The Shimmering Blond Sister

by David Handler

  “When?”

  “On Wednesday.”

  “And you’re just finding out about it today?”

  “He said he didn’t want to worry me.”

  “And there’s absolutely no reason to worry. My Uncle Miltie was back on the golf course in no time. It’s actually fairly—”

  “If you’re about to say it’s minor surgery, please don’t or I’ll have to slug you.”

  Mitch put his arms around her. She stood there stiff and unyielding. It was like hugging a six-foot length of cast iron. “Listen, he’s going to be fine. And I’m here for you. We’ll get through it together.”

  “Mitch, I’m really not up for this right now.”

  “Up for what?”

  “This. The whole touchy feely thing. It’s not me. So let’s just not.”

  “If you say so, girlfriend.”

  “I do say so, okay? Because I can’t. I-I really . . .” Then, with a shudder, she surrendered into his arms and sobbed and sobbed and sobbed.

  CHAPTER 12

  Captain Richie Tedone of Internal Affairs lived in a vinyl-sided raised ranch in a charm-free development of nearly identical vinyl-sided raised ranches in the Hartford bedroom community of Glastonbury—better known to Des as Shoot Me Right Nowville. Cousin Rico lived in the neighborhood. Half of the Brass City boys did, having abandoned the crumbling brick remains of Waterbury years ago for greener ChemLawn pastures. A red Chevy pickup sat in Richie’s driveway next to a blue Dodge minivan. His slicktop was parked at the curb.

  And Des was parked three houses down the street in her Saab, watching the place through the zoom lens of her Nikon D80. And waiting.

  Richie was out in the driveway in a T-shirt and jeans, helping his little daughter learn to ride her tiny pink tricycle—pushing her along, yelling helpful encouragement to her as she pedaled around and around, laughing with delight. Richie’s plump, dark-haired wife was weeding a flower bed, their newest arrival dozing in a stroller next to her. Just a typical Sunday afternoon in Richie World, where life was beautiful and nobody tried to put the screws to anybody.

  Des waited. It was warm in the car. She had a chilled bottle of water for company. And her brain pain. It bothered her how easily Mitch had blown by her defenses. She hadn’t said one single word about the Deacon. Yet Mitch knew from the second she got out of her car. How? Because he’s your soul mate, that’s how. It also bothered her that her father had purposely chosen to shut her out of his life. She was his only child. She cared about him. She loved him. How could he not tell her that he had a serious heart condition? Because he’s a stubborn butthead, that’s how.

  There was some movement now Chez Tedone. The chesty lug nut was taking a call on his cell. Barking into it, one hand on his hip, ultra take charge. He flicked it off and went inside of the house. Came back out two minutes later with a gym bag. Heading out to hit the weights with a lifting buddy, it appeared. He kissed his wife good-bye, then hopped into the pickup, backed it out of the driveway and took off down the block.

  Des waited until he was a safe distance away before she started up her Saab and went after him. She had good reason to. The man had smelled like a player to her. He’d sure leered at her like one in Captain Rundle’s office—which was why she’d asked to speak to Yolie back at Mitch’s house, girl to girl.

  And here’s what Yolie told her about Captain Richie Tedone of Internal Affairs who, contrary to popular wisdom, she had not been romantically involved with back when he was single: “We worked cases together, period. He was plenty hot for this, but I was not about to give him any.”

  “Why not, Yolie?”

  “Wasn’t interested in picking up an STD, that’s why not. That man had seriously skeejie personal habits. No doubt still does, if that’s your next question. Guys like Richie don’t change their ways when they become family men. They just cheat on their wives.”

  “You think his wife knows any of this?”

  “No way. Those Brass City boys go out of their way to marry girls who are sheltered, naive and—wait for it—dumb. Real, the man has Mr. Sleazeball tattooed across his forehead. You’d have to be dumb to marry that.”

  Mr. Sleazeball got onto Route 91, heading south in the direction of Middletown, which was where he’d turn off if he were heading to the headmaster’s house in Meriden. He drove fast. Pushed it up to eighty. Des kept right with him, staying two cars back.

