Looking Over Your Shoulder

by P.D. Workman

CHAPTER 9

  URSULA WAS PREPARING BREAKFAST when Abe came down the stairs to the kitchen, yawning and mumbling his good morning greeting.

  “You haven’t been taking your meds,” Ursula said as Abe went to the drawer.

  “What are you talking about?” Abe said. “They’re right here. I’ve been taking them every day.” He picked up the previous day’s pillbox and shook it to demonstrate that it was empty.

  “Don’t try to lie to me about it, okay? I trusted you, I thought you were taking them like always, but you weren’t. Don’t lie to me about it.”

  He looked at her and palmed the morning’s pills.

  “Why would I lie to you?” he questioned.

  Ursula watched him put the pills in his mouth and swallow.

  “I checked the pill bottles,” she said. "You haven’t been taking them. You’ve just been pretending and redistributing them in the boxes each day.”

  “There, see?” he opened his mouth and stuck his tongue out. He rolled his head around and stretched his cheeks out with his fingers to show her that he hadn’t secreted the pills in his cheek. Ursula wondered whether they were in his hand or in his pocket, or if he really had swallowed them while she watched.

  “I don’t understand why you would stop taking them!” Ursula railed, unable to keep her voice low. "You know that you need them. Without them, you can’t control your moods or schizophrenia. You know that!”

  “Maybe the voices told me to,” Abe said sarcastically.

  Ursula bit her lip to keep from snapping back. She didn’t understand how he could think that not taking his pills could be the right decision. Or how he could joke about it, even in a sarcastic way.

  “I’m going to work,” Abe said curtly, gathering his things. “The Lion’s Club fundraiser is tonight, and I need to get everything set up.”

  Ursula looked for a way to get him to stay. She wanted to have breakfast with him and the kids. She wanted to make up before he left. Ursula hated Abe to leave after an argument, without having reconciled again.

  “I love you,” she said. “Good luck with the party.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” he questioned suspiciously.

  “What?” Ursula was startled. "It’s supposed to mean good luck. Have a good time. I hope it all goes well. I love you.”

  He studied her for a minute with lowered brows, and then withdrew and headed out to the garage. Ursula bit her lip, held back the frustrated tears, and continued to get breakfast on the table for the kids.

  “Juneau,” she called, “you’re going to be late. Come and grab something to eat.”

  Abe watched the street behind him as he pulled out, looking for the tail. The car changed from day to day, and some of them were difficult to spot or hard to shake, but he could manage it as long as he was diligent. There was no movement from the road. He watched for drivers in the cars that he drove past. Now that they knew he was onto them, they were probably parking further away, trying to avoid looking so suspicious. There were only so many routes he could take out of the neighborhood. They just had to wait on one of the main exits to see him. But that meant he could spot them, too, if he was diligent.

  A woman was sitting in a red car drinking her morning coffee, and after he had passed her, she pulled into the street. Abe turned a fast, sharp right turn, and drove fast down a gravel alleyway. If she wanted to follow him, she was going to come out in the open, because he drove down the deserted back lanes at high speed, watching for her. When he could go no further in alleyways, he turned quickly onto the main street, and onto a cloverleaf, tires screeching. Navigating the exits, he sped through the curves a few times before choosing his route and driving onto the thoroughfare. By that time he had convinced himself that he had shaken the tail, and it was safe for him to go on. He drove on to the Convention Center, still watching the mirrors for any suspicious vehicles.

  There was a lot to do to get ready. Abe checked out the banquet hall that they were using, and the attached kitchen. He reviewed what deliveries and catering vehicles had made it there so far, and checked his lists to see what time everyone else was expected. There were lots of moving parts to keep something like this organized, and he lost himself in his work, letting it distract him from his own worries and troubles.

  The first sign of trouble came when he was supervising clean-up and making sure that everybody got their things cleared out as quickly and efficiently as possible. His cell phone vibrated in his pocket, and he pulled it out. It was Marianne, one of his main contacts with the club.

  “Abe,” he said, answering the phone.

  “Abe, it’s Marianne. We might have a problem.”

  “Everything seemed to go pretty smoothly,” he countered. “What’s wrong?”

  “I just got a call from Senator Green’s Executive Assistant. The Senator and his wife are both dreadfully ill. They think it’s food poisoning. They’re on their way to the hospital.”

  Abe caught his breath.

