Dead Man Stalking (Barbara Marr Murder Mystery Series Book 5)

by Karen Cantwell

  “Mighty strained quartet there,” he said, nodding.

  “That’s for sure. Something’s up. I don’t know if a lottery ticket and murder are involved, but those guys aren’t happy with each other.” I looked at my watch. “I need to get over to my house and feed my cats and see if I can’t get someone out to fix my darned air conditioning.”

  “You having air conditioning problems? Maybe I can take a look for you.”

  I rolled my eyes. He was a piece of work. I needed some space. “This is going to take me a while, and I was going to try to hang out with some friends later...” The sad puppy dog look on his face hit me in the gut. I dug a ten-dollar bill out of my purse. “Here,” I said. “Get yourself a sandwich or something. How about we meet tomorrow morning at Cappuccino Corner.”

  He nodded. “Ten-four. You won’t investigate without me will you? You won’t keep me out of the loop?”

  I shook my head. “Tomorrow. Nine-thirty.”

  Indiana Jones and Mildred Pierce were none too happy with being left in an oven of a house all day and night. I fed them, gave them water and food, and lots of hugs and apologies. They accepted some of the hugs but none of the apologies and gave me steely mean-cat stares when I left again.

  Back at Vikki’s, I called more air conditioning companies, finally talking with Jordy from Jordy’s Air. He said it’d be tight, but he could put me in at the end of the day. Seven o’clock give or take a few minutes, he figured. “Thank you, Jordy, I think I love you, Jordy,” I babbled.

  “Eh...okay, lady.” He hung up fast.

  Finding an air conditioning technician was too much like dating. I prayed I hadn’t scared him away, professing my love even before we met.

  I’d just finished texting Howard the good news when the doorbell rang. I scooped up Puddles, the instant-yapper, and decided to hang on to him rather than put him in his crate. I looked through the peephole to find Isbel standing on the stoop, a casserole pan in her hands and a pained grimace on her face.

  Chapter Twenty

  After opening the door, I realized the pained grimace was her attempt at a smile. A very forced smile. Either that, or she was constipated.

  “Good evening,” she said. “I brought you dinner. Chicken Paprikash with the dumplings. Homemade. It won’t fix that alarming hair sickness you have on your head, but it will fix a hungry belly. You like chicken?”

  I was hungry, and I liked chicken. The aroma was already wafting up my nostrils and causing my tummy to yearn. But I wasn’t sure how much I trusted Isbel the hisser. Maybe she threw a little poison into those dumplings.

  “I sense you are dairy,” she said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Oops, I say that word wrong. Wary. I mean to say wary. Dairy is for the cows. I get them mixed up all the time.” She stopped and caught her breath. “I sense you are wary. So, I eat with you.” She pushed herself past me and straight to the kitchen island. Before I could object, she was opening drawers and cabinets and dishing Chicken Paprikash and dumplings onto plates.

  I put Puddles in his crate and returned, staring at the enticing dish. Isbel cut a piece of chicken, shoved it into her mouth, chewed, and swallowed.

  “See?” she said. “Is good. No poisoned.”

  She slid the other plate across the granite. “There. You eat now and we talk. We talk about Cee Cee. But first you eat. You are so skinny. I cannot talk to a pencil.”

  She wasn’t exactly one to talk about being skinny, but I wasn’t going to argue with her or my growling tummy.

  Isbel served us both glasses of water, and we ate in awkward silence. The Chicken Paprikash was tasty. The dumplings too.

  “Where are you from?” I asked. “My mother-in-law makes chicken like that. She’s from Poland.”

  “Ack!” She shook her head vehemently. “I hiss on Poland.” She pounded her fist on the counter top. “Slovakia,” she said. “I come from Slovakia. But we don’t talk about Slovakia now. We talk about Cee Cee.”

  Okay. I could do that. Nothing like getting right down to business. “Let me get a notepad from—”

  “He bought the tickets,” she said.

  I stopped and stared at her wide-eyed. “Lottery tickets?” I gave up on my mission to take notes.

