by Lucy Finn
“Why would you think that I did?”
“Because of Alvin Hoyt. I believe he was the person frightening the owners, and he had been in contact with someone from this salvage yard.”
George London listened attentively. He didn’t appear hostile or threatening in any way, but I felt somewhat uncomfortable and regretted walking into this situation unprepared. “That’s a very disturbing conclusion for you to have made. A lot of people contact this salvage yard for car parts. Why would you think I or someone from my company had any interest in the Wyoming property?”
“Because Alvin Hoyt had been in touch with your employee, Ms. Kawatchski, and Ms. Kawatchski recently researched the deed for Jade Meadow Farm.” Something in George London’s face changed, just for a microsecond, and my uneasiness deepened. I decided diplomacy was called for. I went on quickly. “Please don’t misunderstand me, I’m not accusing anyone of anything. And now, especially since Mr. Hoyt has—has passed on, I am concerned. I wanted to personally convey the information that any inquiries into buying that particular property need to go through me.”
George London studied me for a moment, then nodded. “Of course. You would be working for a commission. Now I understand your concerns. Do you have a card?” He seemed to conclude that my visit was all about my slice of the pie and was visibly relieved.
I had printed out a few business cards on my office computer before I left for the courthouse this morning. They looked cheap and unimpressive, but they’d have to do until I had better ones made up at Office Depot. I handed one to Mr. London. “I recently moved back into this area and have gone into private practice here. I was formerly with Withersham, Carlisle, and Katz in Philadelphia.” My previous employer was a big gun in Pennsylvania real estate. From the look of surprise that crossed London’s face, I suspected he recognized the name.
“I appreciate your stopping by, Ms. Patton. If this is a property my company has any interest in—and I’m not aware that it does—I’ll be sure we contact you.”
That sounded like a dismissal to me. He stood up. I did also and picked up my briefcase. George London escorted me out. None of the troopers busy with their brunch and conversation paid any attention to me; Joann Kawatchski gave me a smirk as we passed her desk. I stepped out into the damp November air wondering if coming here had been a very big mistake.
I had a short discussion with myself on the way back to the house over whether or not I should tell Gene about my experience at the junkyard. It didn’t take me long to decide I wouldn’t mention it. Okay, maybe that was a coward’s way out, but despite my misgivings after speaking with George London, I soon mentally worked out a way to wrap up the Katos’ case without any danger to life or limb. Hammering out the details might take a few hours, but I had every confidence that their problems were essentially over—and the case might bring in a substantial fee that I hadn’t foreseen.
I felt good about the Katos, but as I drove, my thoughts turned to Freddi. Meddling in people’s lives can backfire. I knew that. Just the same, Freddi was somebody I truly loved. Maybe I should use my third wish to give her what she needed—even if it meant not getting what I wanted. What I wanted was Gene, of course. Only I didn’t want him if he didn’t want me. Okay, that was a lie. I did want him even if he didn’t want me, but I was smart enough to know that in the end, that arrangement wouldn’t work. Worst-case scenario: I’d wish for Gene to stay in this time and place and he would—and would leave me anyway. He might never forgive me for taking away his only chance to go home, or…or he’d stay and find somebody else. That bastard! I felt myself getting all worked up.
Ergo, I was back to Plan B, as in B for baby. Thinking like a lawyer as well as a best friend, I decided a preliminary investigation was necessary. Also, I could use a haircut. I called Freddi from my cell phone to see if she had a customer. She told me she was between appointments, so I made a sharp right off the highway and arrived at Freddi’s Beauty Shop in minutes.
The only occupant of the beauty shop was Cuddles, Freddi’s aging dog. I noticed that Freddi’s favorite flea market find, a painting of Elvis on velvet, had been replaced with a poster of American Idol Taylor Hicks.
I had put down my briefcase when Freddi walked into the shop. Her eyes were puffy. I didn’t know if she had been crying or if the fertility drugs were making her bloat.
“What happened to Elvis?” I asked.
“He’s in the bathroom. I put the king closer to the throne.” She laughed and followed my eyes to the poster. “You watch American Idol?”
“No. Never got into it.”