  “Food poisoning?” he repeated. “It can’t be. Everything was stored and served at the right temperatures. Unless somebody sent us something that was tainted at the source. It wasn’t anything we did.”

  Inside his brain, a suspicion stirred.

  “I’m just telling you what she said. I just thought I’d give you a head’s-up.”

  “Okay. Keep me posted. We’re almost cleared up here.”

  “I will,” she promised.

  Abe directed one of the suppliers to the sparkling-clean dishes that were ready for pick-up. He smiled pleasantly, but inside, his brain was going a mile a minute. There was no way that anything had been stored or served improperly. He had timed everything. Abe had made sure that things were packed in ice and cooked at high enough temperatures. He had used numerous thermometers in checking that everything was being stored properly. If the senator did have food poisoning, and it came from the Lion’s fundraiser food, then something had already been contaminated when it got there. He thought about the various dishes with mayonnaise in them. They were the most suspicious. But there were also the raspberries and spinach in the green salad. Both were notorious for e-coli contamination. Abe had seen them triple washed, they couldn’t still be contaminated. What kind of food poisoning was it? Was it in the meat? The seafood? A mayonnaise dressing? The eggs in the tiramisu?

  The real question was… was it accidental? Or had someone intentionally poisoned something that Abe had served? Was this part of a conspiracy to discredit him? To make sure that the police wouldn’t believe that he was competent? So that he would remain a suspect? Was this a warning to leave the heist alone and not look for any more answers as to who had done it? Abe had a sinking feeling that he knew the answer. Of course it had been intentional. The message couldn’t be much more clear. Stay away or you will lose everything. Your reputation, your job, everything that matters.

  Ursula heard the garage door open and close, and knew that Abe was home. She put down her book and went downstairs to see him, still feeling unsettled about the way they had left things that morning.

  Abe carried a box of odds and ends into the kitchen and set it down on the counter. His hair was awry like he had been running his fingers through it. He looked at her suspiciously, as if wondering what she was doing there, waiting up for him.

  “Hi sweetie,” Ursula greeted with the most pleasant smile she could muster. "How did the Lion’s Club go?”

  “How did the Lion’s Club go,” he muttered to himself under his breath, then raised his voice slightly. “The Lion’s Club did not go well. I’ll be lucky if I ever recover from the Lion’s Club. I’ll be lucky if I don’t completely lose my reputation and my career doesn’t swirl down the toilet. The Lion’s Club couldn’t have gone much worse.”

  Ursula tried to touch his arm comfortingly as he whirled around the kitchen opening and closing cupboards and drawers. She wanted to help him to calm down enough to tell her what was going on. He was obviously overreacting.

  �
�What happened?” she questioned. "Did one of the dishes not turn out right or something? What is it?”

  “Food poisoning,” Abe said, looking wildly at her. "That’s what happened.”

  “Someone got food poisoning?” Ursula questioned. "Who?”

  “Sixty-three people got food poisoning,” Abe said hollowly. "The emergency rooms are full. Full of people puking up my dinner!”

  Ursula sat down with a bang. Sixty-three people? That was devastating. She’d never heard of so many people coming down with food poisoning from one event. There had to be a huge contamination problem. It would be all over the papers, on everyone’s lips. Did you hear…?

  “Oh Abe. I’m so sorry.”

  “You’re sorry. You wanna know who’s sorry? I’m sorry. And those damn jewel thieves. They’re gonna be sorry. They think that they can do something like this to me? There’s no way. I’m not going to put up with this. Now they’re going to find out who they’re messing with!”

  “Abe… the jewel thieves? What are you talking about?”

  “They’re the ones who did this! Can’t you see that? This was no accident. No fridge or cooler that was on the fritz and let one dish get a few degrees too warm. This was intentional. This was malevolent. It’s them. They’re behind this.”

  “No,” Ursula protested. "That doesn’t make sense, Abe. There’s no connection here. That’s just the paranoia talking.”

  “You think I don’t know the difference between what’s real and what’s not? This is real, Ursula. They thought I was just going to go away and stop asking questions, stop digging. When I didn’t, they decided to do this to me. To ruin me. To discredit me in front of the police.”

  “No, Abe. You’re just confused. This is nothing to do with the jewel heist at the airport. It’s not even the same client.”

  “It doesn’t have anything to do with the clients. It’s to do with me.”

