uniform. I nearly died of humiliation.”

  “A beekeeper’s uniform?”

  “She had been helping a friend with the bees in his orchard, and she didn’t take time to change clothes.”

  “That’s funny.”

  “The problem with my mother,” Jodi continued as we rode up in the elevator, “is that she lives in her own little world most of the time. She just doesn’t realize how nutty her actions look to other people.”

  I thought about the way Eli and Stella first met. Stella’s two sons had wanted to have Stella declared mentally incompetent, so they hired Eli to investigate their mother and provide proof. And though Eli had followed Stella around and snapped photos of her doing things like break-dancing in the park and spontaneously picking up trash along the highway, he also found himself falling head over heels in love with her. In the end, he gave the sons back their money and told them their mother wasn’t incompetent, just eccentric. Afterward, Eli began courting Stella, and a year later the lifelong bachelor married the eccentric widow. As far as I knew, things had been wonderful between them since.

  We found Stella in the intensive care waiting room, right where I had left her, though now she was speaking with two police officers. I was afraid that, after the shooting, learning of the break-in might just send her over the top, but she seemed perfectly calm.