Seams Like Murder

by Betty Hechtman

“Bring them where?” Jaimee said.

  “Just take them back to your ex’s. I’ll come by later or call you.” He grabbed three gym bags and started to walk toward the front door. Let him go, let him go, I thought, hoping Jaimee would pick up on my mental telepathy.

  “Wait a second,” Jaimee said. “Was this all just a plan for you to get your stuff back?”

  “No, honey. Like I said, you take the clothes, and we’ll meet up tonight.”

  Jaimee went for one of the gym bags. “No way. You take the clothes, and I’ll take the gym bags.” She unzipped the one she’d grabbed and then squealed. I couldn’t see what she was seeing, but it seemed like a safe bet it was filled with cash, like the bag I’d seen.

  “I don’t understand,” Jaimee said. “What are you doing with bags full of money?”

  Todd grabbed the bag from Jaimee’s hand and swore under his breath. “I was a dead man if I didn’t find these,” he said. “You don’t cross Mr. X.”

  “Who? Where did the money come from?” Jaimee asked. Apparently she hadn’t paid any attention to the TV show that Mason had on incessantly.

  Todd looked like he was going to ignore what she said, but then he seemed to have a need to explain. “One of my clients asked me to do him a favor. He had a lot of cash from something. He asked me to deposit the money in my account, then transfer it to an offshore account he had. He offered to pay me a percentage for doing it. It was easy money, so how could I turn it down? Then he asked me to do it again, and again after that. All I had to do was go to the bank a lot. As long as the deposits were small, nobody asked any questions. At least that’s how it was supposed to be. I was ready with an answer just in case—I gave clients a discount if they paid me in cash for lessons. I was a victim of my own success, and pretty soon I was accumulating bags of cash faster than I could deposit them. I started bringing some of them here.”

  “Okay,” Jaimee said. “Just do what you have to with these bags of money and then tell him you quit.” She went to hug him. “We’ll work this out together.” I watched in horror as he turned her sign of affection into an opportunity to grab her.

  “There is no quitting. I made a deal with the devil. When I tried to tell him it was more than I could handle, he just told me to get help.” Todd zipped up the bag and added it back to the stack. “Why couldn’t you have just made this easy and let me leave with the bags without interfering?”

  “You should have told me there was a problem,” Jaimee said. “I can help you.”

  She couldn’t see it, but Todd rolled his eyes and gave her an angry look. “You really don’t understand, do you?”

  “I can help you make the deposits,” she said. “We can work this all out together.” Her tone was cajoling. I had no idea what she was thinking. Did she really mean she wanted to help him, or did she realize she was in danger and was trying to act like she was on his side so he would let her go?

  “I have help. When that woman at the bank started asking all those questions and commenting on how odd it was that all my tennis students paid in cash and in small bills, I got a partner. I thought it would shut her up when I told her I was a partner in some nail salons, too, and was making deposits for them. But she only talked more. Evan said to ignore her like he did, but when she joked more than once that it was almost like I was laundering money, I knew I had to get rid of her.”

  “What do you mean get rid of her?” Jaimee squealed.

  His demeanor and voice changed, and it almost seemed that he was talking to himself. “It turned out to be very easy. Delaney was flattered when I invited her to the party. She didn’t have a clue that I’d doctored her drink. And then I took her into the Collins place through the back gate. I arranged her on the floor and turned the heat on full blast. On the way out I stuffed up the vent.”

  “Todd, honey, it doesn’t matter what you did. None of it matters. We could take the money and go buy some plane tickets. I hear Switzerland is nice this time of year.” There was no doubt that Jaimee understood she was in real danger now. No matter how cajoling she tried to sound, the high-pitched squeaky sound of her voice gave away her panic.

  “That won’t work,” he said in a cold voice. He was looking around the den now. “This room looks like an accident waiting to happen. That’s what Mason’s girlfriend will think if she comes back to pick you up.” Jaimee tried to pull away, but Todd was much stronger, and he punched her in the gut. She bent over in pain, and he took the opportunity to grab her hands and tie them together with an electric cord. He looked around the room, clearly considering his options. Then he saw the cinder blocks.

  “Wouldn’t it be terrible if you tripped and hit your head?” he said. The calm tone of his voice made his words even scarier. He grabbed the back of her shirt and pulled her around like she was a rag doll as he tried to decide the best way to smash her head. Jaimee kept struggling, trying to pull free, but Todd held her tighter and smacked her face.

  Jaimee looked around with a dazed, helpless expression. I had to do something fast. All I had to work with was a phone with no service and a purse with no weapons. What was I going to do? And then, suddenly, I had a plan.

  Todd had his back to the door, and I could see that all his attention was on what he was doing, and not what else was going on in the room. I also had the advantage that the room was pretty dimly lit and he thought they were alone. I got on the ground and opened the door without making a noise. I crawled toward Todd as I unfolded my secret weapon—I’d remembered that the killer had an Achilles’ heel. I held my breath as I got close to him. For a moment, I was afraid he was going to step on me, but luckily, Jaimee was squirming, which kept his attention while I carefully slid the purple wool scarf across his tennis shoes.