  He slammed drawers as he continued to put things back away.

  “They’re going to regret this,” he muttered. "You’ll see. They’re really going to regret this.”

  “I have something interesting,” Jesse Cairns said, handing Lovett his coffee and sitting on the edge of his desk.

  “What’s that?” Lovett questioned.

  “Mr. Abe VanRam.”

  “You find something else on him? Or has he lost another tail?” Baxter questioned, not looking up from his computer.

  “He’s here.”

  “He’s here? What for?”

  Cairns took a slow sip of his own coffee, savoring it.

  “He’s here,” he said sedately, “because he wants to talk to you.”

  Lovett looked up from his work.

  “Did you say he wants to talk to me?”

  “Yep.”

  Lovett pushed back from his desk and picked up the coffee.

  “Thanks,” he said belatedly. “Well, well, well… this could be interesting. Here I was, all depressed because I couldn’t get enough on him to bring him in, and he comes in himself and volunteers.”

  Cairns nodded.

  “I told them to put him in conference room three.”

  “Great. Let’s go have a chat with our new friend.”

  Abe was a mess. Lovett had expected him to be in much better shape than he had been at their interview at the airport. He expected a chipper Abe in a neat polo shirt or chef’s jacket, calm and relaxed, intent on showing him how sane and innocent he was. But that wasn’t what they found.

  Abe was pacing back and forth across the room. His hair was sweaty and in disarray. He looked rumpled and unwell. His eyes were wild, and he was talking to himself under his breath, though Lovett couldn’t tell what it was he’d been saying when they entered, before he turned and saw them.

  “Mr. VanRam. It’s good to see you again,” Lovett greeted, offering a hand to Abe. Abe took his hand hesitantly, and then let go too quickly. Lovett noticed that Abe immediately wiped both hands off on his pants.

  “This is my partner, Jesse Cairns,” Lovett introduced, gesturing to Cairns.

  With a conspiratorial glance at Lovett, Cairns extended his hand toward Abe. Abe again went through the routine of hesitating, briefly touching hands, and then wiping both his hands on his pants.

  “Nice to meet you,” Abe muttered. "Nice to meet you, nice to meet you.”

  “Would you like to have a seat?” Lovett offered, gesturing.

  Abe looked at the chair, and shook his head, resuming pacing the room.

  “So, what did you want to talk to us about?” Lovett questioned.

  “I want you to arrest the jewel thieves,” Abe said nonsensically. "They’re destroying my life and I want you to put them behind bars.”

  “Of course,” Lovett said. "I’d be happy to. Why don’t you give me their names?”

  “I don’t know their names. They’re following me around. They poisoned all of the Lions. They’re trying to discredit me. You have to do something about it!”

  “Slow down, Mr. VanRam,” Cairns interposed.

  Abe startled, and looked for a long moment at the tall black man who had spoken.

  “Slow down,” he repeated under his breath.

  “Why don’t you tell me what happened, from the beginning,” Lovett said, drawing Abe’s attention back to him.

  “They stole the jewels, like you said. Someone ate the curry. There were letters in the interoffice. I’m not sure who they are, but they’re telling me I’m too close. I’m too close and Margaret is supposed to tell them whether to knock me off. But I didn’t do it, and I want to prove it. I can’t just pretend it didn’t happen. So they are trying to discredit me, to make me look bad.”

  “You’re doing a pretty good job of that all by yourself,” Lovett said gruffly.

  “They poisoned sixty people! It’s lucky that nobody died.”

  “The jewel thieves poisoned sixty people?” Lovett questioned skeptically.

  “Yes, the Lions,” Abe insisted.

  Cairns frowned, and headed toward the door.

  “I’ll be right back,” he murmured to Lovett, who raised his brows at Cairns’ exit.

  When Cairns returned a few minutes later with a folded-over newspaper, Abe was still raving frantically, his face shiny with sweat, gesticulating wildly with both hands. Cairns sat down beside Lovett, unnoticed by Abe, and unfolded the headline to show it to him. Lovett looked down. “63 get food poisoning at Lion’s Club event.” Lovett nodded, finally understanding.

  “You catered the Lion’s Club dinner?” he asked Abe, not waiting for a break in the monologue.

  Abe stopped, and turned to look at him.

  “Yes, the Lions,” he agreed.

  “And you think the jewel thieves set you up.”