“You should. Taylor’s really good. ‘Soul Patrol. Soul Patrol,’” she chanted.
I looked at her blankly.
“Oh, never mind,” she said and ordered me to sit down.
I settled myself in the barber’s chair, staring at myself in the mirror, a sheet wrapped around my neck. I told Freddi I needed a trim.
“Trim? You need a good cut. Your ends are split. You still lightening your hair yourself?” she asked.
“I don’t lighten my hair. That’s my natural shade,” I protested.
“Yeah, right. You started using lemon juice on your hair in grade school. Remember the time in high school—”
“Don’t remind me.” I cringed beneath the sheet.
“You decided to go platinum right before the junior prom. Your hair turned green. My mother had to cut most of it off.”
“Okay, so I looked like Sinéad O’Connor. It was pretty trendy.”
“Your date was horrified.”
“I was horrified. He was wearing a powder blue tuxedo and had gotten new glasses. I thought I was with Elton John.”
“And you opted to go Goth at the last minute. You looked like Marilyn Manson in drag.”
“How could you tell if Marilyn Manson was in drag?”
“Point. But back to your hair.” She lifted some strands in the back and studied them. “You’ve got three or four different shades going on here. I need to give you a rinse. Even it out, okay?”
I agreed and told her to do whatever she wanted, as long as she didn’t scalp me.
I stayed quiet while Freddi shampooed me and picked up her scissors. I hated to get her worked up while she was cutting. Last time she had a fight with Bobby I ended up with Mamie Eisenhower bangs. They were hideous. But it was now or never. I asked her how she was feeling, with the fertility drugs and all.
“I feel like crap. Nervous. Jumpy. Bobby can’t do anything right. I’m all over him. Then the waiting and suffering ends up being all for nothing. I get my period, and the whole insanity starts all over again. And no way can we afford in vitro. Even if we mortgaged the house. Besides, the success rates are pretty low.”
“You’re going to keep trying, right?”
“Maybe. I guess. I’m beginning to think I have to accept that I’m not going to get pregnant. And Bobby would be okay with that. As it is, we’re fighting all the time. I’m crying or screaming at him half the day. It’s like having PMS on steroids. I think if I keep taking these drugs our marriage is going to go down the crapper.”
I let out a deep sigh. Freddi and Bobby had been together since tenth grade. “I can’t imagine you split up.”
Freddi’s scissors paused. She looked at me in the mirror. “Ravine, you know I never went to college, but I see a lot of life doing hair. I really do. Couples split up all the time, and over dumb stuff too. But mostly they just change. Grow apart. I’m not the same person I was in high school. I have interests now, like papermaking. I’ve even used papyrus. I bet you didn’t know I did that. I like libraries too. Every town I drive through, I stop off and look for the public library. Bobby likes NASCAR races and tractor pulls. I don’t know if we have anything in common anymore. I’m more than ‘Bobby’s girl.’ I could make it on my own.”
“Well, what if you do get pregnant? Would it change anything?”
“It would change a lot. I’d fight like hell to keep my marriage toget
her because I want my baby to have a family. Right now, to tell the truth, sometimes I think God knows best. I’m not pregnant because I’d be better off without Bobby Timko. You know, Ravine, you have to be careful what you wish for.” Her eyes welled up with tears. Oh great, she was still cutting and I bet she couldn’t see. I told her I thought it was the drugs talking. She put down the scissors, thank God, wiped her eyes, and said she guessed I was right.
After a quick blow-dry, I gave her a hug and left. My hair had bounce and the color was great, but I thought it was a little shorter on the right side. I’d even it out myself if I had to. That didn’t bother me. Freddi’s situation did. It wasn’t clear-cut—no pun intended—that a baby was what she needed right now. Maybe she needed to move on with her life, without Bobby. Or maybe a baby would save her marriage. No matter which way I looked at it, I didn’t get the easy answers I wanted. And behind it all, no matter how I viewed it, I wanted things to work out between Gene and me even though I faced the unpleasantness of taking him with me to find Queen Nefertitty.
