The Dead-End Job Mysteries Box Set 2

by Elaine Viets

  “Me!” Helen said.

  “I wouldn’t worry too much about that,” Phil said. “Rob will be facing charges of judicial bribery. He might owe you his half of the house sale.”

  “No chance I’ll see it,” Helen said. “That money will be long gone.”

  “And so will Rob when he has to face the music,” Phil said.

  “You’ll never hear from him again. He’ll be out of your life forever. How’s that for a wedding present? Chill the beer and throw the steaks on the grill. We’ll celebrate your freedom tonight. You don’t have to run anymore. Ever.”

  Helen felt a great weight fall from her as she hung up the phone. She’d always known that her divorce decision was unjust. But she’d never thought it was crooked.

  “Why are you crying?” her sister asked.

  “Because I’m so happy,” Helen wailed. “I’m free. Almost free. Rob will be out of my life forever.”

  CHAPTER 19

  “Throw the ball again, Uncle Phil,” Tommy Junior said. The future Albert Pujols held his bat ready for the next pitch.

  “Okay,” Phil said.

  “No,” Tom Senior said. “That’s enough baseball for tonight, sport. Join your sister inside. Go watch TV, play Nintendo DS or something. The grown-ups need to talk.”

  “Oh, Dad,” Tommy complained, but he propped his beloved bat against the back porch and went inside.

  The adults waited until the light came on in Tommy’s bedroom. Then Phil whispered, “I didn’t mind tossing a few balls for the kid.”

  “He’s taking advantage of your good nature,” Tom said. “Besides, we’re out of beer.”

  “Why didn’t you say so?” Phil said. “This is an emergency. We’d better get more. We can take our car.”

  “Why don’t you walk, guys?” Kathy said. “You’ve put away nearly a case. The bar is only a block away.”

  “But if we walk, we might be forced to have a drink or two at Carney’s Bar,” Tom said.

  “Just don’t let anyone step on your hand when you crawl home,” Kathy said. She kissed her husband. “If you need a ride, call us.”

  Helen started stacking the dinner dishes on the picnic table. “Leave those alone,” Kathy said. “Sit down and talk to me.”

  Helen settled into a lawn chair with an iced tea. “The barbecued pork steaks were terrific,” she said. “I haven’t had them since I left St. Louis. South Florida hasn’t discovered pork steaks.”

  “They don’t know what they’re missing,” Kathy said. “Pork steaks taste like ribs but have more meat. You can slather them in barbecue sauce. They’re less messy to eat and quicker to barbecue. You can grill them in one six-pack.”

  “Pork steaks are the seedless grapes of barbecue,” Helen said, and giggled.

  Kathy heard someone stumbling up the sidewalk to her back gate and asked, “Are the boys back so soon?”

  The man standing at the gate wasn’t Tom or Phil. He was shorter and heavier. He was—oh, no, Helen thought. It couldn’t be.

  “Hello, girls.” The man made a mock courtly bow and nearly fell over.

  “Hell and damnation,” Helen said. “It’s Rob. And he’s drunk.”

  Rob pushed open the gate and said, “A picket fence with pink roses. How sweet.”

  Kathy stood up, as if to defend her home.

  “Get out of here,” Helen said. “You’re trespassing.”

  Rob used to have a certain teddy bear cuteness. Now he’d gone from boyish to old. Helen thought he looked hard up for money. His expensive Tommy Bahama shirt was two seasons old, a sartorial sin in his former circles. A beach bum would turn up his nose at Rob’s boat shoes. Helen’s ex had a potbelly. His twenty-thousand-dollar wristwatch had been replaced by one costing maybe three grand. Helen wondered if Rob had pawned the more expensive watch.

  There was one more clue to his financial ruin: Rob was balding again. He could no longer afford Rogaine treatments.

  “I’m sure my sister-in-law is happy to see me,” Rob said. “You’re looking good, kiddo. You’ve put on a few pounds, but I like a woman with curves.”

  He patted Kathy’s bottom. She grabbed his hand, picked up a steak knife and said, “Try that again, and I’ll slice it off. If you’re lucky, it will only be your hand I remove. You’ve put on a few pounds yourself, Rob, unless I’m looking at a rare case of male pregnancy. And your head seems to be growing through your hair.”

