The Case of Moomah's Moolah (A Richard Sherlock Whodunit)

by Jim Stevens

  “That’s the name she signed in with.”

  I contemplate this information and wonder out loud, “How could any parent be so cruel and name their kid Melvina?”

  Anthea goes a few steps beyond the smile and laughs. “You’d have to ask Mr. or Mrs. Lange.”

  “Have you seen Ms. Melvina in the bank since?”

  “No.”

  My phone rings out: “Uptown girl, she’s been livin’ in her uptown world...” Guess who?

  I turn it off. “Sorry.”

  The waiter arrives and we order.

  Anthea has Ahi tuna, “flown in this morning” according the waiter. I order the salmon. “Sir, I have to tell you it is farm-raised,” he informs me.

  “It’s okay, so was I, for a very short period of time.”

  Anthea nibbles, I eat. Anthea has one more cosmopolitan. My limit is one beer.

  We talk about our lives. She tells me of her “mover and shaker” ex-husband who did most of his moving on top of other women and most of his shaking, shaking out their bank account. I confess that ever since my divorce, my relationships with the opposite sex haven’t been smooth sailing. “I seem to have developed this knack for being with women, who leave me dangling like a snagged, farm-raised salmon.”

  She reaches out and lays her hand upon my arm. “My intention would never be to hurt you,” she replies.

  I’m about to speak, but I don’t. I hesitate. I’m so nervous, I’m shaking. I get this premonition that something isn’t Kosher. The last thing I want to do is blow this. “Anthea, the problem is you’re so smart, and so beautiful, and I’m falling so hard for you, I’m afraid I’ll hit my head, and end up in a love-sick coma.”

  “Richard,” she says. “Don’t do that. It would be very difficult having a relationship if one of us were in a coma.”

  “I’m not very good in these situations.”

  She puts a slight squeeze on my arm. “Nobody is,” she says, and adds that damn sexy smile of hers. “Walk me to my car?”

  I call for the check, but the waiter waves me off.

  “It’s been taken care of,” Anthea tells me, rising from her chair.

  “No,” I say, “I insist on paying.”

  “Perk of the job.” She smiles. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “I asked you, I insist.”

  “Richard, it’s been my pleasure. Thank you.”

  The city streets are dark and deserted as we walk back to her car, arm and arm.

  A ANDREWS is stenciled on the wall where her Lexus is parked. She unlocks the car via her remote. I open her door.

  “Where did you park?” she asks.

  “Lot across the street.”

  “Want a ride?”

  “The walk will do me good.”

  We stand between the open door and the front seat of her car. We are close, but not touching. “I like you. I like you a lot,” I say.

  “And I like you, Richard.”

  “If I seem a bit awkward here it’s because my heart has been stomped flat a few times,” I say haltingly. “If I’m going to put myself at the edge of the cliff, I want to be sure if I fall, it’s worth the trip down.”

  She moves forward just a bit. Now we’re touching. “I’ve met a lot of men over the years, but no one ever like you.”

  “Consider that a blessing.”

  She reaches upward, gently places her hand on the back of my neck, pulls me forward, and leans into me. She gives me a kiss I will never forget. If there’s an emotion of total exhilaration, at this moment, I’m feeling it right now. All over.

  “Thank you for a lovely evening.”

  She breaks our clinch. I take a step backward. She climbs into the driver’s seat, rolls the window down, and starts the car. “Good night.”

  I stand like a wallflower at the school dance, as she backs out of her spot and drives up the ramp.

  Once the Lexus is out of sight, I slowly walk out of the lot. There’s a bounce to my step that wasn’t there before, and it’s not the new shoes. I feel a happy light-headedness. There’s a smile on my face.

  On the way back to my car, my mind is a jumbled mass of pleasant thoughts. I’m good. I’m really good. Kidnapping, horse camp debacles, fireworks, African artifacts, roulette strategies, self-made fertilizer, Moomah skipping down the yellow brick road bedecked in jewels with Bertha trailing behind, and Oland right behind her, pattering out his platitudes are the farthest things from my mind.

