Hell on Wheels

by Sue Ann Jaffarian

  I shrugged, as I always did in school when sent before the principal. “There’s really no way I can make you stop screwing with Mrs. Tobin, Elaine. I’m simply asking that you don’t.”

  “You could always blow the whistle on me,” she suggested.

  “And put me, my friends, and my family in mortal danger? No, thanks.”

  “I’ve always said you were smart.” She uncrossed her arms.

  “I’m sure there are other old people you could prey on without messing with this lady.” I thought about my own mother, then I quickly added, “Not that I’m suggesting you continue with this despicable crime wave, but if you do, can you do it elsewhere?”

  “What makes you think I haven’t already?”

  I was growing weary. I wanted this conversation over so I could return to my table before Zee began to worry.

  “I need to get back,” I told Elaine. “Please don’t mess with Fanny Tobin,” I said, stating my request again, “or hurt her. I would consider it a huge personal favor.”

  “I thought I did you a huge personal favor the last time we met.”

  I hung my head. “Yes, you did. A monumental one.”

  She studied me as she gave it some thought. “Oh, okay, Odelia, I’ll leave Fanny alone.” She said it with a juvenile roll of her eyes, as if I’d just asked her to turn her music down. “What can I say, I have a soft spot for you.”

  “Thank you,” I said with relief.

  Elaine picked up her purse and started for one of the stalls. “Why don’t you rejoin your friend Mrs. Washington and enjoy your lunch. The food here is quite good.”

  “What will you tell Fanny?”

  “Probably something like I don’t feel well and need to leave. Then I’ll disappear, and she’ll never hear from me again.” She cocked her head to one side. “And what will you tell your boss?”

  “Why do I need to say anything? I’ll let him think you took off before I could find out anything about you.”

  She smiled. “Don’t be so modest, Odelia. Tell him the truth, or at least part of it. Tell him you found Eudora to be a fraud and confronted her, ordering her to leave his mother alone or you’d go to the police. Take the credit and let him think you’re a hero—nothing wrong with that. Might get you a nice year-end bonus.”

  She must have seen the hesitation on my face because she followed it up with, “Just don’t tell him the entire truth.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it.” I held my right hand out to her. She looked at it a moment like it might be some sort of a trap, then took it. We shook. “Thank you, Elaine.”

  “One more thing, Odelia,” she said, not letting go my hand. Elaine had a surprisingly strong grip for a woman of her age. “Every time we cross paths, you cost me money. The next time, I might not be so generous.”

  I left the ladies’ room, but just outside the door I had a another thought and returned. Elaine was in one of the stalls doing her business. “Pssst, Elaine—it’s me, Odelia.”

  “Now what? Did you come back to make sure I wiped my ass?”

  “Did you see the news about the woman who was found dead in a van in San Diego this past weekend?”

  Silence. Then, “You mean the one they think killed that guy in the wheelchair?”

  “Yes.” I took a deep breath then surged forward. “Did you have anything to do with that?”

  More silence. I waited, shifting from foot to foot. A moment later I heard her flush. Seconds later she emerged from the stall smoothing down the skirt of her knit suit. “If it was a hit, it wasn’t us.”

  “Do you know anything about Peter Tanaka’s death? He was the wheelchair athlete who died.”

  “Again, not us.” She washed her hands, then considered me while she dried them. “You don’t think that woman killed him?”

  “I don’t know if she did or not.” I looked at Elaine’s reflection in the mirror. “That woman was Miranda Henderson. She and her husband are friends with me and Greg.”

  Elaine stared at my reflection. “How do you do it, Odelia? How do you always manage to get so close to murder and mayhem? For me, it’s a business; for you, it’s…,” her voice trailed off as she tried to find the appropriate word.

  I lifted one shoulder in response and helped her out. “It’s a gift.”

  Elaine chuckled.

  “Seriously, Elaine.” I turned away from the mirror to look at her directly. “My husband and I are looking into Miranda’s death as a favor to her husband.” I cast my eyes down at the thought of Rocky. “He’s currently in the hospital in a coma. They think he tried to kill himself after Miranda died.”

