by Jim Stevens
I take a number of Herman’s findings and drop them on the table. “It’s all right here, if anyone cares to read through.”
“I can account for every penny.”
“Figures lie, and liars figure out how to lie,” Oland tells him
I have the comfort level of the group at an all-time low. “You’re all guilty. Elmhurst, Safari, Venus, Boo, and E. Each of you found a little window to crack open, so some of Moomah’s money could blow into your greedy little hands. Honestly, I can’t say I blame any of you.”
I can see Moomah is listening, but I’m not sure what she is hearing.
“There’s only one person to blame for all this.” I wait for a comment or two from the peanut gallery, but no one speaks. “Moomah.”
All eyes look up.
“Moomah?” Tiffany questions.
Moomah breaks the silence as she raises her index finger to the ceiling. “One day, they’re going to erect a statue of me in this town.”
“Well, don’t go posing for it yet.” I come around the table and stand next to the aged and demented woman. “It’s your fault. You raised four lazy kids, taught them nothing about responsibility, and you expected them to get along on their own without any guidance. That’s downright cruel. And when they each turned twenty-one, you took them off the payroll, and put them on a stipend smaller than Tiffany’s monthly clothing allowance.”
Moomah announces, “If I only had a brain.”
“Hang in there, Moomah,” I tell her. “In a few minutes, you’ll get to go home.”
“Toto, too?”
“Yes, Toto, too.”
I come back to where I was previously standing. “There’s a reason why I held this meeting in the Richmond Suite. There are no cameras or listening devices. So, what goes on in here, stays in here. You can make your own decisions about what to do, at least as far as the family is concerned. However, I need to take care of the non-family members tied up in this idiocy.”
Leonard Louis raises his hand.
“Sit tight, Leonard. Johnny Spaccone is first.”
Johnny adjusts his cuff links.
I pick up two fifties out of the pile, pull a hastily scribbled note out of my pocket and put them in front of Johnny. “The family will give you a C-note to cancel all legal proceedings against Moomah. In exchange, your name will be removed from any criminal charges of conspiracy and fraud. If you take the money and sign this document, you can leave, and be at the bar before happy hour begins.”
“But I so wanted to be a part of the family.”
“Ain’t gonna happen, Johnny.”
Johnny takes out a silver pen, signs his name, and pockets the cash. “Can I get you to throw in cab fare?”
“No.”
Johnny stands up. “It’s been a pleasure.” He moves over to Moomah and gives her a kiss. “Goodbye, my love.” He passes Tiffany on his way to the door and gives her a wink. “Hey, little lady, I’m unattached. Wanna hang?”
“Get lost, creep,” Tiffany replies.
“C’est la vie,” he says as he walks through the door the cop opened just for him.
I walk over to Leonard, pick the necklace up and say, “Okay, Leonard, now it’s your turn.”
Leonard rubs his hands together like he would before a feast. “Bring it on, Sherlock.”
“According to the insurance records, the value of the necklace is four million dollars.”
“Tell you what,” Leonard says. “How about if we pass that pile down this way and call it even?”
“The deal was based on the appraised value of the item, Leonard.” I lay the necklace flat in the center of the table, reach down and take off one of my new shoes. The suspects stare at me in amazement. With shoe in hand I lift my arm, and begin my downward swing.
Every breath in the room ceases, every eye opens wide. I hear three “No’s” and one “Don’t” shouted out before I slam down the shoe’s heel on the biggest ruby. BAM!
It shatters like a cheap marble.
Every jaw drops open.
Why stop there? I wail away like a prisoner on a rock pile. WHAM! BAM! THANK YOU MA’AM! I smash a diamond, a sapphire, and another ruby. Shards of glass explode off the table in every direction.
“Very resourceful,” Moomah says.
Placing the shoe back on my foot, I pick up the necklace, and model it once again. “I’m not sure you could get ten bucks for this on the Home Shopping Channel, now. I’ll be willing to bet the gold chain will turn your neck green.”
Leonard Louie has gone limp. I’m surprised he can still sit up straight.
“How much you did pay for it, Leonard?” I ask.
“Twenty grand.”
Even when Leonard is in a state of shock, he finds a way to lie.
“Somebody stole Moomah’s necklace. Not this cheap imitation, but the real McCoy. Somebody in this room.” I pause and look at each face at the table. “Anybody want to make it easy and confess?”
Not a word.
“At first, I thought it was you Safari.”
“Me?”
“You lift the necklace, take it to Africa, and sell it piece by piece.”
“Absolutely absurd.”