  I feel great.

  CHAPTER 31

  At six-fifteen in the morning my eyes pop open like a cartoon character getting an electric shock. I feel wonderful. My back doesn’t hurt. Love is the best medicine.

  I fill in Melvina’s name under her picture still pinned to the Original Carlo. I add one column of index cards to the far left side of the bad painting. On each of these cards I list one of the missing items. If the item has been returned or found, I add to that card where it popped up. There are only four items that remain at large: One ruby broach, one pair of diamond earrings, one gold necklace, and the big Kahuna, Moomah’s multi-diamond necklace extravaganza.

  One of the cards in the middle of the bunch catches my eye. I have a thought.

  I remove the card with the name of the suitcase. I carry it over to the table with my computer. I turn it on, Google Samsonite, click on the tab for products, and search for one that resembles Kennard’s suitcase. Unfortunately, they all look alike; a suitcase is a suitcase, is a suitcase. There’s a link to an 800 number, which I call, and hear a foreign accent inform me: “Please call between hours of nine and six, Eastern Time, Monday through Friday.” I find another link to stores selling Samsonite in Chicago, but none will be open for at least two hours. I search New York Samsonite Stores. Same problem.

  I search Samsonite Canada to find a store the Atlantic Time Zone. The Newfoundland Traveler’s Discount Depot is more than happy to answer my questions and provide the information I need. Canadians are always nice, probably because the weather is so crummy.

  I write down the dimensions of the suitcase on the index card: 13 x 7 x 33. I hang up the phone and turn off the computer. Next, I pull out a ream of eight by ten printer paper from a cupboard in the kitchen. There’s an old X-Acto knife in the drawer, but it takes me a while to find it. I remove a dollar bill from my wallet, get an old ruler out of another drawer, and carry it all to the dining room table.

  I count out one hundred sheets of paper, take the ruler and draw out the edges of the dollar bill, and begin cutting with the X-Acto knife. In a few minutes I have a neat stack of one-hundred sheets of paper in the exact size of United States legal tender.

  Here comes the hard part, because I’m terrible at math. I have to figure out how many of these will fit into the dimensions on the recipe card. I scribble down equations of how to solve the problem. It takes me about twenty minutes to figure out that I can’t figure out how to do this. I get up, and go into the bedroom.

  “Kelly, get up.”

  She stirs. Care stirs by default.

  “Kelly, get up. I need you.” I give her a tender shake.

  “Dad, what are you doing?” Care asks.

  “I have to get your sister up.”

  “Why?”

  “She’s good at math.”

  “You have to shake her. Like this.” Care takes Kelly by the shoulders and gives her a thorough manhandling.

  Kelly flails away in sleepy retaliation. “What are you doing? Leave me alone.”

  “Kelly, get up,” I say.

  “What time is it?” she asks.

  “A little before seven.”

  “The stores don’t open ‘till nine. Let me sleep.” Kelly rolls over, puts the pillow over her head.

  “I need you to figure something out for me.”

  “Not now.”

  “Yes, now.”

  Care yanks the pillow out from her sister, rolls her over, and sits Kelly up. “This is fun.”

  “It shouldn’t take a minute,
then you can go back to sleep,” I tell her.

  Care hops out of bed and helps me lift Kelly out. We trudge to the table in the other room.

  I show them the stack of cut paper and the numbers that I’ve written on the index card. “We have to find out how many of these will fit into a suitcase this size.” Kelly’s eyes are starting to focus. “This is like high school math. I’m still in middle school. So, can I go back to bed?”

  “Not yet.”

  Care tells me, “We’re going to need a calculator.” At least one of my daughters is thinking.

  “Get a couple of glasses of orange juice while you’re up.”

  After the OJ, we all go to work.

  Kelly motions with her hands, “Are they in this way or that way?”

  “Good question,” I commend my oldest. “I don’t know.”

  “That doesn’t help.”

  “Were they crammed in, or on top of each other?”