  “Let’s get this over with,” he said, positioning her so that several cinder blocks were right in front of her. He was about to give her shoulder a shove when I pulled hard on the purple scarf. It jumped off the top of his tennis shoes and wound around his bare legs. I pulled the scarf from behind so it moved back and forth against his skin and he yelped in surprise and discomfort. It must have burned and itched at the same time. He let go of Jaimee and bent forward to pull at the scarf and scratch the rash that was already starting to form, but leverage was on my side, and I gave him a shove from the back. He went forward and hit his head on the cinder blocks. He collapsed to the floor. I rushed to untie Jaimee, who had started crying.

  “I thought you left me here!”

  “We need to get out of here,” I said. I grabbed her hand. But as we turned I saw a blond woman holding a small blue handgun pointed at us. I recognized the tattoo on her finger.

  “I told you, you should have taken the gun,” she said to Todd, who was trying to sit up.

  My mouth fell open in surprise as it sunk in who she was. “Pia Sawyer!” I exclaimed.

  “Who?” Jaimee said. “This is who you were cheating on me with?” she yelled at Todd.

  “Shut up,” Pia said to her. “Should I just shoot them?” she asked Todd. He was using his polo shirt to sop up the blood from his head while still frantically trying to pull the scarf loose and scratch his legs at the same time. He seemed a little out of it, but he glared at me. “Yes.”

  Pia seemed to realize she couldn’t shoot us both at the same time and moved the gun back and forth. “Who should I do first?” she asked Todd.

  He glared at me again, reaching down to give the rash another scratch. “Do her first. And do it so she dies slow.”

  My mouth had gone dry, and my knees felt suddenly wobbly. Was this going to be it for me? Shot by some former PTA mom? “You know, there could be another way,” I said, trying to stall.

  “Don’t listen to her,” Todd yelled. “Go on, shoot her.”

  Suddenly, loud noise sounded at the glass doors that led outside. We all turned at once, and it seemed like nothing was there. Then there was another
loud noise, and I thought I saw something hitting the French door.

  “Ignore it,” Todd yelled. “Pull the damn trigger.”

  I closed my eyes and cringed, waiting for the end. I felt something push me, and the gun went off and then—darkness.

  CHAPTER 30

  I couldn’t see anything, but something was on top of me. Or was it someone? Suddenly, I was being helped into a sitting position and there was light. “Barry?” I said, looking at the figure next to me on the ground. “Is this a dream?”

  His cop face cracked, and he smiled. “More like a nightmare. I’m sorry if I hurt you.”

  I was completely confused. “I saw the gun aimed at you, and I pushed you out of the way,” he said. “And landed on top of you.” He stood and held out his hand to help me up. “We’re both lucky she isn’t much of a shot.” He pointed toward the ceiling, where a bullet was lodged. He kept his voice light, but I got the point—he’d thrown himself on top of me to protect me.

  “I’m okay,” I said, though really I was a little shaky on my feet. “This is nothing compared to the pain and suffering Todd was hoping for.” I managed a weak smile. Looking around for the first time since the gun went off, I noticed that there were a couple of other cops in the room. Pia was in handcuffs. Todd was still on the floor, handcuffed as well and loudly demanding that someone cut the scarf off his legs. For her part, Jaimee was having a total meltdown. I was in better shape than she was, so I went to try and comfort her.

  “It’s all over. You’re safe now,” I said, putting my hands on her shoulders. “You’re okay.” She had bruises on her face from Todd’s smack, so when the paramedics arrived, I waved one of them over and got an ice pack for her face.

  I was functioning on the outside, but inside I was in a total daze and operated solely on nerve as I answered a bunch of questions about Todd, Pia and the bags of money. Eventually, Thursday came and got her mother, saying she’d take her to a doctor to be checked out, and Barry drove me and my car home.

  Everything was getting a little clearer now, so I asked the obvious question.

  “How did you happen to show up?” I said as he pulled into my driveway. A police officer driving Barry’s Crown Vic pulled in behind us. He got out and brought Barry the keys, then walked to the cruiser that had pulled up to the curb.

  “We got a call about an old, oddly colored Mercedes that seemed suspicious. It was driving slowly, like it was casing houses.”

  “Or looking for cell service,” I said.

  “Yeah, well . . .” He blew out his breath like whatever was coming was uncomfortable. “The caller gave the dispatcher the license plate number, and they ran it.” He shut off the engine and pulled out the key. “There was a note saying I was to be notified anytime there was a call about your car. I guess I forgot to remove it when we broke up.” He handed me the keys and opened the door to get out. “I might have ignored it, but I got a weird text message from you. All it said was, Need you.”

  “Oh,” I said. It was my turn to be uncomfortable. Somehow the text I had started to write at the Willises’ had gotten sent in my fussing with the phone. It was supposed to have said, Need your help with suspect. I quickly changed the subject. “And then what happened?”

  “Some uniforms and I responded to the call, and we had a look in the windows and saw what was going on. I didn’t want to wait for a SWAT unit to show up, so I did it the old-fashioned way—I distracted them by throwing pebbles against the window.”

  “Thank you,” I said. The reality of everything had finally sunk in, and my eyes filled with water.

