“Back to the illegal activity—would you be willing to give me details? I promise to keep the information confidential.”
“I was only there about three months—long enough to realize I didn’t like it and that things would not be improving.” Sal’s voice moved closer but became more muffled as though he was cupping the receiver with his hand. “Let’s just say not a lot of trailer repair goes on there. I know they have a parking lot full of damaged trailers, but there’s almost no rotation. The same ones just sit there, taking up space.”
Sal took a deep breath and continued. “Work is really sporadic — lots of days they’ll call and tell you not to bother coming in, then suddenly there’ll be a flurry with overtime for their favorite employees. There’s definitely an in group and an out group. I was part of the out group, and only got called in for one night shift where we loaded scrap metal into eight containers for sea shipment. We rolled the last one out of there before dawn, which is saying something since they had to be loaded pretty much by hand.”
Sal paused for a moment, but I held my questions at bay. He seemed to be warming to his story, and I wondered if it had been weighing on him, this situation he had disliked so much that he’d quit when local jobs were scarce.
“Some of that scrap metal looked awfully new to me. In fact, some of it looked like the new drum pulper that was supposed to have been installed at the paper mill that week. It got lost in transport or damaged or something, some big insurance claim, my cousin told me. He works on the finishing line over there at the mill.” Sal pulled away and coughed. “Just speculation on my part. So I guess that’s all I can say about that.”
“Thank you. I’m very glad you’re working at my terminal now,” I said.
“Me too, Ms.—uh, Nora. Me too.”
There was a slight scuffing noise as though Sal had scooted his chair back, then the soft thump of a door closing, and Hank came on the line. “Want the less favorable gossip?”
“Less favorable than insurance scams?” I sat up and dropped my feet to the floor with a clunk.
“Yeah. Sal’s an understated sort of guy. I’ve heard far worse around the lunch table. I just thought it would be better if not everyone knows you’re asking questions. Sal will keep his mouth shut.”
“Tell me.” My head swam for a second from the sudden change in altitude, and then I realized I’d better take notes.
When Hank finished, my first reaction was that small towns aren’t idyllic. They might look that way to outsiders, but the crime rates are probably just as high, on a percentage basis, as in their larger counterparts. And in small towns, that increased your odds of actually knowing a criminal.
Even though everyone seemed well informed about everyone else’s business, people were also so closely connected that hard, harmful secrets could also be kept—out of fear, concern, under threat whether explicit or implicit, especially when families’ livelihoods hung in the balance. For a while at least. Although, from Hank’s report, the grumblings had started.
Hank had rung off with a warning to be careful, to not be too obvious, although it was a little late for that considering the friendly barging-in Loretta and Emmie and I had accomplished earlier. I’d cringed inside and softly agreed to his procedural recommendations going forward. Hank had been shot last time I’d gone poking around where someone thought I shouldn’t have.
Clarice gave me the break I needed by tromping up the stairs with a tray laden with dinner—a finger food picnic under the eaves.
In many ways, my life since my wedding and Skip’s disappearance had been frightening. Okay, honestly—terrifying. I’d done—and survived—things I never would have imagined a few short months ago. But in many other ways it had been delightfully whimsical and provided a level of joy I also never would have imagined possible.
I mostly thought this while watching Emmie tuck into her food. Here we were in a musty old mansion, together—this little girl who wasn’t mine biologically but was as much a daughter as any little girl could be. Accompanied by Clarice, as fierce and stalwart a friend as there ever was. It was pretty much a Hallmark moment, for about twenty minutes.
Until Clarice announced it was bath time for Emmie and shot me a pointed look over her glasses. She knew what sequestering myself in the attic meant, what all the scribbled-on papers and Internet research foretold.
“I’ll be back,” she muttered as she stacked our empty plates.
oOo
And that’s how I spent the weekend, hermitted away in the attic. But it was a good use of time and brain power — and the most research I’d done since college.