  “Maybe the husband killed them both,” she suggested, “then offed himself.”

  “Unlikely. He’s in a wheelchair too. And he was in jail, charged with beating Peter, when she died.”

  Elaine stared at me like I had two heads. “You do remember who you’re talking to, don’t you? Who’s to say he didn’t hire out the hit on both of them, got in the fight to cover it up, then tried to kill himself? Were they screwing around behind his back?”

  My eyes widened at the thought, which hadn’t entered my mind and probably not Greg’s either. In spite of my theory about Miranda not getting involved with another quad player, I said, “Possibly.”

  Elaine picked up her purse by its handle. “Well, there you go. A motive if ever there was one. But I can assure you, if either or both were professional jobs, it wasn’t my crew. I choose the jobs personally.”

  True to her word, shortly after we returned to our respective tables, Elaine made some excuse to Fanny and left the restaurant. Fanny stayed behind and finished her meal, and Zee and I enjoyed ours.

  “Okay,” Zee said once we were back in the car and heading home. “Now that we’re alone, are you going to tell me what happened with that woman?” We’d stopped by the Bouchon bakery on our way out, and both of us had picked up baked goods to take home. The car’s interior smelled decadent with buttery goodness.

  “I confronted her and told her to back off of Mrs. Tobin. She agreed.”

  “Just like that?”

  “She was running a scam on her, and I told her if she didn’t cease, I’d go to the police.”

  Zee glanced over at me. “So who is she?”

  “No one.”

  “Odelia Grey, don’t you dare lie to me. You nearly had a heart attack when you recognized her.”

  It was a long drive back to Orange County, and I knew Zee would not let the matter rest. “You know that hit woman I’ve come across on occasion?”

  I watched Zee as she dug through her memory. When her eyes popped open, resembling two fried eggs with a chocolate yolk, I knew she’d hit pay dirt. “That was Mother, the contract killer?”

  “Yep.”

  “And just like that she agreed to leave Fanny Tobin alone?”

  “She said she has a soft spot for me. And she wasn’t going to kill Fanny,” I clarified, “just steal her money.”

  A horn blared at us when we ran a stop sign. Zee pulled her Mercedes over to the curb and parked. She was visibly shaken.

  Reaching over, I patted the hand closest to me. It was still curled around the steering wheel, clutching it with a white-knuckled death grip.

  “Why don’t you let me drive,” I suggested.

  Eighteen

  After a quick and early supper of leftover lasagna, Greg and I hit the road for Altadena to visit June Tanaka, Peter’s mother. Since we caught the tail end of rush hour, traffic was bad. There was no easy way to get from our place to the Tanaka home, located forty-five miles away in the foothills above Pasadena, without navigating one freeway after another, moving slowly forward like modern covered wagons ambling across an asphalt prairie. Greg maneuvered the freeway system deftly and with patience, but even with him at the wheel, between the trip to Beverly Hills and the drive to Altadena, I was road weary.

  “You’re sure she’s okay about us coming?” I asked. Over our rushed dinner we’d discussed my day a
nd what Dev had disclosed, but we hadn’t had time to talk about Greg’s findings. It wasn’t that I hogged the conversation but that my darling husband got caught in a rut when I mentioned that Eudora Fox was really Elaine Powers.

  “Mother?” he’d asked, nearly dropping the small salad and bottle of dressing he was shuttling to the kitchen table. “Mother the contract killer?”

  “The very same,” I’d assured him as I took our reheated dinner out of the microwave. “So did you have a chance to call any of the other players?”

  “Not so fast.” Greg slid the salad and dressing onto the table and rolled over to me, nearly trapping me in the kitchen. It was clear he wasn’t going to budge until he got answers.

  I put the container of hot food on the counter and looked at him, hands on my hips. It had been a trying day, and I was not in the best mood. “Yes,” I confirmed again. “It was Mother, and she agreed to leave Fanny Tobin alone.”

  “Just because she likes you?” Greg didn’t sound convinced.