  She put her fork on her plate. “This story is not complicated. Each of us gave him twenty dollars, and he buy tickets at liquor store near the Winslow Building. One hundred tickets.”

  “You said ‘we.’ Do you mean Red Cigala, Carney Smutz, and Wee Willy?”

  “Who you think I mean? Oprah Winfrey and Lady Gaga? Yes, I mean Red, and Carney and Willy.” She shook her head. “I say we all meet at my house, we play some poker—just for pennies because now we are broke buying tickets—until they call the numbers on the television at night. When they are calling the numbers on the television, we are each holding tickets. There are only four tickets really because each ticket has five numbers, you know. You buy the lottery tickets? You know how this works?”

  I nodded. Yes, somewhere in my house were six tickets with five numbers on each.

  “Okay, good. So you know. We are checking our numbers but we not win the big jackpot. There are some small winners like one and five dollars, but not the big one, you know? So I take the small winners—there are four of them—and I put these tickets on top of my microwave oven. I say I will cash them in next day. We throw other tickets in trash. Next morning I wake up, Cee Cee gone. His stuff—it’s gone. All except that stupid typie writer. I think to myself, why does Cee Cee leave? Then I think, he leaves because he hasn’t paid me three months rent and he is the scum of the earth.”

  “So there wasn’t a winning lottery ticket?”

  “Did I say that? Are you hearing me say this thing?”

  “I think you did say that, yes.”

  “I say we are each holding four tickets and checking our twenty numbers. But we don’t check each other’s tickets. You are following me?”

  “Maybe...” She said it wasn’t a complicated story, but it was feeling a little complicated to me. Especially when trying to translate through her interesting grammatical choices.

  “So later this day, I see news, and they do the interview with the man who owns liquor store on Rustic Woods Parkway, because this is where the winning ticket is bought.”

  “That doesn’t mean it was one of your tickets.”

  “You think I have rice for brains?”

  “Uh, no.”

  “Of course it doesn’t mean it was one of our tickets, but Cee Cee, he leaves in middle of night. I decide to look in trash, you know, just to count how many tickets. Only twenty tickets. I count the tickets on microwave oven. Four. One ticket is missing.”

  I nodded. “That’s fishy.”

  “When no winner comes forward, I go to Red’s Cigar shop. I ask does he see Cee Cee? He says no. I tell him about missing ticket. We call Carney Smutz. We ask, does Cee Cee come by for work? He says no, and he is mad. I tell him about missing ticket. But what are we going to do? We can’t find Cee Cee. We got no ticket. We can’t call police. Then I read in paper that he die and there is this viewing. Now I think one of them kill my Cee Cee for this ticket.”

  “If that were true, though, one of them would have come forward to claim the winnings, don’t you think?”

  “There is that. Still. What if they think I have ticket? What if they try to kill me? Then I think,” she leaned toward me over the granite counter, “what if his daughter has ticket? Maybe she kill him for ticket.”

  “Now you’re just being silly.”

  “Am I?”

  Was she? Vikki wasn’t close to her father, and she needed the money. But no, she hired me to find the ticket. My mind was turning in circles trying to keep the facts in order. “And maybe there isn’t a winning ticket
at all,” I said.

  “Well how about this one Miss Private Investigator? The day before he die, I find a note on my door from Cee Cee.”

  “Do you have it?”

  She slipped her hand down her shirt, tugged, and pulled out a piece of paper which she handed to me. I suppressed a cringe as I unfolded the sheet of paper and read it out loud.

  My dearest Pivo. Please forgive me. I have done a terrible thing, and now I feel so very guilty. But don’t despair, I plan to make it right, and you will have no reason to hate me. Your Love, Cee Cee.

  When I’d finished reciting the note, she snatched the paper from my hands and returned it to her bra. At least, I hope it was her bra holding it there.

  “He was murdered, I know it,” she said. “Like I know the sun is orange and moon is not.” She pounded on her chest. “I know it in here.”