The confusing question was how my dad was involved in all of this. As his Alzheimer’s had progressed, his clarity had decreased, but that didn’t mean that his random comments didn’t sometimes have elements of truth in them. The difficulty was picking out which ones and developing what connections, if any, there were between them.
Could my dad’s very shaky grasp of possible past indiscretions still get him in trouble? I didn’t think he was coherent enough to be a viable threat to anyone, but no one else knew him as well as I did, and there was no stopping whatever erroneous conclusions they might draw. I was fortunate the FBI was taking his situation seriously, but that was because a mobster had shown up at the care facility and engaged in some rather menacing intimidation tactics.
I drew a lot of lines and boxes and arrows on pieces of paper before I narrowed my options down to two. I could try to prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, to all my dad’s potential enemies that he was fully incapacitated, or I could divert their attention. Either way, I’d have to figure out who all had set their sights on my dad. It’s not like these people leave calling cards.
Well, they do, actually. The dismembered finger that had been dropped in a plastic bag and hung from the kitchen door handle came to mind. But not the kind of calling cards with calligraphed names and addresses on them.
And then there were Skip’s underworld connections and my list of Numeros. The crime world has a strict hierarchy, allegiances, and communications network that mimic, or maybe improve upon, what’s available to the average law-abiding citizen. And I was pretty sure that somehow my dad’s realm of past influence now overlapped with Skip’s.
It would even be fair to assume that Skip’s former money laundering clients would view my dad as an opportunity for leverage to get at Skip. They’d already lumped me in that category. Why not make it a family affair? I had to admit that was probably what I would do if I was in their shoes.
At least it gave me another angle. Might as well work them all.
So I spent more time hunting around for information on Mart ‘the Shark’ Zimmermann, the nonagenarian men’s clothier and opera supporter.
And got zip. Nada.
But there was no shortage of the stunning Angelica Temple splashed all over society pages and what seemed to be her favorite non-profit hobby, an economic development council for small businesses in the many bergs and hamlets tucked in and around the San Francisco metropolitan area. Lots of photos of her receiving petty awards from beaming merchant class folks on behalf of chambers of commerce, downtown associations, and the like. The presenters were usually middle-aged or older, balding men with significant bellies, and they usually had stupefied smiles mashed into their faces as though they were dazzled to be in her presence.
Or maybe I was a little biased. Or bitter. Or had been stuck out in the boonies in my flannel and hiking boots for too long. Or something.
But a woman like that could walk all over a planning commission or contractors’ board or homeowners’ association without one single male member realizing it. The few female representatives in those kinds of organizations also ran a serious risk of not recognizing the pervasiveness of the deception until it was too late.
I was chock full of stereotypes, but Matt’s description of Zimmermann’s illegal betting franchises rang in my ears when I saw what Angelica was parading through. So I gave h
im a call. He probably wasn’t doing anything else on a Sunday afternoon anyway.
“The mistress takes all, huh?” Matt chuckled.
“It’s a crazy hypothesis. I guess it just got debunked.” I sniffed. “No proof on the romantic side of things. It’s just that she’s very—” I had to probe for a sufficiently polite word, “active.”
“Hold on. I can ask the San Francisco office for some background, check her file—if she has one. Just give me a couple days.” It was a considerate backtracking on Matt’s part, but I could still hear the amusement in his voice.
“Just doing what you asked me to,” I huffed.
“Yep. Appreciate it.”
“But if you’re looking at files—”
“Out with it, Nora.”
“Can I see the files too? As a well-informed and somewhat linked civilian with parallel interests? I have a list.”
“Why am I not surprised?” Matt sighed. “Highly irregular. I’ll have to request permission, which most likely will not be granted. But hit me with your list.”
So I did. Half the names were a reach in the dark. But it didn’t hurt to try.
CHAPTER 10
I stood and stretched my arms over my head. A couple days of physical, if not mental, rest had done wonders for my bruises and general achiness. But I was still stiff from sitting so long, hunched over the desk with my chin pressed into the heel of my left hand. Writer’s cramp curled my right hand into an ugly knob.