  “That’s what she said.” I picked the food up again. “Why don’t you feed the animals before we get started,” I suggested. Both Wainwright and Muffin were sitting by their respective food bowls with large, pleading eyes, patiently waiting for their dinner, but I’d made the comment more to get Greg out of my way. He backed up his wheelchair and headed for the low cabinet where we kept the dog and cat food, but I knew he was not backing up his brain. When something was on his mind, he stuck to the topic like Krazy Glue. I put the food on the table and sat down.

  Finished with feeding the animals, Greg rolled up to his place at the table. “Do you really believe Elaine Powers is just going to drop Fanny Tobin like a bad habit after investing time and effort into buttering up the old lady?”

  “Greg, I don’t really have a choice but to trust what she said. If I tell anyone who she is, she could retaliate. She’s like a poisonous snake you see sleeping on the edge of a hiking path. If you leave it alone, you’ll be okay. If you poke it, be ready to be bitten. Besides,” I said, “no matter who or what she is, she saved my bacon not too long ago, didn’t she?”

  Greg blew out a long deep breath. “Yeah, she did. But I still don’t like the idea of her being in our lives again. She just keeps popping up like a bad rash.”

  “Funny,” I said with no humor while scooping lasagna onto Greg’s plate. “She sort of said the same thing about me.”

  I put the plate down in front of my husband and dished out a helping for myself from the serving dish. Using salad tongs, Greg added salad to his plate, then to mine. I started eating, but Greg did not. Instead, he studied the mushrooms and tomatoes nestled among the micro greens as if they might say something brilliant or break into song. In the background, our dog and cat chomped their respective kibble with gusto.

  I put down my fork and put a hand on Greg’s forearm. “It’s going to be okay, honey. I really do think Elaine will be true to her word and leave Mrs. Tobin alone. And I don’t think she’ll be bothering me either.”

  “That’s good news,” he said, giving me an unsure smile. “Even though I’ve never met her, she strikes me as some kind of scary.”

  “She is, Greg, but she’s had plenty of opportunities to harm me and never has, and I don’t think it has anything to do with our relationship with Willie. At least not anymore.” I speared a tomato wedge. “By the way, I asked Elaine if she had anything to do with the deaths of Miranda or Peter Tanaka.”

  Greg stared at me, his fork stopped halfway to his mouth. “And?”

  “And Elaine said she had heard about Miranda, but she assured me neither her or her people had anything to do with it.”

  He put down his fork, the metal hitting the plate with an off-key ding. “Odelia, do you really think she’d admit it if she was involved? That would be an admission of murder.”

  “Well, I believe her.” I stuck a bite of food into my mouth with a hard chomp and chewed.

  I thought about Mother/Elaine. I’d met her three times, and each time she’d exuded a confidence that didn’t strike me as fake, nor did it appear cocky. She was good at what she did and knew it. Did she feel empowered by the fact that she could and did have people killed without them ever seeing it coming?

  I was confident in my work as a paralegal. I knew my stuff and served our clients to the best of my ability. I was also confident in my undying love for Greg and in his love for me. And I was confident in my relationships with Zee and Seth, Clark and Mom, and all the other people who were part of my personal solar system, even Mike Steele. Did Elaine have that kind of emotional confidence or was her foundation wrapped up totally in her nefarious pursuits? Willie was confident like that, too. A small, nerdy-looking guy, he walked the earth like he owned it and was untouchable, which he pretty much had been so far. But it wasn’t until he married Sybil that Greg and I noticed true peace on his face.

  Criminal confidence—was there such a thing? Neither appeared crazy, as most criminals on the news did; rather, they appeared confident that they were above the normal behavior, moral expectations, and consequences of the rest of us, like they were playing a game and excelling at it. Then again, if they didn’t go into their questionable activities with such assurance, they would fail before they even started.

