Definitely Dead (An Empty Nest Mystery)

by Lois Winston

  No, the Elliott offspring were studying in their respective dorm rooms at this hour, Brooke at NYU and Connor a few miles farther north at Columbia. Or so I convinced myself, trying hard to forget my own college years and what little studying actually occurred on any given weeknight.

  I closed my eyes and took a deep breath to slow the gallop of my heart. The kids are okay. The kids are okay. The kids are okay. I silently repeated the mantra over and over again until I heard Blake walking back toward the family room. He wasn’t alone, but neither was he with either offspring.

  “Let me handle this, please,” I heard Blake say just before he entered the room with Detective Menendez.

  NINE

  “Gracie,” said Blake, “Detective Menendez needs you to go down to headquarters with her to answer some additional questions.”

  I didn’t move off the sofa. My gaze shot back and forth between the two of them. Menendez looked all business; Blake looked all worried. I did my best not to freak. “At ten o’clock at night? Can’t this wait until morning?”

  “I’m afraid not, ma’am. Murder doesn’t punch a clock. The longer an investigation takes, the less likely we are of solving the crime.”

  “Then have a seat, Detective. Pull out your little spiral notebook and ask away.”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am, but you need to come with me.”

  “Are you arresting me?”

  “Not at this time, ma’am.”

  Not at this time? What the hell was the subtext in that statement? Visions of orange jumpsuits swam before my eyes, and I definitely don’t look good in orange.

  I studied Menendez from the top of her tightly cropped no-nonsense jet black curls down to her black-laced running shoes, chosen most likely for chasing down felons. In-between she wore a white button-down oxford shirt, black blazer, and black jeans. Unless a subpoena was tucked inside the blazer, I saw no evidence of one. No subpoena meant this was a request, not a command performance on my part. And a request meant I didn’t have to comply.

  “Then I don’t have to go with you,” I said. Anyone who ever watched an episode of Law & Order knew that much. As soon as she got me into an interrogation room, she’d find some way to confuse me, twist around my words, then slap me in cuffs and haul my ass into an orange jumpsuit. It happened exactly that way on every TV cop show I’d ever watched. Except sometimes the jumpsuits were gray, khaki, or olive drab.

  Blake stepped between Menendez and me. “We’re going to cooperate with the detective, Gracie.”

  I jumped to my feet. “I’ve been cooperating, Blake. From the very beginning. I voluntarily handed over all my records. I answered all her questions. I even called her when I uncovered additional information. And where has it landed me? Apparently, right at the top of her suspects list. Me! Hell, I’ve never even received a traffic ticket.”

  By this time tears streamed down my face. I’d officially lost it. But Blake was right. Refusing to cooperate would only raise more suspicions in the detective’s mind. Rationally, I knew that, but how many people can think rationally when faced with an impending orange jumpsuit?

  I swiped at my tears and took a few deep breaths, trying to regain my composure. “Fine,” I said finally. “Let’s get this over with.”

  Although Union County police headquarters, located on North Avenue in Westfield, is within walking distance of our home, given the hour, Blake and I drove. Detective Menendez, minus flashing lights and siren, followed closely behind us.

  Once we arrived, I was led into a room that looked more like a set from Bones than Law & Order, probably because the entire building was only a few years old, and the interrogation room hadn’t had time to grow a creepy patina from decades of hosting drug dealers, rapists, pedophiles, murderers, and other assorted lowlifes.

  Blake wasn’t allowed into the room with me. I was left alone for what seemed like a decade but was probably only ten minutes. Time has a way of slowing down when you’re stuck somewhere you don’t want to be late at night with nothing but bare walls to stare at. The surveillance camera mounted in one corner didn’t help.

  Neither did the painful hiccups spurred by a combination of my earlier crying jag, a bout of hyperventilating on the ride over, and a heavy dose of abject fear. I tried holding my breath, but the hiccups continued unabated. I could only imagine the entertainment my convulsing diaphragm and wonky glottis currently provided Union County law enforcement as they huddled around a computer monitor and watched me. I glared at the camera, hoping they all laughed so hard they’d wind up suffering through their own bout of hiccup hell.

  Detective Menendez finally returned to the room, carrying a cup of water and a cardboard folder. She placed the water in front of me. I picked up the cup and began sipping slowly. It didn’t help.

  “Do these look familiar, Mrs. Elliott?” she asked, removing several sheets of paper from the folder and spreading the pages out on the table in front of me.

  I glanced quickly at each page, spreadsheets of financial records for the various women Not-Sid had met through Relatively Speaking. I shook my head. “No.”

  “That’s odd, considering we found these files on your computer.”

  “That’s impossible. Why would I have such information?”

  “You tell me, ma’am.”

  “I am telling you, Detective. I’ve never seen any of this before. And enough with the ma’am already. If anything, I’m younger than you. Call me Gracie or Grace or Mrs. Elliott, not ma’am.” I slammed my hands onto the table. “I hate being called ma’am!”

  Detective Menendez narrowed her coal black eyes and knit her bushy eyebrows together. “We found these files right on your laptop, ma’am, not even buried in your computer or disguised under a phony heading. Right on the home screen in a folder marked Client Date Financials. Now, I want to know exactly what kind of racket you and the deceased were running.”