  I was so mesmerized by her speech that I jumped when the doorbell rang again.

  Puddles erupted into a fit of yips and yaps.

  Isbel covered her ears. “This dog of yours, he is so noisy.”

  With Isbel on my heels, I opened the door.

  Red Cigala, pastry box in hand, was smiling until he saw Isbel behind me.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  “Don’t worry,” I said, snatching the box from his hands. “Is this dessert?”

  See, the thing is, I’m a creature of habit, and one of my habits is to eat sweets. Ice cream, cake, cookies, a few candy bars. I’m not picky as long as sugar is involved.

  “Donuts,” he said.

  “Come in,” I told him when I noticed his reticence. “She didn’t kill Cee Cee, and she told me all about the lottery tickets.”

  “I knew he had the winning ticket!” shouted Moyle, causing poor Red to jump. Moyle had appeared out of thin air.

  “Where did you come from?” I demanded.

  “Across the street,” he said. “I’ve been watching the house just to make sure you stayed safe.”

  “So why didn’t you do anything when Isbel arrived?”

  “Isbel? When did she get here?”

  “Half an hour ago.”

  He shrugged. “Must have fallen asleep for a while. Heat makes me sleepy.” He shoved past Red. “Come on in, man,” he said. “We won’t hurt you. What’s in the box? I’m starved.”

  I’d just finished dishing out three servings of Chicken Paprikash, one for Red and two for Moyle, when that crazy doorbell rang again.

  It didn’t take a rocket scientist or even a private investigator to guess who was at the door.

  “Carney and Wee Willy?” Moyle guessed.

  “You think?” I snatched a chocolate donut from the box.

  “Let me answer it,” he said, getting up. “We don’t get to answer doors in twenty-five twenty-five. They’re all automatic.”

  “Twenty-five twenty-five?” asked Isbel. “What’s this thing?”

  “Cecil never mentioned a friend who thought he was a time traveler?”

  “That’s the one?” Red asked.

  I nodded. “That’s the one.”

  “I thought this man was homeless,” Isbel said. “What are you doing with this crazy man?”

  “I don’t know. I like him. He seems entirely harmless, and he knows a lot about Cecil.”

  Red and Isbel tensed instantly at the sight of Wee Willy pushing Carney and his wheelchair into the room.

  Tired of this dance of suspicion, I asked, “Carney, did you kill Cecil for the winning lottery ticket?”

  “You know about the ticket?”

  “Just answer the question.”

  “Does it look like I could kill anyone?”

  “You, Wee Willy? Did you kill Cecil for the winning lottery ticket?”

  “Murder’s against my religion, man. But we think one of them did it.” He of course, pointed to Red and Isbel.

  “Really?” I asked. “If one of them had killed Cecil for the lottery ticket, they wouldn’t be here, thinking you killed him for it.”

  Wee Willy gave a nod. “That’s logical, I suppose.”

  “And if any one of you had the ticket, you wouldn’t be here, you’d be collecting your winnings now, wouldn’t you?” I picked up the donut box and offered one to Carney and Wee Willy. They each happily accepted.

  “She has got the point,” Isbel said.

  “If none of us killed him, then who did?” Red asked.

  “His daughter,” answered Carney, “that’s who.”

  “Oh,” said Moyle. “I hadn’t thought of that. Maybe she killed him and now wants you all dead so she can collect the money without any arguments.”

  Spines stiffened around the room and eyes grew wide with renewed suspicion.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Moyle seemed determined to aggravate me at every turn.

  Now worried that I was Vikki’s hired executioner, Carney and Willy stopped just short of stuffing the donuts in their mouths. They eyed the treats warily, then returned them to the box.

  “Would you stop it.” I scolded Moyle, giving him a slap. “Vikki doesn’t have the ticket,” I reassured everyone, “and I’m not an assassin. The donuts are safe. She hired me to find the ticket. Do you want to help?”

  Muscles relaxed and first Isbel nodded, followed by Red, then Wee Willy and Carney.