Gene noticed my hair. He thought it looked good. He didn’t say much more until after my mother showed up to watch Brady and we left the house. Once we were in the Beemer and rolling down the highway, he turned to me and asked, “How do you intend to handle this?”
I hadn’t come up with any brilliant plan, so I said as much. “Ummm, I’m going to ask Queen Nefertitty to hand over the urn.”
“And why should she?”
“Because she is in possession of stolen property. If she doesn’t want to surrender it, my client can log a complaint with the police. She faces arrest. I think she can be made to see reason.”
“I think you’re being naive. And I don’t think it’s going to be that easy,” he said, looking out the window and not at me.
“Okay. I hear you. What do you suggest?”
“Turn around and go home. Insist your client call the cops, lodge the complaint, and leave it to them.”
“I told my client I’d give this a try first,” I said, my hands tightening on the steering wheel.
“That was before she told you that this woman carried a weapon, right?”
“Right.”
“But you’re still going to do this?”
I let out a deep breath. “Yes, I am. So do you have any constructive advice on how to handle this better?”
Gene turned his head and looked at me hard. I had to keep my eyes on the road but I could see him watching me. Out of my peripheral vision I thought I detected the hint of a smile before he said, “I might have a suggestion.” He ran it by me and I agreed that we should give it a try.
According to the note which accompanied Tawnya Jones’s retainer check, Queen Nefertitty lived on South Franklin Street in downtown Wilkes-Barre, a once-elegant neighborhood gone to seed, hookers, and street crime. I pulled my BMW into the nearest municipal parking lot a little after twelve noon. Since my client told me Queen Nefertitty was an exotic dancer, I assumed that meant she worked nights and slept late. All I knew about strip clubs was what I saw on The Sopranos, but I figured the odds were good for catching her at home.
The day had gotten even grayer, and a fine rain started to fall as Gene and I walked a few blocks before we found the nineteenth-century brick home which had been converted into apartments. Gene’s presence at my side felt comforting, and with him along, I didn’t feel apprehensive about the coming confrontation. Instead, I was spinning fantasies about Gene and me working as a team in the future. I should have been focusing on reality and the business ahead.
Instead, as we climbed onto the porch, my heart began to race. Adrenaline filled me with excitement. I looked at Gene. I gave him a thumbs-up. I should have known better. Woulda, coulda, shoulda, but I didn’t. So far this day had been filled with surprises. As I was about to find out, I wasn’t ready for this one.
Three apartments occupied the building, one on each floor. I found a buzzer labeled SANDRA THOMPSON, APT. 3C. There was no Queen Nefertitty listed—no surprise there—and I figured Sandra had to be the person Tawnya Jones had called “Sandy.” I pressed the button. A few seconds later, the front door buzzed and clicked open. Gene and I pushed through it, went up a wide staircase, and knocked on 3C, the only apartment on the top level.
The door opened wide enough to reveal a black man so massive he had muscles in his hair. “You not Boomer. Who you?” he yelled, and tried to slam the door shut.
I didn’t see Gene move but he must have, because the door sprang open wider, pushing the big man backward. The black giant stood there, his mouth gaping open and his eyes huge. “How you do that? And where you get off coming in here?” He got only Gene’s stone face for an answer. “You cops?” Impersonating an officer is a crime, so Gene said only that he was Captain O’Neill, which was the truth. Gene introduced me as Ms. Patton and told the man we were here to see Sandra or Sandy Thompson, aka Queen Nefertitty.
At the mention of Sandy, the big man narrowed his eyes. “You narcs?” The question gave me an idea of why the man looked so worried. About then I glanced around and noticed the glass tanks lining one side of the living room from floor to ceiling. They were filled with snakes, dozens of them. My eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets. I nudged Gene and jerked my head toward the tanks.
I heard him say, “Crikey!” under his breath.
Just then a pretty African-American woman came into the room, her eyes heavy from sleep, her hands with red-painted nails tying her robe, her long dread-locks bouncing on her back, her mouth in motion. “Ar’zona! What you yelling fo’! I trying to sleep, you fool. Hey, who you? You cops? What you want?”