  “They want you to think I did it,” Abe insisted.

  “Of course.”

  “I’m not crazy,” Abe said angrily.

  “I’m not sure that’s precisely true,” Lovett said. "Whether you were involved in the jewel heist or not, I don’t think you’re exactly stable. And this proves it,” Lovett tapped the newspaper. “You’re a danger to your clients.”

  “You believe them instead of me.”

  “I believe the evidence of my own eyes. Have you seen your doctor lately?”

  “I see my doctor.”

  “Are you taking your meds?”

  “They fog up my brain. I need to be clear. I need to work this all out.”

  “Mr. VanRam. You’re a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic,” Lovett started slowly.

  “That doesn’t mean I can’t be right! That doesn’t mean that this isn’t really happening! I’m not imagining it. This is really happening.” Abe gestured at the newspaper. "I didn’t imagine that! Somebody really poisoned them!”

  “Yes. You did.”

  “Everything was right,” Abe said tersely. “You ask the rest of the people on the project. All the temperatures were right. Everything was clean. Somebody intentionally poisoned the Lions.”
/>
  Lovett nodded.

  “And what makes you think it was the jewel thieves? Did you get… a threatening letter? A warning to shut up or they were going to ruin your reputation? Why would you assume that the jewel thieves had anything to do with this?”

  “You think it’s just a coincidence? You think that disasters like this happen all the time? It’s all connected.”

  “I’d like you to take a breath, Abe. Maybe you could sit down here with us and discuss this calmly and logically. You’re not doing yourself any favors by raving like a lunatic.”

  Abe checked himself. He considered Lovett’s words, and sat down in the empty chair, looking from Lovett to Cairns.

  “I’m not raving,” he said in a calmer voice. “I know what I’m talking about. I’m just upset. You’d be upset if you saw your life going down the tubes like this.”

  “Yes, I would,” Lovett agreed, his eyes traveling over the contents of the newspaper article. It was front page news and they had, in fact, named Abe in the article as the caterer/project manager.

  “I’m not lying.”

  “I don’t think you’re lying. I think you’re mistaken. I think you’re jumping to conclusions that aren’t supported by the evidence. My job is to go by the evidence.”

  “Arrest them,” Abe insisted. "Talk to them. You’ll find out that I’m right.”

  “Give me their names,” Lovett said, pencil poised over his notepad.

  “I don’t know their names. Except one of them. One of them is named Mary.”

  “Lots of people are named Mary. What’s her last name?”

  “I don’t know!”

  Cairns turned one of the other chairs around and sat down on it backwards, his arms rested on the back of the chair.

  “How do you know Mary’s name?” he questioned.

  Abe’s eyes lit up.

  “The phone call,” he said, his voice rising. "They said in the phone call that they had to ask Mary. What to do about me.”

  “What phone call is that, Abe?” Lovett questioned conversationally, quirking an eyebrow at Cairns and giving him a tiny nod. “Have you been talking to the jewel thieves?”

  “No. Not, it was a pocket dial, someone called me by mistake. I couldn’t hear very well, but they said that they would talk to Mary-”

  “How do you know it was the jewel thieves?” Lovett sighed.

  “It was! They were talking about me. They said I was too close, that I had found too many clues.”

  “What clues?” Lovett questioned closely.

  Abe went still. He didn’t answer immediately, his eyes moving restlessly back and forth.

  “What other clues have you found, Abe?” Lovett repeated. "If you know things, you should tell me what they are, so I can follow them up. I can’t solve the case if you keep evidence from me.”

  “It’s not really evidence,” Abe hedged.

  “Don’t you think I’d better be the judge of that?”

  “I don’t have it here,” Abe said. His eyes pivoted rapidly from one agent to the other and back again, as if fearing that one of them might spring on him at any moment. “I didn’t want anyone to be able to connect it with me.”

  Both agents were silent for some time.

  “Did you do it?” Lovett questioned finally, in a kindly tone. "Is that what you’re trying to tell me? You’re feeling bad, feeling guilty, and you want me to make it right. You know I’ll connect it all up sooner or later. Why not get it off your chest right now? Start to feel better. There’s no reason to keep carrying this burden around. I can help you with that.”

  Abe groaned and put his face in his hands.

  “Yes,” Lovett encouraged. "There’s no point in feeling bad. Just tell me about it. Let me take care of it.”