  “Yeah, I’ll help,” said Wee Willy. “We still get to divide the pot five ways, right?”

  “I suppose,” I answered.

  “So,” said Isbel, “how do we do this finding of the ticket?”

  “There’s a backpack,” said Moyle.

  “Cee Cee’s backpack?” asked Willy. “Where is it? That’s gotta be where he put the ticket. Gotta be. You’ve had that ticket all along.”

  “Come on,” I said, growing weary of the paranoia. “Can we all use some common sense about this? There is a backpack, and we don’t have the lottery ticket.”

  I retrieved Cecil’s backpack, cleared the kitchen island counter, then dumped the backpack contents onto it. Isbel’s lip twitched a couple of times, and I thought she was going to start hissing on all of it, but instead, she broke into tears.

  “My Cee Cee!” she wailed. “This is all that is left of my Cee Cee.”

  Red’s eyes looked a little wet too. I passed tissues around, surprised that these four people were suddenly sad at his passing, despite their theory that he’d cheated them out of their cut of a record-setting lottery jackpot. I mean, a fifth of six hundred million dollars is still...a whole lot of money.

  My favorite show on the home channel, when we could afford cable, was Island Buyers. I could buy ten islands with a fifth of that jackpot. I’d already done the math before buying my own tickets. So much for that dream.

  Of course, if they all thought they were somehow closer to finding the ticket, I guess it was easier to be forgiving. And according to Isbel’s note, Cee Cee had wanted to make it right.

  Isbel picked up his wallet and wiped her eyes. “You checked this, right? No lottery ticket here?”

  “Fifty-two dollars,” I answered, “a receipt from Bobby’s Bar and Grill, and a driver’s license. Expired.”

  “He didn’t drive. He had a bicycle for a while.” She inspected every possible pocket, slot, and compartment of the wallet. She set it back down when she didn’t find anything new.

  “How about the receipt?” Red asked, picking the wallet back up. “Maybe the clue is in the receipt. He had a draft beer and a glass of wine.” He scrutinized the bill closer. “July thirtieth. Isn’t that the date he died?”

  Wee Willy was more interested in the movie ticket stubs. He turned them over a couple of times, then just stared at them. “He saw all these movies at the same theater. The Ten-Plex at
the Town Center. You think he taped it to the bottom of a seat there maybe?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe. But that seems awfully risky.”

  “That’s not risky,” Carney huffed. “That’s stupid. Cee Cee was a lot of things, but he wasn’t stupid.”

  Isbel inspected the pink towel briefly and set it aside. “That is my towel. He was a lot of things, and he was a thief. I hiss on him!” Then tears started flowing again. “But he was my thief,” she said between sobs.

  After we’d all thoroughly searched and inspected every single item in front of us, coming up with no ideas worth pursuing, Carney suggested that maybe Cecil had hidden the ticket in the lining of the backpack. “Let’s rip it apart. Carefully, of course,” he added.

  “I’m going to have to ask Vikki if that’s okay. We’d be ruining it.”

  “Then ask her,” he said.

  Everyone nodded in agreement.

  She picked up right away and in short order, I explained the situation unfolding in her kitchen. When she was briefed, I put Vikki on speaker phone.

  “I’m driving as we speak,” she said. “Decided to come home early. I should be there in a couple of hours. Did you get anywhere with the backpack?”

  “Not really,” I said. “Not unless we really think he hid the ticket in a movie theater or at Bobby’s Bar and Grill. But we haven’t ripped through the lining of the backpack. I mean, I don’t see where it’s been ripped and resewn, but Carney thinks it’s worth a look. Are you okay with us tearing it apart?”

  “Sure. I’ll stay on the line. There’s some scissors in my utility drawer on the island there.”

  Isbel said she was a good seamstress, so I let her do the cutting and tearing, which wasn’t easy. It was a sturdy backpack despite the obvious wear and tear. She cut and tore, and she cut some more and tore some more and we inspected every inch of that darn lining, including the lining of the pockets. All to no avail.