  He wasn’t heading to the headmaster’s house. He stayed on 91 south past Middletown, all the way down to New Haven, the city that was one part Yale University for the privileged and two parts ghetto for the not-so privileged. Most of those black, some Hispanic. Richie steered his pickup onto Whalley Avenue, which took him around the historic, beautiful campus and into a business district that turned rundown fast. Liquor stores, check-cashing stores, fried chicken joints. Most everything was closed on Sunday. A few idlers hung out on the sidewalk doing nothing good.

  When he got near Edgewood Park he made a left onto a street of ratty old three-story wood frame houses that had been broken up into apartments years ago. His destination was the Edgewood Vista, a 1960s-era two-story cinder block apartment complex that had been erected around a parking lot. The downstairs apartments had entrances right off of the parking lot. And bars on their windows. Richie pulled in and parked. Des parked across the street and watched him get out. He had his own key to one of the units. He let himself in, closing the door behind him. Des rolled down her window, reached for her camera and zoomed in on the door. It was apartment C. There was an air-conditioner in one of the windows. The curtains were drawn. She snapped a couple of pictures, then sat and waited. A couple of boys went by her in the street, dribbling a basketball and talking trash. A shirtless middle-aged man with ink all over his arms and chest was working on a Coupe de Ville in his driveway, sweat gleaming off of him. He paused now and then to sip from a can of beer and check her out.

  Forty-five minutes later the door to apartment C opened. Des zoomed in and began snapping away as Captain Richie Tedone of Internal Affairs stood there in the doorway playing grab ass with a lanky, barefoot young black girl in a purple silk robe. The girl didn’t want him to leave. Flung her body against his. They kissed and kissed. Couldn’t keep their hands off of each other. His started roaming inside of her robe right there in the doorway—until she shoved him away, laughing. Des snapped two dozen nice, clear close-ups of all of this before Richie’s girl finally shut the door on him. He swaggered back to his pickup, jumped in and roared his way out of there. Des ducked down so he couldn’t see her as he drove by. Then she sat back up and kept her camera trained on the door to apartment C.

  Richie’s girl left twenty minutes later, teetering on sandals with four-inch stiletto heels—the better to show off her nice long legs and fancy purple toenails. . . . Smile for the camera, honey. . . . Her frilly pink minidress barely covered her butt. And that cascading canary yellow wig she had on looked about as real as spray-painted bubble wrap in the hazy summer sunlight. She was a skinny thing with broad shoulders and almost no hips. Des studied her through the zoom lens, frowning, as she unlocked the red BMW convertible parked outside of her unit and put the top down. Des snapped several close-ups of the license plate as the girl took off, leaving a trail of cheap perfume behind her.

  Des promptly got out, locked the Saab and strolled across the street to the apartment complex’s main entrance. Most of the tenants’ names were scrawled on ragged pieces of masking tape over the mailboxes. On the mailbox for apartment C there was a powder blue note card with Eboni written on it in purple ink. The letter i was dotted with a little heart.

  The building manager lived in apartment A behind a door that had a steel security grill. Des knocked. A mountainous black woman in polyester sweats opened it—unleashing all kinds of good smells from her kitchen. The TV was blaring in her living room. A half dozen little kids were sprawled there, transfixed by a cartoon.

  “Afternoon, ma’am,” Des said politely, flash
ing her badge. “I wanted to ask you a couple of questions if you don’t mind.”

  “Who’s in trouble now?” she demanded, instantly chilly.

  “Nobody.” Des showed her a big smile. “Know what? Your place smells just like my grandma’s house. That’s sausage and biscuits you’re making, am I right?”

  “Your people must be from the South, like mine,” the woman allowed, thawing slightly.

  Des nodded. “Georgia.”

  “Did you want to come in?”

  “That’s okay. This will only take a second. I like to keep an eye on the folks who’ve been of assistance to us. Make sure nobody’s been coming around bothering them.”

  “Who we talking about, honey?”

  “The resident in apartment C.”

  She looked at Des in surprise. “You mean Eboni with an i?”

  “That’s the person, yes.”

  “What kind of help you been getting from little Eboni?” Her tone of voice was downright mocking.