  “None!”

  She leaned back in her chair and folded her arms over her chest. “I have all night. You’re not leaving until I get some answers.”

  I looked down at the page directly in front of me. Even my math-challenged brain saw that something didn’t add up. Raising my chin, I fought to keep my voice modulated. “Fine, Detective. I’ll give you an answer. My answer is that I don’t believe you found these files on my computer. I think you’re bluffing.”

  She leaned forward until only inches separated the tip of her nose from the tip of mine. “Trust me, ma’am. I am not bluffing.”

  “Really?” I picked up the sheet of paper directly in front of me, the one listing Kitty Pichinko’s assets, and held it up between us with the print facing her. “Someone went to a lot of trouble to frame me but didn’t do his homework.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Have you interviewed Kitty Pichinko yet?”

  “I’m the one asking the questions.”

  “I’ve been to Kitty Pichinko’s apartment. Either you haven’t been there, or you think I haven’t. No way is Kitty Pichinko worth three point two million dollars. The woman admitted to me she can’t afford to move out of her deteriorating Plainfield neighborhood. Neither her wardrobe nor her furnishings have been updated in over thirty years. Her television set belongs in the Smithsonian.”

  I placed the paper back on the table. I don’t know if Detective Menendez believed me or not, but she looked totally pissed. After a minute of staring each other down, she scooped up the sheets of paper, stood, and left the room, slamming the door behind her.

  Once alone, I realized two things: First, along with scaring the crap out of me, she’d scared the hiccups away. Secondly, she’d only placed six sheets of paper in front of me. Not-Sid had dated seven women.

  Ten minutes later, Detective Menendez returned. “You can go, Mrs. Elliott.”

  “That’s it? After scaring the crap out of me and dragging me out in the middle of the night?”

  “You want to stay?”

  “Hell no, but I would like some an
swers.”

  “I’m not at liberty to discuss anything further with you at this time.”

  “So I’m left with one of two conclusions, Detective: Either you lied to me about those files being on my computer, or someone hacked into my computer and planted the files. Which is it?”

  “I told you—”

  “You’re not at liberty to say. Yeah, I heard you the first time. But computer hacking’s a crime. How do I know my identity hasn’t been stolen? Right now someone could be racking up thousands of dollars worth of charges on my credit cards. What are you going to do about that?”

  She didn’t answer me. Instead she opened the door and said to the officer standing outside, “Please escort Mrs. Elliott back to her husband.”

  Interesting how I’d gone back to being Mrs. Elliott.

  “We need to cancel all our credit cards,” I told Blake after explaining all that had transpired in the interrogation room. “And contact the bank, our broker, who else?” My head spun, trying to remember all the advice I’d read about what to do if you’re a victim of identity theft. “Damn her!”

  “Who?”

  “Detective Menendez, of course. We’ve been cyber-raped, and she doesn’t care.”

  “Don’t jump to conclusions, Gracie. Just because she didn’t answer your questions, it doesn’t mean no one is investigating the hacking. If you even were hacked. As you pointed out, she may have been bluffing.”

  “I don’t think so. You didn’t see the expression on her face when I pointed out Kitty Pichinko’s net worth. That woman was seriously pissed. The kind of pissed that happens when someone points out something you should have noticed yourself but didn’t. And why are you defending her? Whose side are you on?”

  “The side of logic. And we don’t have to cancel our credit cards or do anything else.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because, Gracie, other than an accounting spreadsheet for your business, none of our finances or any other personal files are on your computer. They’re all on mine.”

  “Oh. Right.” I mentally smacked my head, but then thought of something else. “How do we know your computer wasn’t hacked, too?”

  “Since there’s no evidence that anyone broke into our house, your computer was most likely hacked remotely, probably through the Relatively Speaking website.”

  “I suppose that makes sense.”

  “Just to be sure, when we get home, I’ll access our credit card accounts on my phone to confirm there hasn’t been any illegal activity.”

  “I guess it’s a good thing she didn’t confiscate our iPhones along with our computers.”

  “Which woman was missing?” asked Blake, changing the subject.

  “From the papers Menendez showed me? I don’t know. I was so fixated on the page that listed Kitty Pichinko being worth three point two million dollars that I didn’t look closely enough at the names on the other pages. By the time I realized one page was missing, Menendez had scooped up all the papers.”

  I closed my eyes and tried to visualize the other five sheets but conjured up nothing but blurred images. I did come up with a theory, though. “The missing woman has something to do with the hacking and possibly Not-Sid’s murder. She planted incriminating evidence on my computer to lead the police away from her and to me. She’s probably the person who tipped off Menendez in the first place. Why else would she show up tonight with a warrant for our computers?”

  “That’s certainly a possibility,” said Blake.

  “Maureen Boland threatened me tonight. Maybe she’s our hacker.”

  “Even if she had the skill, she wouldn’t have had the time needed to create the documents, hack into your computer, and plant them.”

  “True. But someone else did have time. Someone who took an instant dislike to me today. And she professed to being good with computers. I think this is the work of your Lisbeth Salander wannabe.”

