“See? Do you see what I mean, Mousy?”
I told Bonnie I was done talking to her about Kris. She was only making me feel worse. Maybe I was insecure around men. I didn’t want to ruin it for myself, but I didn’t want to think it was me and not Kris that was the issue. I kept replaying the end of the date in my head over and over until the big billboards of Atlantic City came into my line of sight.
The billboards begged us to go to this casino or that, to see a show, or to dine at the all-you-can-eat buffets. I could see the city across the bridge…an island of skyscrapers with enormous LED signs. It exuded excitement and luxury from miles away. I had been to A. C. many times in my life. I tend to walk out a loser, but I’m not much of a gambler. Fifty dollars total with a maximum three-dollar bet is as much as I’ve ever played.
Bonnie used the valet in the Taj Mahal and we entered through the hotel lobby, heading under the grand chandelier to the ornate escalators leading up to the casino floor. My ears were filled with the dinging and ringing of slot machines, some showing winners. My eyes were filled with blinking lights, lots of senior citizens, and waitresses in skimpy outfits serving drinks. Bonnie went over to the tables to play a little roulette. I went over to the penny slots, which were more akin to my pocketbook.
When my first twenty-five dollars of fun ran out, I went to find Bonnie. She was sitting seductively in her tight black dress, legs crossed, at the roulette table, betting on black. Her right hand held a martini glass. She sipped her cosmopolitan while old men ogled her. I suddenly knew what she meant about me being a mouse. Bonnie was the sex kitten. Men loved her. It wasn’t in a bad way; she was always faithful to her husband. She was sophisticated, unlike my boss Winifred. She was so much more put together than I was.
I suddenly felt underdressed in my jeans and what I previously thought was a stylish white blouse. I stood behind her. She asked me if I wanted to sit and play for a few spins, but I told her I’d rather watch. I glanced around the room, while Bonnie bet fifty dollars on black.
“Oh no!” I said.
“What’s wrong?” Bonnie asked.
I ducked behind her and put my head down.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I’m hiding from my boss. I just spotted Marc over there. Don’t look.”
Bonnie turned her head, sat way up in her seat, and looked.
“I told you not to look! I don’t want him to see me. I hate him. He’s so mean to me. I don’t want to have to be pleasant and say hello.”
“You know, technically, he’s my boss too,” Bonnie said.
“Yeah, but you don’t report directly to him, so you don’t have to deal with his anger issues.”
“True. He’s over there with that hot guy,” she said.
“What hot guy?” I turned quickly to glance and I saw Gino Righetti with him. He slipped Marc an envelope. They seemed nonchalant. It happened quickly.
“What are they up to?” I asked Bonnie.
“Looks to me like Gino slipped Marc some money.”
Bonnie hit on black, doubling her money. She scooped up her chips and started walking toward the cashier.
“Do you really think it was money?” I said, trying to keep pace with her.
“You seem so surprised.”
“Well, I guess, kind of. Maybe it wasn’t money.”
“I wish I could borrow your rose-colored glasses, but the reality is that people are sometimes dirty and it doesn’t surprise me that there are people out there that do bad things.”
I grabbed Bonnie’s arm and yanked her behind a large column.
“Marc is right there at the cashier,” I said to Bonnie.
Bonnie stuck her head out from behind the column and looked. “He’s probably getting chips.” She took out her cell phone, pressed a couple of buttons, then stuck her head out again and snapped a picture.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Oh, just getting some proof.”
“Proof of what?” I asked. “All it looks like is someone gambling. Getting a picture of Gino slipping Marc the cash would have been proof, but this doesn’t look like proof to me.”
We surreptitiously watched as Marc took his chips over to the poker tables.
“Let’s stay here for a few minutes,” Bonnie suggested.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because he’ll be back in a very short while.”
“How do you know that?”
“He’s laundering the money that Gino gave him.”
“What? How would you know that?”
“I know everyone thinks that I’m some sort of a brainless bimbo because of my looks, but I actually have a lot of street smarts,” Bonnie replied.