  “Ooh, it hurts when you say it,” Rob mocked.

  Kathy dropped the knife on the picnic table, as if it had suddenly become hot.

  “I came to offer my condolences, Kathy,” Rob said. “I saw your mother’s obituary in the Webster-Kirkwood Times. I stopped by earlier to see her husband, Larry, and we had a few beers. Larry’s not happy that your sister hijacked Dolores’s funeral, but at least Helen is paying for it.”

  “My mother wanted to be buried in St. Louis,” Helen said through gritted teeth.

  “I know. She told me,” Rob said. “We always got along well, Dolores and me. She liked me better than her own daughter. Not that I blame Dolores. Helen is definitely short on charm.”

  “Leave, slime wad,” Helen said. She thought she heard a small sound in the house and hoped Tommy wasn’t listening.

  “See what I mean?” Rob asked. “No charm.” He slurred his words slightly and swayed. “Helen, is what’s his name here?”

  “Who?” Helen said.

  “You sound like an owl, sweet cheeks. You know who. The guy who’s getting my secondhand goods.”

  Helen stepped forward to punch his face, but she wasn’t fast enough. Rob clamped his hand on her arm. She kicked him in the crotch, but he still held on, bending her arm back and forcing Helen to her knees.

  “Ah, just the way I like my women,” Rob said. “At my feet.” He was surprisingly strong for a paunchy drunk. “You’re so predictable, Helen. Remember the last time you tried to punch me? You got in a lot of trouble. You were in jail for a while, as I recall, until our friend Marcella sent a lawyer to rescue you. We have to talk. That’s the other reason I’m here.”

  Rob dragged Helen over by a lawn chair and flopped into it, forcing Helen to kneel next to him. The pain in her arm was excruciating. Helen saw the long barbecue fork on the picnic table and thought she could stab him in the chest.

  “Now, that’s better,” Rob said. “Let’s talk.”

  “About what?” Helen said. Was that a creak behind her? Were Phil and Tom coming back?

  “Why, the money you still owe me,” Rob said. “I hope you didn’t spend it all shipping your mother home. You know I can still put you in jail. And—”

  He never finished the sentence. A blur came from beside his head. Tommy Junior swung his aluminum bat with all his might, hitting Rob’s skull so hard the pop resounded through the yard. The swing would have done Albert Pujols proud.

  Rob fell forward without a word.

  Tommy stared at his unconscious uncle, then said in a small voice, “I’m sorry.”

  “Tommy!” his mother cried.

  “Uncle Rob was hurting Aunt Helen,” Tommy said. “He was hurting you, too.”

  “Go to your room and stay there,” Kathy said. “Now.”

  Rob was still out cold. Kathy slapped his face with a little too much enthusiasm. Helen found a pitcher of ice water from dinner and poured it on his head.

  Rob opened one eye and said, “What the fuck?”

  “Please,” Helen said. “There are children in the house.”

  He rubbed his head and said, “I know you didn’t hit me. It must have been Kathy.”

  Helen burst out laughing. “You were knocked silly by my ten-year-old nephew. Tommy hit you with a kid’s bat.”

  “Boy’s got a powerful swing,” Rob said, rubbing his temple.

  “You should go to the emergency room,” Kathy said.

  “So I can tell them I was hit by a kid? No, thanks.”

  “Head injuries should be taken seriously,” Kathy said. “Loo
k what happened to that poor actress Natasha Richardson. She fell on a ski slope, said she was fine, and then she was dead from bleeding in the brain.”

  “We’re not on a ski slope,” Rob said. He picked up Tommy’s bat. “This is a lightweight bat. I’m touched by your concern, but I’m fine.”

  “Besides,” Helen said, “you need a brain to have brain damage.”

  “Rob, please go to the ER. We’ll pay for it,” Kathy said. “I’m worried.”

  “Christ on a crutch! I refuse all treatment,” Rob said. “I’ll put it in writing if you want. Now, for the last time, quit yammering about the ER. Go away. I want to talk to Helen.”

  “I need to talk to my son,” Kathy said. “Will you be okay, Helen, if I leave you two alone?”

  “Hand me the bat,” Helen said, dragging a lawn chair near Rob. “I’ll whack him in the head again if he starts trouble.”