  “Probably stacked.”

  Kelly and Care both contemplate the problem. My daughters love a challenge. Kelly measures the height of the stack, as well as its length and width. She writes each number down on her paper and begins to write out equations. Care finds an old Tribune, lays the page down flat, and measures carefully with the ruler. She lines out the exact rectangle, and cuts out two templates; one for the height and one for the base. “Do you have any cardboard?”

  “Look on the back porch,” I tell her.

  Care cuts out five more stacks of one-hundred sheets of paper, as well as two pieces of cardboard the size of the suitcase. Kelly sketches the dimensions on blank paper: lengthwise, widthwise, and up and down wise. Each attempts to solve the puzzle in her own way, but after about fifteen minutes, they join forces. Care lays down a cardboard template she made, as Kelly multiplies, adds and subtracts. They argue a few points, but agree on others. Another ten minutes go by, as they rearrange, refigure, and recalculate.

  “If you lay four across the bottom, and stack them up from there, you could get about forty-five in a stack,” Kelly explains, motioning with her hands that the suitcase would be standing up tall.

  “If you put them in sideways, you could get five stacks across the bottom, but the bills wouldn’t lie flat, so you’d only get about thirty-five to forty in each stack,” Care says arranging the stacks on the pieces of cardboard. “But you’d have some room left on the sides.

  “So, how many stacks in each?” I ask.

  “About a hundred sixty in one,” Kelly says.

  “And about a hundred and eighty in the second,” Care adds. “But I think you might run out of room on the top, because they wouldn’t be flat.”

  I take a piece of paper and pencil. “How high is the stack?”

  “Somewhere between three-quarters and an inch,” Care says.

  “So, a stack of forty would be about thirty inches?”

  “Yeah, maybe,” Kelly says. “It matters how tight they were stuffed in.”

  “Okay. Now, let’s say the suitcase opens lengthwise, could you get more stacks in that way?” I pretend to lay the case down in this manner.

  Kelly and Care go back to work.

  “Same amount?”

  “No, more,” Care says.

  Care rearranges her paper templates. “You could only get about five in a stack, but you’d get about six across and six high.”

  “The same volume would fit into the same space, no matter how you stacked them, correct?”

  “No, because they stack differently whether the case is up or down.”

  “So, we can figure at most, one hundred eighty stacks of fifty-dollar bills, would fit in a case this size?”

  “Yes.”

  “What does that prove?” Care asks.

  “That a million dollars isn’t always a million dollars,” I answer.

  “A million dollars can be a lot more than a million, if you know how to shop,” Kelly says.

  “Thank you for that mathematical insight.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Now, get ready. We have to go downtown,” I tell them excitedly.

  “You said I could go back to sleep,” Kelly argues.

  “You can sleep when you’re ninety.”

  “But I want to sleep now.”

  “Where are we going?” Care asks.

  “We have to go see Oland.”

  As Kelly reluctantly trudges back into the bedroom, I pick up my cell phone. Care interrupts me before I can dial. “There’s something about you that’s different today, Dad.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, but I’m not sure what,” Care says.

  “Believe it or not, my lovely daughter,” I say. “I think I’m in love.”

  “Oh wow, that is so cool.” Care runs into the bedroom. “Kelly,” she screams. “Dad’s in love.”

  _____

  Before leaving the apartment, Kelly stops in front of the Original Carlo. “Dad, since we didn’t go anywhere on our vacation, and we didn’t do anything really fun, which is what kids are supposed to get to do on vacation, do you think maybe before you take us back to Mom’s, we could go to a mall?”

  “You already went shopping.”

  “Yes, but we didn’t go shopping with you.”

  “You never quit, do you?”

  Kelly removes the picture of Melvina Lange from the Original Carlo and presents it to me. “I really want a pair of these shoes. They are so Lady Gaga.”

  “Forget it.”

  “Why?”

  “Kelly, every time you see something you like, you want to buy it.”

  “What’s the matter with that?”

  “Life doesn’t work that way.”