“I’m sorry, that’s really not what I meant, I…” I wanted to open my mouth and insert my foot.
“I know you didn’t mean that. I was only trying to say that people underestimate me and that’s not always a bad thing. People don’t think that I’m wise to their ways. My uncle was a cop his whole life; he taught me a lot.”
“Uncle Freddy?”
“Yup. As a matter of fact, I’m going to send these pictures to him.”
“Why don’t we just give them to the F.B.I. or something?” I asked.
“Do you really want to have to appear before a judge to testify against your bosses and the mob? I know I don’t. They might put out a hit on us before we ever make it to court.”
“You’re right. I don’t want to get involved.”
“I’ll send the pictures to my uncle and tell him what we saw. He’ll know what to do with them and he won’t involve us.”
“Good thinking.”
Five minutes passed, then Marc started walking in the opposite direction. We trailed him, staying far enough behind him, so that he would not be able to pick us out of the crowd. He walked up to a different cashier window clear across the other side of the casino. Bonnie snapped a few more shots of him cashing in the money. She had the date and time stamp showing on the photos. She forwarded the photos to her uncle’s cell phone.
When we were sure Marc was long gone, Bonnie went ahead and traded in her chips at the cashier as well, then we headed to lunch. My mind was reeling from all that was happening. I thought about Babs and how she said Marc was a crook. About how she spoke about her nephew, the tooth fairy, and Marc, and something about money between them. About how her nephew turned out to be Gino Righetti. Babs hadn’t been spewing stories coming from the hallucinations of dementia; she had been trying to tell me something all along. Something very real. Something very scary. Something I wished I had never discovered. I shuddered at my thoughts. I told Bonnie about Babs and the things she had been relaying to me over the phone. There was no doubt that Babs was confused, talking in riddles. I didn’t know how the tooth fairy fit in, the cemetery, or the birds. Perhaps they didn’t fit in at all.
“I think I need to place a call to Uncle Freddy now,” Bonnie said. The restaurant was fairly empty, so Bonnie dialed her uncle and asked him for as much information on Gino Righetti as he could find. Uncle Freddy already knew a lot about Gino Righetti. His reputation preceded him. Uncle Freddy warned Bonnie to stay far away—that she was asking for trouble if she got anywhere near the likes of him.
“I feel sick,” I said to Bonnie.
“Why? You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I’m just worried. After dealing with a corrupt politician at our last job, the last thing I had wanted for us was to be involved in some other sort of a scandal. This is a nightmare.”
“Maybe all this is happening for a reason. Maybe it’s your fate.”
“It’s my fate to have lousy jobs, working for criminals? Where do I get off this train and catch a new one going in the opposite direction?”
“I’m just saying, maybe you were meant to solve crimes or something. Maybe you should go back to school; start a new career as a criminologist.”
“Are you out of your mind?” I asked Bonnie. “I don�
�t want to be anywhere near crimes, criminals, or anything out of the ordinary. I’m a mouse, remember?”
“I guess. But, you were wondering who killed Vinny. Don’t you still want to get to the bottom of that? It seems like that interested you.”
“Yes, I want to know what happened to Vinny, but not because I’m fascinated with this stuff. It’s because I wanted to protect myself.”
“Doesn’t seem to me like you are protecting yourself by digging into Vinny’s death.”
I supposed Bonnie was right. I was digging. I wondered if Marc did the deed and put Vinny in an early grave.
“Do you think Marc is the murderer? Given what we know about him?” I asked Bonnie.
“He seems to be taking money from Gino and laundering it. That doesn’t mean he’s a murderer.”
Bonnie was right again. I had no proof whatsoever of Marc having killed Vinny. He seemed the obvious choice, though.
“Why is Gino giving money to Marc?” Bonnie asked.
“I suspect for his vote on the Village Pier project or to push the project through as quickly as possible.”
“Village Pier?”