  “It’s part of an ongoing criminal investigation. I can’t go into the details.”

  “And yet you show up here on a Sunday. Must be something pretty big.”

  “Let’s just say Eboni did right by us. And I have concerns that certain individuals might try to retaliate or whatever.”

  “You don’t have to waste no time worrying about that one.” Again with the mocking tone. “Eboni’s got a cop boyfriend.”

  “Is that right? New Haven city cop?”

  “Don’t know what kind. I ain’t seen no uniform. But he’s law, plain as day. You can tell by the way he struts around.”

  “And he visits her regularly?”

  “Must be here three, four times a week. He takes real good care of little Eboni. Pays the rent on the apartment. Bought that BMW, too.”

  “Is Eboni working these days?”

  “Some call it work,” she sniffed. “Others call it something else. Not that I’m passing judgment. What the tenants do is their own business—as long as the rent gets paid.”

  “Has Eboni got any other regular men?”

  “One or two. Not as many as before.”

  “You say he pays the rent. Does he write you a check?”

  She let out a huge, rumbling laugh. “Where you think you are? People around here don’t write no checks. They pay in cash. That’s how come I got this security gate on my door. Management company put it in last year after I got ripped off twice. Installed a safe in my kitchen, too.” She paused, puffing slightly for breath. “He puts the rent money right here in my hand the first of every month.”

  “How comes he pays you, not her?”

  “If he give it to Eboni I’d never see it.”

  “Are we talking about drugs?”

  “Wouldn’t surprise me. Nothing about Eboni would surprise me.”

  “Did she sign a lease or is she here month to month?”

  “Oh, there’s a lease all right.”

  “Whose name is on it?”

  “Eboni’s. Mind you, that’s strictly a what-you-call ‘professional’ name. The lease is in Eboni’s real name.”

  “Which is . . . ?”

  “Michael Toomey,” she replied, stone-faced.

  Des felt her pulse quicken. That explained why the girl’s shoulders and hips had struck her as odd. Richie Tedone’s skanky girlfriend wasn’t a girl at all. She was a he—a drag queen. “Thank you for your time, ma’am,” she said calmly, even though she was ready to plotz, as her friend Bella Tillis would say. “Next time I’m in the neighborhood I could use a few of those sausage and biscuits.”

  “Honey, you could use a few dozen. Don’t you know that a man likes a woman who has some decent meat on her bones?”

  Des got back in her Saab and headed straight for the Troop F barracks, where she parked herself at her unadorned steel desk and got busy on the computer. First she ran the license plate on that red BMW. The car was registered to Michael Reginald Toomey, Edgewood Vista Apartments, New Haven. Next she ran a criminal background check on Michael Reginald Toomey, age twenty, aka Eboni, aka Deelite. He/she had a long history of arrests for soliciting prostitution and possession of crack cocaine, dating back to when he/she had first been incarcerated at the New Haven Correctional Center at age fifteen. As Des scanned Toomey’s criminal history, one particular case from two years back set off alarm bells in her head. She went trolling through all of the case files she could access. Then pieced together the rest of the story from the online archives of the New Haven Register and Hartford Courant. The case had received extensive coverage. Hell, even the New York City tabloids had covered it.

  It went down in Sussex, a ritzy, shoreline commuter town in Fairfield County. Nothing but millionaires and their trophy mansions. On a tree-lined lane in one of those mansions it turned out that a high-end escort service—which is to say call-girl ring—had been quietly operating for months. The woman running it, who came to be known as the Suburban Madam, was a divorced mother of two, named Elaine Gruen. Elaine’s husband had left her for another woman. Elaine got the mansion and child support in the settlement. But not enough income to maintain her Sussex lifestyle. So she’d dusted herself off and started her small business. She catered to a carefully screened clientele of wealthy gentlemen from not only the Connecticut suburbs, but New York, New Jersey and even Massachusetts. Her escorts collected five hundred dollars per hour, with discounted rates for overnight stays and weekend jaunts to resort hotels. The gentlemen contacted Elaine by cell phone or e-mail. She set up the engagements and kept half of the proceeds—which she split with her partner, Tiffany Nelson, a juvenile detention officer at the New Haven Correctional Center. It was Tiffany who recruited the Suburban Madam’s choicest talent. Mostly, she chose the youngest, prettiest girls. But a handful were recruited for so-called special-needs clients—men who favored the company of heavy girls or tiny girls or, in some cases, girls who weren’t girls at all.