  “Oh, Dad, could you please stop with the life lessons?”

  “No.”

  “I really want this pair of shoes. They could change my entire life.”

  “Forget it.”

  “You’re mean.”

  “I’m your father. I’m supposed to be mean.”

  _____

  On the way downtown, Kelly sleeps, but Care is wide awake. “Are we going to solve the case today?”

  “I hope so.”

  A few minutes pass in silence before Care speaks again. “Tiffany thinks her Uncle Kenno stole one of the watches.”

  “Why does she think that? She didn’t find anything in his drawer, did she?”

  “No.” Care is a bit sheepish as she talks. “But she thinks he stole it and gave it to Schnooks.”

  “I doubt that,” I say. “Schnooks wouldn’t wear any watch without Mickey or Minnie on the dial.”

  “Tiffany’s worried that one of her relatives is a crook, and that everybody will find out, and she’ll have to move to Hollywood or Manhattan until the scandal blows over.”

  “Nothing like that is going to happen,” I tell her. “You can tell Tiffany I said so.”

  Another minute passes in silence. I sense there’s something else on her mind. I wait.

  “Dad,” Care asks. “Am I going to get a new mom?”

  “You already have a mom, Care.”

  “Am I going to get an extra one?”

  “It is a little premature to make that call, Care,” I say. “Let’s just say that your Dad has met someone he really likes.”

  Care thinks my comment over before she replies. “Good for you, Dad,” she says. “I’m glad.”

  “Thank you.”

  I pull the Toyota into the parking lot of the precinct house. “Now, wake your sister up. We’re here.”

  CHAPTER 32

  “I thought we agreed to wait to tell them about the money?”

  “He who is late to finish, finishes late.”

  The girls stand off to the side as Oland and I argue at his desk. It is a few minutes past eight. The shift change is in progress.

  “But I still have a four-million dollar necklace to recover.”

  “Not my problem,” Oland says as he moves to his left to allow a pair of hand-cuffed gangbangers to pass b
y. “I’m kidnapping, not grand theft.”

  “Give me one more day, please?”

  “All’s well that ends well.”

  “That’s Shakespeare, not Charlie Chan.”

  “It’s early.”

  “I need to see the money.”

  “Case is closed, Sherlock.”

  “The only case that’s closed is the one that holds the money. I need to see it Oland.”

  “It’s locked up in the dungeon.”

  “I’m on your side, remember?”

  “Memory often a curse.” Oland reaches into the top drawer of his desk and retrieves a container of Ramen Noodles. “Breakfast most important meal of day,” he says.

  I tell the girls that they’ll have to wait upstairs in the squad room while Oland and I go downstairs. They’re not happy about it. “This isn’t fun.”

  “In life, girls, you have to make the best of bad situations.”

  “God, does it ever end?” Kelly moans under her breath.

  Oland and I take the stairs to the dungeon after a quick stop in the lunchroom where he zaps his noodles in the microwave.

  The Police Evidence Room, aka the dungeon, is a low-rent bank vault, complete with Chester, a uniformed guard, who has worked this duty forever. Its entrance is a small space leading to a singular, teller-like window. A thick, steel mesh wall separates the viewers from the goods.

  “Haven’t seen you in a while,” Chester says, when he lays his eyes on me.

  “I got kicked off the force.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “You’ve been down here too long, Chester.”

  Chester opens the cage door for us to enter. “By the way, did we win the war yet?”

  “Yeah,” I tell him. “Pretty much.”

  “Did they ever catch that Hitler guy?”

  I fall for the same joke every time I’m down here.

  Kennard’s suitcase sits on a table, zipped up tight. Oland thanks Chester, who backs up to the edge of the room to watch us, as if he were a playground monitor.

  The suitcase is just how I remember it, and I can tell it’s the exact dimensions given to me by the nice guy in Newfoundland.

  “Techs been over it?” I ask.

  “Twice.”

  “And?”

  “No new prints,” Oland says between chopsticks full of Ramen Noodles.