But then I received the most delightful phone call of the weekend.
“Punkin?” Gus said. “Your truck’s ready.”
I could have kissed him, but thought better of making smacky sounds over the phone. “You’ve put in overtime.”
Gus chuckled. “I have a pretty good idea of the dire consequences if I don’t get Clarice’s Subaru finished soon. So yep, I pulled a couple all-nighters to clear out my backlog. I’ll be fresh as a daisy tomorrow when the last of her parts get delivered.”
I was going to have a serious discussion with Clarice about gratitude and the proper way to display it to a genial mountain of a man. I had a few pointers, and they included more than just several dozen of his favorite cookies.
Down in the kitchen, Clarice and Emmie were elbows deep in a cutthroat game of Monopoly. They’d kept me company at times throughout the weekend, but mental stewing is a boring activity to watch, and I’d been unable—or unwilling, in the case of Emmie—to share many details until I’d sorted things out for myself. Besides, my sorting still wasn’t as clearly defined in my own mind as I would have liked.
I called Loretta for a lift and tanked up on leftover tacos while supervising the game. The Fed would have had a fit if they’d seen the skimpiness of the reserves in the bank. Both Emmie and Clarice had piles of cash stashed on chairs beside them, under the edge of the board, in cereal bowls, which meant some form of house rules must have been applied. They were about to enter the realm of usury, and I was glad I wouldn’t be around to witness the meltdown.
Clarice did take a moment away from scowling at her property lineup to mutter, “We no longer have guests.”
“When did they leave?”
She shrugged. “Early. I made a big breakfast, and there was no one in the basement to eat it.”
“Dwayne did give me notice. I think they’ll be okay. And they can always come back.”
“Gonna be quiet around here.” There was a tinge of resentment in Clarice’s voice.
I studied her profile and couldn’t help smiling. Tough as nails but with a gigantic heart buried under that gruff exterior. I never would have imagined her picking up her life and joining me in the boonies to help run a bootstrap, backdoor, wing-and-a-prayer, amateur criminal takedown operation, but here she was. And we were both still alive.
Emmie rolled the dice and counted out her move.
I was distracted by the tiny white nodule she was using as a playing piece. “What is that?” I nudged her hand out of the way for a better view.
She grinned up at me with an exaggerated, cheesy wide smile, revealing a gaping hole in her bottom row of teeth.
I chuckled and shook her hand. “Congratulations. At last.”
“I think the tooth fairy’s bankrupt,” Clarice growled.
Then I slipped up to my bedroom and did something else I never would have imagined a couple months ago. I stuck the handgun Josh had given me into my tote bag along with my array of phones.
Other than during the shakedown of Viktor Lutsenko, my Numero Dos, the gun had been hidden on the top shelf of the closet in my bedroom, well out of reach of short people. The thing kind of scared me, but it also kind of reassured me—up there. In my bag was a different story. It added what felt like another fifty pounds of grim weight.
“How are you holding up?” I asked Loretta once we were under way.
“I’m fine.” Loretta slid the old rattle-trap pickup into fourth gear with a smooth wrist movement, her face taut as she stared straight ahead through the windshield. “But Tarq’s not. He’s fading fast. I’m helping him bathe now, all but his private parts. He makes me leave the room for that. I help him dress, tie his shoes. He gets winded just walking from the bedroom to the kitchen.”
“I’ll come visit tomorrow.”
Loretta nodded quickly. “That’ll perk him up. You have anything for him to worry about—besides the dead body, I mean? He gets fired up, in a good way, when there’s a problem to solve.”
“Guess what I have no shortage of? Tell him I have a real doozy, plus some old history to dredge up.”
Loretta cast a sidelong glance at me. “You heard any more from Skip?”
“Not since the bracelet.” Skip’s token from his layover in Silt, Colorado had been an expensive diamond and emerald bracelet, which I knew, courtesy of the FBI and some surveillance video, he’d purchased at a San Antonio pawnshop.