  After the discussion about Elaine, Greg and I had eaten dinner and cleaned up the kitchen in near silence. I was still wrestling with the issue of morality and confidence. Who knew what was going on in my darling husband’s head. Now that we were in the van and heading for Altadena, I asked Greg the question that had gotten lost during dinner. “Were you able to talk to any of the other players today?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. I found out the Lunatics are having a practice on Sunday down in Oceanside.” He glanced at me. “You want to go?”

  “I think we should go, but isn’t it kind of weird that they’re having a practice just a week after what happened?”

  “Originally it was called off,” he explained, “but a lot of the team is in a funk, and Coach Warren thought it might help to burn off some of their anxiety to hold it anyway.”

  “What about the coach of the Vipers? Did you reach him yet?”

  “I got his number from Coach Warren and called, but I only reached voice mail. He hasn’t returned the call yet. His name is Rob Rios and he lives in Long Beach. He’s a PE and math teacher at a high school. I’m hoping we can contact him this weekend.”

  “Speaking of voice mail,” I said. “I received an odd one myself today.”

  Greg shot me a grin. “More odd than running into the Queen Mother of murder?”

  “No, that topped the cake. But the message was still odd. It was left on my voice mail at work by someone named Michelle Jeselnick. I asked Jill if she knew who she was, but she didn’t.”

  “Maybe Steele knows.”

  “That’s the weird thing,” I answered. “In her voice mail, this Michelle begged me not to say anything to Steele about her call.”

  Greg’s head shot my way, then turned back to watch the road. “That is odd. So you don’t think it’s a client?”

  I shook my head. “I asked Jill to do a search of our firm’s data base to see if this woman’s name popped up anywhere in any documents or in our contacts, and it didn’t.”

  “What did she want?”

  “She didn’t say. Just that she’d call back and that she’d appreciate my keeping the call a secret from Steele.”

  “Maybe she’s one of Steele’s jilted girlfriends.”

  “Could be,” I agreed, “but usually Jill and I know the names of the women he dates. Steele puts everything on his calendar, including the names and phone numbers of his romantic victims.” I laughed. “Jill’s theory is that he does that so if he ever goes missing again, it will give us a jumpstart on where the body is buried.”

  “She didn’t leave a number?” Greg looked over at me again. It was dark out now, and the lights of the dash reflected off his strong chin.

  “Nope.”

>   “Maybe it has something to do with what happened in Perris.”

  “But why call me? And how would anyone out there know to call me about Steele? It must have something to do with work for her to know my name and where to call.”

  “Good point, sweetheart. I guess you’ll just have to wait until she calls again.” He changed lanes.

  “You know what’s really odd,” I said. “Steele didn’t call me today. Not a peep. He called Jill and arranged to have some documents scanned and sent to him, but not so much as a slurred sniffle my way. I told him I had something to do for Simon. Maybe Steele’s miffed at me.”

  “That’s because I called him.” Greg grinned at me like he’d just arranged a birthday surprise.

  I stared at him. “What did you do, bribe him to leave me alone today?”

  “It was much easier than that. I simply called to see how he was doing.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “That’s it?”

  “Yep. I checked on him and let him know he wasn’t forgotten. I asked him if he needed anything.” When I looked away, Greg added, “Seems you did a well-check on our broken boy, too.” He laughed. “Steele told me you called.”

  “Yes, I’ll admit it, I caved and called him. I got worried when I didn’t hear anything. And I was right, he was miffed over Simon.”

  “And you also know a couple of his golf and tennis buddies had been in and out today to visit, so he’d been otherwise occupied.”

  I nodded. “And he said another’s coming over tonight to watch a game on TV.” I turned to Greg. “He went ballistic when he thought I was sending Simon Tobin to his place, but his pals are in and out of there today like it’s a hot new brewery.”

  “Ah, but Simon is the head of the firm,” Greg explained. “These guys are his friends. That’s a big difference. Besides, it’s been five days since he was in his accident, and I’m sure by now he’s looking more like the story you and I are peddling on his behalf.”

  Greg was right. Simon was not one of Steele’s inner circle, which was comprised of a handful of other professional men—many of which he’d gone to college and law school with. I knew many of them, and most would keep his secret if he decided to tell them, but I doubted he would.