  “Here’s your cell phone, too,” Kathy said, putting it carefully on Helen’s chair arm. “Call 911 if he touches you.”

  Rob waited until Kathy had closed the kitchen door, then said, “Where’s my money, Helen? And don’t get cute. You know the judge awarded me half your income. You haven’t paid me a penny yet. I need fifteen thousand dollars and I need it fast.”

  “Wrong,” Helen said. “I don’t owe you a dime, Rob. In fact, you owe me a fortune.”

  “Hah! Are you on drugs? Wanna see a copy of our divorce decree?” Rob asked. “That could refresh your memory. Or I could show it to the police.”

  “The police will be looking for you, probably by tomorrow. You’re going to be arrested,” Helen said. “I’ll even tell you why. Consider it my last favor for old times’ sake.”

  Rob’s smug smile disappeared as she explained that Phil had found evidence of bribery and that ex-judge Smathers was expected to rat out Rob.

  “So you will probably owe me ALL the money from the sale of our house,” Helen said, “plus whatever was in our joint account when we divorced. And you’re facing charges of bribery.”

  She looked directly at Rob. The smug grin was gone. He seemed asleep.

  “Rob? Did you hear me?” Helen asked.

  No answer.

  Helen was furious. “Are you drunk?” she said. “Did you pass out? Answer me.”

  Rob didn’t respond. His eyes were at half-mast and his jaw was slack. Helen started shaking him, then slapped him. “Wake up!” she shrieked. “Wake up!”

  “Helen!” Kathy was on the back porch. “Quiet! I could hear you upstairs. What are you doing?”

  “Rob won’t answer,” Helen said. “I’m sick of his games. He’s pretending not to hear me.”

  Kathy came closer and examined Rob. She pinched the back of his hand. Rob didn’t react.

  “No response to pain,” she said.

  Kathy put a hand on his chest, then put her ear over his shirt pocket. “No heartbeat.”

  Kathy put her ear over his mouth. “No air movement,” she said. “He’s not breathing.”

  She lifted one eyelid. “His pupils are fixed,” she said. “That’s not good.”

  Kathy felt for a pulse, first in Rob’s wrist, then at his neck. “He’s dead. Definitely dead. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. My son is a killer,” she said, over and over.

  “It was an accident,” Helen said. “We’ll call 911 and explain that to the police.”

  Kathy grabbed Helen’s arm, her eyes frantic. “We can’t!” she said. “Tommy will be ruined.”

  “But he’s not guilty,” Helen said.

  “Listen to me,” Kathy said. “Remember Kevin, the kid at school who dropped his baby brother and killed him?”

  “You mean—” The words died on Helen’s lips.

  “Yes. Killer Kevin. That’s what everyone called him, didn’t they? Kevin was a bright, sweet boy until his little brother died,” Kathy said. “That was an accident, too, but Kevin never shook the nicknames. He’s been Killer Kevin, or Klumsy Killer Kevin, or KKK, ever since.

  “Kevin should have gone to college. But he never finished high school. He couldn’t hold a job. Two years ago, he was arrested for armed robbery at a convenience store. Now he’s in jail. I don’t want my son’s life destroyed. Tommy shouldn’t suffer for that worthless Rob.”

  “Tommy was trying to defend me,” Helen said. “I’ll say I did it. It was an accident. Call the police.”

  “The police will never believe you,” Kathy said. “They’ll find out the court is looking for you after your divorce. They’ll check in Florida and find the assault charges from the time you hit Rob.”

  “Those charges were dropped,” Helen said.

  “Someone will talk,” Kathy said. “You’ll be arrested. Then my son will tell the truth to save his aunt Helen and his life will be ruined. I won’t allow it.” She slammed her hand on the picnic table. Easygoing Kathy had turned into a lioness defending her cub.

  “What are we going to do?” Helen asked.

  “Get rid of Rob’s body,” Kathy said. “I have to save my son.”

  “I’ll help,” Helen said. “But this is so unfair.”

  “Why?” Kathy asked.

  “I prayed for Rob to die for years,” Helen said. “But nothing would kill him—not even when he moved in with a multiple murderess.

  “Now when I need him alive, he up and dies.”

  CHAPTER 20

  “What do we do with Rob?” Kathy asked. “We have to get him out of here fast.”