The wedding ring Skip had given me—and which I’d traded for Emmie—had also been a large emerald. Since there had been no note with the bracelet, I wasn’t sure what, if any, significance I was supposed to read into the gift. Yet another riddle from my mysterious missing husband.
“We’ll get to the bottom of this.” Loretta’s tone was tight as she pulled up in front of Gus’s service station-slash-post office. Come to think of it, her usual chipperness had been notably absent the past week or two. She must be exhausted, and it wouldn’t surprise me if she was depressed too.
I leaned over and gave her a quick hug. “You’re a classy lady, you know that? Full of grit.”
Which got a little smile from her. “Right back at you, darling.”
I watched until I could no longer see Loretta’s taillights then stepped inside the service bay, yoohooing for Gus.
Lentil was a thing of beauty. I didn’t know an engine could look so good. Gus had the hood up, and he pointed out the parts he’d replaced and the other parts he’d tuned up or improved somehow. I’m no mechanic, but I think he’d worked his magic on about ninety percent of Lentil’s innards.
Plus a wash and wax. I could hardly tell the old brown paint had been oxidizing into a putty color.
“Start her up.” He handed me the keys.
The ignition turned smooth as silk, but I nearly levitated off the seat at the voluminous roar that bounced off the close walls of the service bay. The sound was suspiciously similar to the characteristic Harley exhaust noise. “Did you mess with the muffler?” I shouted out the window.
And for the first time ever I actually saw some of Gus’s teeth. His grin was that wide—a horizontal parting of the bushy mustache-and-beard Red Sea.
I turned off the engine and yawned to clear the burr out of my ears. “Do the high school kids go drag racing on Saturday nights around here? ‘Cause this old girl sounds like she could clean them out.”
Gus rumbled that deep belly laugh I love so much. “You need to stay out of trouble, punkin.”
“You’re not going to do this to Clarice’s Subaru are you?”
Gus waved a meaty hand. “Noooo. For a sophisticated lady like Clarice? Never. That station wagon is going to purr like a tabby but accelerate like a cheetah. You’ll see.”
“She doesn’t need help in the speed department.”
But Gus only waggled his eyebrows at me.
“Send me a bill?”
“Sure, sure. When I get around to the paperwork.”
I drove away wondering—if Clarice was a sophisticated lady, then what was I? Some kind of renegade apparently. Yep, with an unlicensed gun in my purse.
oOo
Selma had not wanted to part with Laney’s new address. Especially since I wouldn’t tell her exactly why I needed it. And because I also made her promise not to tell Laney I was coming. It’s a hard thing for a mother to let go of feeling responsible for her adult offspring, even when they make really dumb decisions. In return, I promised to fill Selma in after the fact. Maybe it was nothing, I told her, although my intuitive antenna said otherwise.
Laney lived in a dump. And if it looked scary now, I could only imagine how depressing it was in daylight. She had the upper right unit in a fourplex of indiscriminate color. Three out of the four exterior lights were burned out or possibly broken.
The narrow parking lot was crowded with vehicles that—from all appearances—could only qualify as capricious in their drivability. One was up on cinder blocks, wheel-less, bumper-less, and window-less. I parked on the shadowed side of an overflowing dumpster and clicked my door closed as quietly as possible. Except Lentil’s fabulous new muffler had certainly announced my presence.
But I was in a neighborhood full of no-muffler types, so maybe the noise wasn’t uncommon. For the first time ever, I had to worry about the possible theft of my souped-up pickup. Lentil would be the envy of every rally racer in the county.
I picked my way up the stairwell toward Laney’s door. The handrail jiggled so much that it was safer not to use it. It was probably only affixed to the rotted plank siding with a few rusty screws. If I had to, I was sure I could rip the handrail off the wall and use it as a weapon. A big, clunky, awkward weapon, but a reassuring thought nonetheless.
Cash & Carry (Mayfield Cozy Mystery Book 4) Page 7