  It was a gold mine. Until, that is, the Sussex police stumbled onto it when they made a prostitution bust at a local motel. The girl, who’d recently been let go by Elaine for using drugs, was looking to cut herself a deal. Not to mention payback. The Sussex police called in the state’s Organized Crime Investigative Task Force, which spent weeks combing through thousands of phone calls and e-mails. Elaine and Tiffany were eventually charged with violation of the CORA act and promoting prostitution in the second degree. Both women were sentenced to a minimum of three years at York Correctional in Niantic

  Des sat there at her computer, frowning. York Correctional. Somebody in the middle of the Augie Donatelli mess had a York connection. Although for the life of her, she couldn’t remember who.

  There was more to the story. Elaine Gruen claimed that the task force’s lead officer, Captain Peter Bartucca, had accepted sexual favors from one of her escorts. Elaine’s lawyer went public with her accusation, screaming bloody murder. It got looked into by none other than Captain Richie Tedone of Internal Affairs. After conducting a thorough investigation, Richie found zero evidence that Captain Bartucca had engaged in any such behavior. “Mrs. Gruen’s allegations,” he told the Hartford Courant, “are a scurrilous, baseless, despicable attempt to sully the reputation of a fine public servant and family man.”

  The escort who Elaine Gruen said had provided Captain Bartucca with those sexual favors? None other than Michael Reginald Toomey, aka Eboni, aka Deelite.

  Gotcha, Mr. Sleazeball.

  Seated there at her desk, Des allowed herself the luxury of a satisfied smile. Then she took a deep breath, let it out and went to work trying to find Terri E as in maybe Edsen, who worked in a cubicle somewhere in New York and maybe—big maybe—had been getting busy with Hal Chapman while somebody else was beating Augie Donatelli’s brains in.

  CHAPTER 13

  They took Mitch’s truck.

  Very rode shotgun, his head nodding up and down like a bobble-head doll as he took in the sights of the Historic District. “So how did a city kid like y
ou end up in this colonial theme park?” he wanted to know.

  “My wife passed away. I needed to make a change, meet new people. Besides, it’s not a theme park—as your friend Augie would be only too happy to attest to.”

  “I hear you,” Very said, his jaw muscles clenching. “How about you and the master sergeant? Any problems with the color thing?”

  “That’s for other people to think about. We don’t.”

  “I’ve never gone there. I got pretty serious with a Korean woman when I was just out of the academy, but her family didn’t want her dating a round eye. Plus she was into Renaissance fairs, which make me totally—”

  “Ootsie?”

  “I was going to say hurl.”

  “Sorry, my bad.”

  “She couldn’t handle her parents’ disapproval so she broke it off. But I still think about her sometimes. I’m just so damned tired of being by myself. Know what I’m saying?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Don’t get me wrong—I do okay when it comes to hookups. But the right woman? Someone who I can be me with? No fear? That’s rare.”

  “Rare,” agreed Mitch, who was wondering just exactly how he’d managed to wander into Lieutenant Very’s personal eHarmony commercial.

  “Talk to me about Yolie Snipes. What’s up with her?”

  Mitch smiled to himself. So much for wondering. “She’s a rising star. Real smart. Comes with a lot of hard bark on her but she’s honest and loyal. Des is real fond of Yolie. Me, too. But I’m kind of partial.”

  “Oh, yeah? Why’s that?”

  “She saved my life once.”

  “She got a steady man in her life?”

  “No man at all.”

  “Get out! A gorgeous sister like that?”

  “I don’t think anyone has the nerve to ask her out. She can be a bit intimidating.”

  “I know. It’s kind of a turn-on.”

  “So take a shot. Worst thing that can happen is she’ll . . .”

  “Just say no?”