With the voice of authority, Gene again introduced us, not correcting Queen Nefertitty’s or Arizona’s assumption that we were with law enforcement. I couldn’t stop glancing over at the tanks filled with snakes. My skin was crawling, and my knees were shaking so much, I put my briefcase in front of them to hide my nervousness.
Queen Nefertitty saw where I was looking. “Is this about those damned snakes?” she asked me. Before I answered, her head swiveled in the direction of the big man she called “Arizona,” and she ripped into him like a chain saw, saying she told him they couldn’t keep snakes in the city and that oh no he never listened to her, now look what happened. Queen Nefertitty’s taloned hands were on her hips, and she was working herself into a hissy fit. Suddenly she reached down and grabbed an ashtray off an end table and winged it at the man’s head.
He ducked and the ashtray smacked into the wall behind him. He forgot about us and started moving toward his attacker, bellowing that he didn’t do anything, that the snakes were for her act.
“Hold it right there!” Gene boomed in a voice worthy of a drill sergeant. He moved fast as a cat and clapped his hand on the big man’s shoulder. Arizona stopped in his tracks as if a construction crane had gripped him. Queen Nefertitty let go of the table lamp she had grabbed as her next weapon. Gene pushed Arizona over to the sagging sofa and pointed to a recliner positioned in front of a huge television for Nefertitty. Then Gene ordered them to sit down in a voice so cold it froze one’s blood. They did, frightened now, their eyes darting back and forth, exchanging glances
“Listen up! You are both in big trouble.” Arizona and Queen Nefertitty both began to protest. Gene cut them off. “Quiet! Keep your mouths shut and don’t say a damned word. Got that?” As he spoke, his presence seemed to fill the room. I noticed that he had grown a few inches since we walked in. I swear he looked nearly seven feet tall. Both Arizona and Queen Nefertitty stared at him, eyes wide, mouths hanging open, not making a sound.
Barking out orders in military fashion, Gene told Arizona that he had twenty-four hours to get rid of the snakes. Then he told Sandy, aka Nefertitty, that I had business with her and she should shut up and listen carefully.
My mouth was filled with cotton. I swallowed hard and said to the woman, “You are in possession of stolen property that rightfully belongs to my client, Tawnya Jones. I need yo
u to get it and give it to me. Now.”
“I don’t have nothing of that ho’s,” she said sullenly, staring at her bare feet.
“I’m not here to argue. Your choice is between giving me the urn or going to jail.” She didn’t respond and I was feeling helpless. I looked over at Gene and shrugged. Feminism aside, I had a feeling Sandy would respond to him a lot faster than to me.
Gene walked over in front of her. “Look, do you understand we can settle this here or you can come with us?” She didn’t answer, but she finally nodded. “All right,” he said. “You have exactly two minutes, Miss Nefertitty, before this is out of Ms. Patton’s hands and in mine.” He made a show of looking at the watch I had never noticed on his wrist before. “The time starts now.”
Sandra Thompson, aka Queen Nefertitty, glanced over at Arizona, who was giving her a filthy look. She turned to me. “Shee-it. I’ll give Ron to you. What I want him for anyway? He dead. Can’t do nothing fo’ me now.” She got up. “He in the bedroom.”
As soon as she hurried out of the living room, misgivings flooded through me. “Stop her!” I yelled at Gene, but it was too late. Queen Nefertitty stood in the bedroom doorway with Ron’s urn in one hand and a gun in the other.
Before either Gene or I could react, Arizona was off the sofa and running at her, yelling, calling her names and threatening to kill her for wanting a dead man more than him. He barreled into her. The urn went flying. The gun went off. The glass of one snake tank shattered. A ten-foot-long boa constrictor slithered down the wall onto the floor and crawled right at me.
My heart about stopped. All I could see was that horrible, huge thing coming at me. I was dancing backward and screaming, doing a fast two-step as I tried to push the boa constrictor away with my briefcase. I kept yelling, “Shoo, shoo,” but the awful snake kept coming. Then I jumped up on the sofa cushions and starting climbing onto the back of the couch. All the while Queen Nefertitty was screeching obscenities at Arizona while he held her in a bear hug, and she beat him on the head with the gun.