“Elmhurst, you often visited Moomah’s purse for cash. Boo you have expensive tastes with a miniscule budget. Venus, you spent more time in the vault with Moomah than anyone. E Carrington, you had the asset list and knew exactly what to take. Kennard, I don’t think you took it, but Schnooks, I wonder about. She’s got a streak of greed, and what’s more, she’s flown the coop.” I look around. What a motley crew of suspects. “It could’ve been any one of you.”
Kelly, Care, Tiffany, and Anthea stare at the family members waiting for one to speak up and confess.
“Whoever stole the actual necklace tried to cover up the crime by having a worthless copy made. They figured to put it back in the vault and no one would ever be the wiser.”
Before continuing, I mention to the devastated Leonard, “I’ll give you a hundred bucks for your trouble, and you can keep the phony as a keepsake.”
“Gee, thanks.”
I subtract two fifties from the pile and pass them to Leonard. “You can go now.”
Leonard stands. He looks at Anthea and says, “I need to stop payment on a check.”
“You’d better hurry, the bank closes at five o’clock,” she tells him.
The cop unlocks the door and Leonard dashes out without his empty suitcase.
“Get comfortable everyone,” I tell the remaining crowd. “We’re going to sit here and talk this over until I figure out which one of you did it.”
Oland catches my eye and taps on the face of his watch.
“Patience is a virtue,” I tell him. “Possess it when you can.”
A knock come on the door. The cop looks over at me for guidance. Another knock.
“Oh, that might be for me,” Kelly says.
The cop opens the door and the woman who Kelly was speaking with upstairs in the bank lobby stands at the entryway.
“Excuse me,” the woman says. She sees Kelly, walks into the room, and hands her a piece of paper. “Here’s the address. They’re open until nine.”
“I certainly hope we’re not disturbing you, Kelly,” I say in my best parental voice.
“I’m sorry I didn’t mean to bother anybody,” she says looking straight at Anthea.
Kelly takes the paper and as she thanks the woman I look down and see her shoes. She’s wearing a pair Cleopatra might have worn to the grand opening of the Sphinx. Sandal straps, reddish-pink, three inch heel, and pointed toes. Needless to say, hardly conservative bank wear. But subtract her fabulous footwear and all you’d have is your usual, boring bank employee. She excuses herself again and quickly walks out of the room.
I feel a sudden expulsion of air from my lungs. My head gets a bit lightheaded. My palms begin to sweat. I look around to see the culprit of the crime. My heart skips a beat.
“You did it.”
> The entire table, including Moomah, traces my sightline to the person I’m now facing.
“Me?”
“Yes, Anthea. You.”
“Are you out of your mind, Richard?”
“I wish I was.”
“This is a joke,” she questions with a stammer in her voice. “Isn’t it?”
“You could have lifted it anytime you wanted. You merely dropped it in a pocket and walked out with Moomah. No guard is going to frisk you.”
Anthea doesn’t look as fresh as she did when this meeting started. “You have got to be kidding. It’s insulting to even suspect me.”
“A person in your position would have numerous contacts around the world that deal in priceless gems. It wouldn’t be much of a stretch for you to know which ones are a bit on the shady side.”
“Richard,” she pleads.
“To throw me off the track, you had a very non-descript bank employee enter the vault and get on the security tape. Too bad she wore such ugly shoes.”
“How can you say these things about me?”
“It didn’t make sense how you knew so quickly about Kennard’s deposits into First Chicago. There wasn’t a conversation we had where you didn’t drop some fact about the case or pump me for information. And I bet four-million dollars would be a good start for a hedge fund.”
Oland makes a loud clank as he plops a pair of handcuffs on the table.
Anthea stares at me with the most beautiful set of puppy dog eyes, “You can’t let them do this to me.”
“You played along, tried to throw suspicion onto Kennard, you even asked to lock the necklace up for safekeeping after Moomah whacked me with it.”
“That doesn’t prove anything,” she says.
“Not yet,” I say. “But it sure gives this case a whole new point of view.”
“But what about us?” Anthea asks.
I plop back down into my chair. A tear wells up in my eye, but I quickly brush it away. I fold my fingers together, push my hands onto my face, and stare into nothingness.
Oland grabs the cuffs and walks around the table to Anthea. “He who play in big sandbox, find it easy to get dirty.”
“This is absurd. This is madness. You can’t prove any of this,” Anthea tells him.
“But I give it old college try,” Oland says as the cuffs snap shut.
“I want to see a lawyer.”
Anthea gives me a last look, hardly a look of love.
The cop escorts her out of the room. I find it amazing how love can so quickly turn to hate.
A minute or two must elapse, but I have no sense of time. I sit frozen in it.