  Rob’s body was slouched in the lawn chair like an overgrown doll. Helen wanted to pick up the baseball bat and keep pounding his body, but that wouldn’t help Kathy—or Tommy.

  “We could dress him up as a scarecrow and put him on the front lawn for Halloween,” Helen said. A slightly hysterical laugh escaped her.

  Kathy turned on her. “This is no time for you to get giddy. Your nephew’s future is at stake. Tom and Phil could return any moment. They are such straight arrows, they’ll call the cops.”

  Helen was instantly serious. “Can the neighbors see Rob in the backyard here?” she asked. “He may look drunk from a distance, but if we start packing him in a steamer trunk or something, the neighbors will call the cops. What if someone saw Tommy slug him with the bat?”

  “I doubt it,” Kathy said. “Old Mrs. Kiley next door is probably asleep. She goes to bed right after dinner. The house behind us belongs to the Kerchers, and they’re on vacation. That leaves the Cooks on the west side, and their view of our yard is blocked by our house. We’re safe so far. But we’d better move Rob soon. Let me pour you an iced tea and we’ll decide what to do.”

  “Iced tea, my eye,” Helen said. “I want a big glass of wine.”

  Kathy came out with another chilled bottle and poured generous glasses. The sisters sat at the picnic table. In the gathering dusk, Rob seemed to be watching them through slitted eyes.

  “It will be dark in less than thirty minutes,” Kathy said. “We need that.”

  “We could drag him around the corner to the bar’s parking lot,” Helen said. “Then he’d look like he was mugged.”

  “People don’t get mugged in this neighborhood,” Kathy said. “There would be a major investigation. The autopsy would show he’d been hit with a blunt instrument. We’d have cops everywhere.”

  “We could drop him in the river,” Helen said.

  “Bodies float back up,” Kathy said. “The rivers are lower in August. You know Rob would be trouble. He was all his life.”

  “Then we’ll have to bury him,” Helen said. She surveyed Kathy’s smooth green lawn and well-tended flower beds. “But we can’t dig up your yard. I don’t think we can put him in Mom’s grave.”

  “The grave is already open,” Kathy said. “But we’d have to dig down at least three feet in hard clay.”

  “That would take all night,” Helen said, “and Phil and Tom would wonder where we were.”

  “Wait, I’ve got it! We’ll bury him in the church’s new hall,” Kathy said. “It’s an open construct
ion site. They’ve torn down the old building. The new hall is being built on the same site. The concrete sides for the new basement have been poured. The drains and pipes are already in, and the basement floor is covered with crushed stone. They’re pouring the concrete tomorrow. I had to tell the funeral director so he could direct the mourners’ cars to the west lot, away from the construction. We could put Rob under the crushed stone. We won’t have to do much digging.”

  “How do we get him there?” Helen asked.

  “Tom has plenty of plastic drop cloths in our garage,” Kathy said. “We’ll wrap Rob’s body in some, tie him to a dolly and wheel him to the hall basement. We can use my minivan.”

  Kathy slipped on her gardening gloves and handed Helen a pair of work gloves from Tom’s workbench. “Put them on,” she said. “Plastic takes fingerprints.”

  Kathy opened four drop cloths on the garage floor. Then she draped more plastic drop cloths on the van’s front seats and put newspapers from the recycling bin in the foot wells. “To collect hair and fibers,” she said.

  The two women lifted Rob out of the lawn chair and draped his arms over their shoulders, carrying him as if he were dead drunk, instead of dead.

  “Good thing I’m used to hauling Allison,” Kathy said. “He’s heavy.”

  “He stinks, too. And he’s a deadweight,” Helen said, and started giggling.

  “Stop it!” Kathy said. “Concentrate.”

  With a grunt, they dumped the body on the drop cloths. “Let’s go through his pockets and remove his identification,” Helen said. “In case he’s found, it will make Rob harder to trace.”

  Rob’s wallet had a Florida driver’s license, thirty-one dollars and two credit cards. His pocket held the keys to a rental car.

  “You take the money,” Helen said. She shoved the credit cards in her jeans. “I’ll cut up the cards and drop them down a sewer by our hotel. We’ll have to get rid of his rental. We can leave it at the gates of the car agency tonight and they’ll think he left in a hurry. It’s a shame to leave that expensive watch on his wrist, but it could be traced back to him if we take it.”