  TEN

  “I want you to promise me you won’t confront any of those other women without me,” said Blake. “I’ll be home by two. We’ll go together.”

  “What about Little Miss Girl With the Dragon Tattoo?”

  “I’ll handle her.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know, Gracie, but you can’t just get up in her face and accuse her of hacking into your computer and setting you up. That’s not going to accomplish anything. Besides, you have no proof, only a hunch.”

  Always the logical one, my husband. I tossed him a pout. “I suppose she wouldn’t answer my questions, anyway.”

  “Of course, she wouldn’t. Would you if the situation were reversed?”

  Again with the logic. I didn’t bother answering, assuming the question rhetorical. “Call me if you learn anything.”

  “I will.”

  Blake kissed me good-bye, grabbed his java-to-go, and headed off to campus. I decided to make an early morning run to Trader Joe’s to restock our rapidly depleting larder in case our kids popped in over the weekend.

  However, as I sat at a red light on Broad Street, a black Mercedes SUV with tinted windows turned in front of me onto Mountain Ave. Forget Trader Joe’s. My gut told me this was the car that had parked in front of my house yesterday morning. Trust the gut, I told myself and hung a right to follow the driver. What did I have to lose?

  Real cops might have noticed a tail, but the driver of the SUV continued on totally oblivious of me. He didn’t speed up, didn’t switch lanes. However, leaving nothing to chance, I slipped on a pair of sunglasses and an old Westfield Blue Devils baseball cap I kept in the driver’s side door pocket.

  My hunch paid off when the Mercedes SUV turned into the driveway of Larchmont Gardens.

  The driver pulled into a handicap spot in the residents’ parking lot, even though the SUV bore neither handicap plates nor a resident parking sticker. I continued four rows farther down, parked in the visitors’ section, and watched as Remick and Craft stepped from the SUV.

  Always trust the gut.

  As the phony duo made their way toward the entrance of the Commons building, I tucked my hair up into the baseball cap to better conceal my identity, then followed them into the building. Once inside the lobby, I glanced around, spotting them just as they rounded the corner at the end of the corridor to my left. After sprinting down the hall, I ducked my head around the corner and spied the two men entering the solarium.

  Cautiously, I made my way to the solarium entrance and stood off to the side, hoping to see them without them seeing me. I caught a glimpse of a broad back and buzz cut through a tall grouping of ferns and other assorted flora that screened off a back corner of the room. A seating area was positioned on my side of the greenery at a diagonal to the buzz cut. I made my way across the room and slipped into one of the chairs, grabbing a magazine to hide my face.

  “I’m telling you, Ma, they’re on to us,” said Remick or Craft.

  “Someone tipped everyone off,” said the other. “Those old ladies aren’t even opening their doors to us.”

  “Then you’re going to have to find some other way to get in,” said a female voice. “I want my money.”

  “You want us to break in?” asked the first guy.

  “Do what you have to,” she said.

  “How do we know this guy really was Dad?” asked the second man. “You said he didn’t look anything like him.”

  “That’s because he obviously had extensive plastic surgery to disguise himself.”

  “Or he could be someone else,” said the first guy.

  “Are you insinuating that I wouldn’t recognize my own husband?”

  “It’s been ten years since he skipped out, Ma.”

  “You didn’t see the look on his face when that dingbat Sylvia Schuster introduced me to him. A moment later he disappears, and she never hears from him again. Don’t tell me that doesn’t sound suspicious.”

  “Maybe he got sick,” said the second man.

  “I’m telling you it was your father,” sh
e said. “I saw the birthmark.”

  “What birthmark?” both men asked in unison.

  “You never noticed? Your father had a port wine birthmark about the size of a dime behind his left ear.”

  “Lots of people have birthmarks,” said the first guy.

  “Not in the shape of the state of Texas.”

  “Shit,” said the second guy. “This would’ve been a hell of a lot easier if someone hadn’t offed the weasel before we got to him.”

  “He had to have told one of those women something. Find out where he was living. Once you get his address, I’m sure you’ll find something that will lead us to where he stashed all my money.”

  “But he gave that dating site broad a phony address. What makes you think he’d give his address to one of those women?” asked the first man.

  “Think, idiot! He may have taken one of them back to his apartment. Your father always was a randy old bastard.”

  “Jeez, Ma, I really didn’t need to know that.”

  “Then know this: We’re talking your inheritance. I’m not going to live forever. That should be all the incentive you need to do whatever you have to do to find that money.”

  “All right, Ma,” said one.

  “We’ll find the money,” said the other. “We won’t let you down.

  “You’d better not. Now get going. I have a canasta game scheduled in a few minutes.”

  Over the top of the magazine I held so close to my face that the words all blurred together, I watched as both men hastened from the solarium. They never glanced in my direction.

  A moment later Blanche Becker zipped her scooter around the ferns, clipping several, on her way to one of the card tables. While her back was turned to me, I dashed out of the solarium. I needed to find Sylvia Schuster.

  “What can you tell me about Blanche Becker?” I asked after tracking Sylvia down at her apartment.

  “You mean aside from her being a bitter old skinflint of a tightwad?”