Bonnie wasn’t familiar with the Village Pier project, as I was handling all that paperwork myself, so I filled her in. I also took the opportunity to fill her in on everything else I had learned—what Sylvia from the nail salon had told me, what I found out from Vinny’s exes, and everything that Babs had said.
We finished our lunch, then left the casino for the trip back to Bonnie’s house. I was quietly thinking the whole way home. I still wasn’t convinced Marc was a killer, or was I? He had a mean streak. I realized Marc was probably taking bribes from Gino to get his vote on everything to do with the Village Pier project and also to push the project through quickly. Probably, Gino was giving out “incentives” to help encourage the government to purchase the beach club through condemnation. What I didn’t know was how Vinny fit in. Did he find out what was going on and threaten to expose them? Did bribes and murder go hand in hand? Were there other people involved? Or was Vinny killed for another reason—something that had nothing to do with the Village Pier or Righetti Brothers’? I knew I had to find out.
Chapter 13
Morning came much too early. I was dragging this morning, partly due to my not being used to the time change yet. It was Monday, and back to work I reluctantly went. I felt like I was reliving something else from my old job this morning when I arrived at the municipal building. Something other than working for a corrupt boss. It was a complete déjà vu. I entered my office to see that it had been ransacked. I had experienced a break-in at my previous place of employment, so I knew to immediately get out of the office and phone the police. I put my feelings of alarm aside for a couple of hours, in order to cope with the notion that my office was struck by thieves for a second time in my life. The police came, investigated, then said I could clean up. After looking around, I realized, nothing was missing. No money, no computers, nothing. Also, none of the other offices were touched. I would have thought if a perpetrator were stealing something, they would have at least gone through the tax office, since we never locked the doors between offices.
I wondered, was someone looking for something? Did someone find out Vinny had left a note? A long shot, but plausible. I also wondered how the person got in. The door lock seemed untouched and there were no visible signs of entry. A few hours later, I would discover that the “perp” was Marc himself. He was caught on video entering the office with a passkey. When questioned, he told the police he was looking for something. I realized the police weren’t going to push the issue. Marc was one of the people who could hire and fire them and I’m sure no one wanted to risk their bread and butter. If you looked up the hashtag for asshole, Marc’s photo would certainly be next to it.
I wondered if I should call Marc and ask him what he had needed. Nah, if he wants something, he can darn well ask me for it like a normal human being, I thought. Plus, what if I was right, and he was looking for Vinny’s note? I didn’t want him to know I had already found it. Then there was also the possibility that he saw Bonnie and me at the casino. I was sure we were careful, but what if he saw us take those pictures? I began to worry.
I had finished cleaning up the mess in my office—it took me the remainder of the day. The books were back in the bookcase, the phones were back on the desks, the papers on the floors were sorted and back in their proper files. Paperclips, staplers, tape dispensers, and pens were all returned to the normal resting places.
I suddenly heard a strange sound overhead. I asked Bonnie if she heard it too. She did.
“Sounds like someone is walking up there,” I said. We were in a single-floor building, so I couldn’t imagine why anyone would be walking around in the ceiling.
“Maybe they are working on the air conditioning or pipes or something,” Bonnie said.
I shrugged my shoulders. The sound of footsteps persisted and prevented me from concentrating. I desperately needed to get some paperwork done since I spent the day cleaning up after Marc. I stepped out of my office and over to Bonnie’s desk.
“I can’t concentrate with that noise. I’m going to go ask around and see if anyone knows what is going on…”
Crash.
A body plummeted through the ceiling. Startled, Bonnie and I both jumped back. Luckily, we didn’t get hit. I took a step closer, and saw the body was none other than Mike Nero. He let out a groan.
“What the eff, Zero?” Bonnie yelled. He groaned again.
“Bonnie, call 9-1-1. This bozo looks hurt,” I said. Mike’s eyes rolled back in his head. I leaned over him. “Nero? Nero?”
He didn’t answer me. I slapped his cheeks several times. No response.