Kennard breaks the silence. “What about us?”
I don’t answer.
“What about the money?” Elmhurst asks.
“Yeah,” Safari adds. “What about the money?”
“You said you were going to divide it up…”
“That we’d all get out shares,” Safari finishes Elmhurst’s sentence.
I glance at the family members one by one. “I lied.”
“What?”
“Dectective Oland will put it back in Moomah’s safety deposit box where it belongs. Just like almost all the other stuff, it is going right back from where it came from.”
“You can’t do that,” Safari argues.
“Talk to Jamison Wentworth the Third, he’s the executor of the estate.”
“But he won’t take our calls,” Kennard says.
“Don’t feel bad, he doesn’t take mine either.” I check my watch. It is getting late. I have to get the girls back to their mother’s. Vacation with Dad has come to an end. “Come on, girls.”
I pick up my pile of papers and evidence, but before leaving I turn to the matriarch. “Moomah, before you go home, any last thoughts on the matter?”
Moomah’s eyes come up to meet mine, and she speaks with a true sincerity, “There’s no place like home.”
CHAPTER 35
Tiffany follows me and the girls out of the room and into the elevator.
“Sorry about you and the banker lady, Dad,” Care tells me.
“Hey, Dad,” Kelly says. “When it comes to picking women, you need work.”
“You can say that again,” I concur.
“When it comes to picking women, you need work.”
“Very funny, Kelly.”
“I knew that woman wasn’t right for you, Mr. Sherlock.”
“Why not?”
“You two didn’t impress me as being soul mates.”
“Then, why didn’t you say something?”
“I was about to suggest you two should start seeing other people, but then all that other stuff happened.”
We exit the bank as a group. On the sidewalk outside, Kelly says, “You know, you were wrong.”
“I was?”
“Those shoes weren’t ugly, they were incredibly cool.”
“So, if I ever want to get you a pair of shoes, I should find the ugliest pair imaginable and buy those?”
“Please, don’t ever buy me any shoes. Just give me the money and I’ll shop for myself.”
We walk south. A half block of silence and Tiffany comes to my side. “Thank you for keeping it all in the family,” she says. “It could’ve put some serious dents in my persona if everyone in town found out how idiotic my half-family members can be.”
“You’re welcome. And speaking of the family, did you call your Dad and tell him I was going to let the siblings split up the cash?”
“I left a message on his voice-mail.”
“I thought you said nobody uses voice-mail anymore.”
“That’s correct.”
At the lot where I had parked the Toyota, Tiffany air-kisses the girls and tells them she’s off to her spa for some much needed R and R. Kelly and Care thank her for the shopping spree and ask if they can do it again soon.
“No.” I tell them.
_____
On the way back to their mother’s house, Care is the first to speak. “You know Dad, this vacation wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be.”
“Thanks for the compliment.”
“But we didn’t get to do much,” Kelly says.
“What do you mean? You got to go to Safari’s jungle house, Venus’ indoor farm, and Freddy the Fencer’s pawn shop. You got to meet Phoebe the Forger and the Mona Lisa. How many kids get to do all that?”
“How many kids would want to do that?” Kelly says.
“You got to see a kidnapping in Grant Park, how rich people really live, go inside a bank vault and play with a fortune in jewelry, and see nine hundred thousand dollars in cash. If I were you, I’d consider myself pretty lucky.”
I glance in the rear view mirror, my daughters are both smiling.
“We were just kidding you,” Kelly admits. “It was really a great vacation.”
“But next year, can we go to Disneyworld?” Care asks.
“No.”
A Note from the Author
Thank you for reading THE CASE OF MOOMAH’S MOOLAH. I certainly hope you enjoyed my novel, and if you did, please let others know of your good reading fortune. The easiest way being through cyberspace, via social media networks, such as Amazon, Facebook, Linkedin, Goodreads, and Twitter. Please put out a good review to the above, and to your friends and contacts. It will be greatly appreciated.
About Jim Stevens
Jim Stevens was born in the East, grew up in the West, schooled in the Northwest, and spent twenty-three winters in the Midwest. He has been an advertising copywriter, playwright, filmmaker, stand-up comedian, and television producer.
Contact him at [email protected]
Also by Jim Stevens
Reluctant Dick, The Case of the Not-So-Fair Trader
(A Richard Sherlock Whodunit)
WHUPPED
And Coming Soon:
The Case of Tiffany’s Epiphany
(A Richard Sherlock, the Reluctant Dick, Whodunit)
And Coming Whenever:
WHUPPED, TOO
RELUCTANT DICK #3, (The third book in the Richard Sherlock Whodunit Series)