  “I didn’t do anything,” Abe said evenly, through his hands. “I wasn’t involved with the jewel heist. Not as an inside man. Not in any way. All I did was work on my project in the plane.”

  “The project where you were so absorbed with all of the details,” Lovett said sardonically, sitting back in his chair and shaking his head, disgusted.

  “I had to work all of the details out,” Abe confirmed yet again. "Everything had to be perfect.”

  “You’re careful of details.”

  “Yes. I like everything to be all worked out, methodically, all the loose ends tied up.”

  “Details like picking up the right kid from the school,” Lovett prodded.

  Abe looked up, the color draining from his face.

  “That was an accident,” he said in a strangled tone. “In the end, they didn’t arrest me. They understood that someone could make a mistake.”

  “Picking up the wrong kid is a pretty big mistake. That’s a pretty big detail, Abe.”

  “It wasn’t my fault. People were honking, she had on a pink coat, it looked like Meggie. Nobody’s asking her why she got into the wrong car! Didn’t she know I wasn’t her dad?”

  “She got in the car because you told her to. She’d been taught to obey other adults, and apparently didn’t get the “stranger danger” memo. Regardless, Abe, you haven’t shown yourself to be very competent lately. I’ve got to assume that there’s probably a big financial problem that nobody else knows about yet. You were getting desperate. Trying to cover up your mistakes. They keep getting bigger and nastier, and you know that before long, it’s going to catch up with you. You have to make some big money and get out of Dodge.”

  “No,” Abe said fervently. “I’ve just been making mistakes since the heist, because I’m stressed out. If I can just figure it out, everything can go back to normal.”

  Abe stood up, shaking his head in despair.

  “You’re not going to listen to me,” he observed. “I have to go.”

  “Why don’t I call your wife to pick you up,” Lovett suggested. “You obviously can’t drive in this condition.”

  “I’m perfectly capable of driving,” Abe snapped. “I don’t need anyone to pick me up.”

  “Mr. VanRam,” Lovett raised his voice. "You are in no condition to drive. And if I let you walk out of here and get in the driver’s seat of a car, I would be just as responsible for whoever you managed to mow down. I’m not letting you drive.”

  “You can’t stop me,” Abe insisted.

  Lovett glanced at Cairns, who immediately interpreted his look and started to move slowly around the room toward the door, staying behind Abe. Lovett made calming motions with his hands.

  “Why don’t you sit back down and think about this, Abe?” he suggested. “I don’t think that you want to hurt anyone, and you’re too agitated to drive safely right now.”

  “You can’t stop me!” Abe repeated, and turned to flee from the room.

  Cairns blocked the door, and Abe didn’t try to physically barge his way through, but hung back warily, like a trapped animal waiting for an opportunity.

  “I’m not under arrest,” he said. “I came here myself. You can’t keep me here. Let me go to my car!”

  “Mr. VanRam. I’m putting you under a 72 hour psychiatric hold,” Lovett said. “Your behavior is putting others’ lives at risk, and I don’t think you’re capable of understanding that risk right now.”

  “You - you -” Abe sputtered. “You can’t do that! You’re not a doctor!”

  “It’s called a 5150,” Lovett said, "and I’m perfectly qualified to determine that you are a danger and need to be detained.”

  “No!”

  This time Abe did make a break for the door, trying to throw Cairns out of the way. But the big, well-muscled black man wasn’t having any of it. He simply blocked Abe and waited to see what he would do next.

  “You don’t want to do that,” Lovett said reasonably. "You’ll only end up getting hurt yourself. There’s no point in fighting over this. Just relax and let me take you somewhere safe.”

  “I’m not going to jail.”

  “No. You’re going to the hospital,” Lovett said compassionately. "Where the
y can take care of you and help you get stabilized.”

  Abe turned to face Lovett full on, tears welling up in his eyes as he stared pleadingly at the agent.

  “This isn’t a hallucination,” he insisted, his voice breaking. “These crooks are out to get me. If they can’t discredit me, they’ll kill me. And you won’t believe it until I’m dead.”

  “I believe that you believe it,” Lovett said. “Now come on. Come without a fight. They’ll take care of you and help you to start feeling better again.”

  Hanging his head, Abe nodded. Lovett approached him carefully, and handcuffed him. Abe sobbed as the handcuffs closed over his wrists, and Lovett escorted him out of the room.