“The paramedics are on the way. Is he breathing?” Bonnie asked.
“I don’t care if he’s not. There is no way in hell I’m giving him CPR.”
“Me neither!” Bonnie exclaimed.
I felt bad saying that. I wasn’t a bad person…normally. Bonnie gave him a swift kick in the side. He said, “Ow.”
“He’s breathing,” Bonnie said.
Mike opened one eye. “My love,” he said to me.
“You’re an idiot,” I said. “You could have snapped your neck. What the eff were you doing up there?” I asked.
“Umm,” he said.
“You little freak. You need to stop stalking her,” Bonnie said.
“I’m not stalking her. I just wanted to see her,” Nero said as he sat up.
“Hey, freak…walking in the attic and falling through the ceiling is a form of stalking. She’s not interested. You need to knock it off.”
“But we are destined to be together,” he said.
“Listen here, Zero…” Bonnie said.
“The name’s Nero.”
“Like I said, Zero, if you come near here again, I will kick you so freaking hard in the baby maker that you’ll need your nuts surgically removed from your bung hole. Capisce?”
The EMTs arrived and, after giving him a thorough once-over, they told Nero that he would need some stitches. They carted him off to the hospital.
I didn’t even have to say, “What is wrong with him? Why would anyone creep around in the attic to just see me?” Bonnie must have read my thoughts.
“Dangling participles,” she said.
I shook my head.
“There’s never a dull moment when you’re in charge,” Bonnie said to me.
“Ha. Ha,” I said sarcastically. Bonnie was right, though; there never seemed to be a dull moment. I decided to pack up and head for home. Once again, I had more than my fill of Coral Beach and couldn’t stand to be there for one more moment. I felt as if a black cloud was directly over my head, sending lightning bolts my way. Angry bosses, senile old women, insane stalkers, dead bodies. I wondered why I was back at work when I had some money left over to pay my bills for a few more years. Then I remembered, jobs in this field were few and far between, I had no other skill s
et, and the chances of another job opening near my home would be unlikely. I started to think I needed to move far, far away from the Jersey shore. Note to self: Look for a new job and house back in Middlesex County. Nothing ever happened when I worked there.
* * *
I picked up Mandy from my parents’ house on my way home, fed her dinner, then put her to bed early. She was cranky from not taking a nap during the day. It worked to my advantage, because it gave me some time to search the internet. Before I had left the office for the evening, I took home a copy of the mailing list of property owners affected by the zoning ordinance. I started looking up the addresses of the properties owned by the Righettis. They were all oceanfront homes. Thanks to a website called Zillow, I was able to track down the purchase price and the purchase date. The majority of the properties were purchased very recently for a below-market price. The properties were located along Ocean Avenue, where the Village Pier project was proposed. I wondered why the owners would sell out at such a low price.
I typed the first address into Google. Eighteen Ocean Avenue, Coral Beach, NJ. A news station provided me with video footage of the home catching fire two months before. The home was a vacation home and the owners were not there for the winter, luckily. Makes sense that they would sell for a below-market price. There was no house there and they likely collected the insurance money, so perhaps they made out with a lot more money than they thought they would.
I moved on to the next house. Twenty Ocean Avenue. A newspaper article of a man celebrating his one hundredth birthday appeared. I imagined that the man was being moved to some sort of facility—a nursing home or assisted living. Those facilities typically took all the proceeds of the person’s house, so I could see why the homeowner or perhaps his next of kin wouldn’t mind selling at a lower price. I guessed that without a realtor’s commission being taken out of the sale, the price wasn’t as bad as I thought.
With there being nothing seeming suspicious to me on the surface of the first two homes I found, I searched for Home Number Three. Twenty-two Ocean Avenue. No results. I logged into the County’s database for deeds and I typed in the block and lot of the property. The owner of the house was Mitchell Johnson. I typed Mitchell Johnson into the search engine. He was reported missing about one month prior. Alarms went off in my head. Was this the handy work of Gino Righetti?
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