  “Just doing my job,” he said, trying to keep his tone professional. “You look a little shaky. Let me walk you inside.” He put his arm around me for support, and I leaned into it gratefully.

  * * *

  Once they patched up Todd, he was taken to jail and charged with first-degree murder, money laundering, fraud, tax evasion and trespassing. It turned out that he was the only one who knew about the gate at CeeCee’s—Babs admitted to me that it was Todd who had told her it was common knowledge when he’d come to give her grandkids their tennis lesson, and she’d accepted it as true. He’d found it by accident when he was giving lessons to Evan and Kelsey—so many tennis balls were ending up in CeeCee’s yard that he looked to see if there was a way in and had found the gate. He found the guest apartment when a tennis ball landed on the top of the stairway and the door was open.

  Dinah was the only one to acknowledge it, but if it hadn’t been for me, the coroner might have left Delaney’s death as inconclusive. It was because I found the gate that the cops looked around the area behind the garage and found Delaney’s purse with the business card.

  The mystery of what had happened to the box of old vent pieces was solved when they found it at Todd’s place—the cops had seen the twigs and leaves in the vent and left it at that. It turned out that Todd had stuffed some tennis balls in first, and they happened to have his name on them. They were still in the box with the old vent parts.

  But there was one thing Todd would not give up—the identity of Mr. X. He claimed it would mean instant death for him. All I could figure was that he lived in the area and liked tennis.

  They wanted to charge Pia with attempted murder and a bunch of other stuff, but she thought if she talked she could make a deal. Barry actually let me watch them question her. Well, on a TV screen with not the best reception. She admitted that she and Todd had been in a relationship for over six months and she’d known from the start about the money laundering. Apparently, she’d watched one too many cable shows and had gone a little crazy with the idea of being outside the law. Pia had introduced the idea of Todd and the Willises working together. After Evan lost his job, the couple had invested in some nail salons, but by the time they opened the one near the bookstore, they’d realized they didn’t know what they were doing and needed money. They already knew Todd, because he had helped both Kelsey and Evan improve their backhands. They were fine with using the nail salons as a front. Evan made the deposits and wired the money but convinced himself that it was just a temporary measure. Kelsey was simply happy to have her old lifestyle back.

  Pia insisted that she knew nothing about Delaney’s death. She and Todd had gone to the Willises’ party together but then gone their separate ways at the event. She confirmed that the Willises knew nothing about Delaney Tanner’s death and really had believed that Tony Bonnard had done it. Because she gave up so much information, the D.A. knocked out Pia’s conspiracy charge, but still charged her with attempted murder and accessory to money laundering. They should have added one for bad judgment, in my opinion.

  Kelsey and Evan Willis were charged with fraud, money laundering and tax evasion. Both of them were facing prison time. But before they even went to trial, they had both started writing books, and I heard Evan was shopping the idea of their story for a TV show.

  I had gotten justice for Delaney, but I still lamented the fact that if she hadn’t talked so much, she might be alive today.

  * * *

  CeeCee couldn’t stop thanking me for the fact that Tony was out from under the cloud of suspicion. She invited Elise, Rhoda, Adele, Eduardo, Sheila, Dinah and me over to celebrate the next day. I convinced her to include Babs, too. The afternoon had the softness of spring, and we sat on the tree-surrounded patio between the house and garage. As it got a little later, CeeCee turned on the heat lamps and the string of lights, illuminating the whole area in a festive way.

  Dinah and I had pulled our chairs close together. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there with you yesterday when everything hit the fan. It’s just lucky that Barry showed up when he did.” She squeezed my hand. “I don’t know what I would do without you.” I was glad when she didn’t go into the details of what he’d done. I was still having trouble processing the idea that Barry had been willing to take a bullet for me.

  “It was your
text that tipped me off,” I said. “When you told me how your student described the nail salon owner who’d gotten the manicure as some kind of tennis pro, I thought about Todd. Then all the pieces fell into place. The figure I’d seen at the bank in the rain gear who made the cash deposit looked familiar because it was Todd. And remember the guy we saw at the café with the rash? I realized that was Todd, too.”

  Dinah considered what I’d said for a moment. “Right, that was the day you found Delaney. The rash was from her vest when he ‘helped’ her get to CeeCee’s.”

  Tony made a beeline for us. He looked at me with his most charming smile. “Good work, Molly. And thank you.”

  “I hope you got an apology from the cops,” Dinah said.

  “I did, but I don’t care. It was worth the hassle. I got so much publicity for the web show from getting arrested that I have people lining up to invest in it. A major distributor wants to release it. Life is good.” He moved off to take a call on his cell phone.

  “I still don’t know how my yarn ended up in Delaney’s vest,” I said. Rosa came outside with a tray of drinks.

  “Last I heard you’d tracked it to CeeCee, who claimed she’d given it to Rosa. Ask her,” Dinah suggested. A few moments later, the housekeeper reached us. We passed on the drinks, but I brought up the yarn. Rosa seemed to be drawing a blank, then she remembered. “Miss CeeCee was right. I tried to use it, but the yarn won in the fight between us.”

  “What happened to it?”

  “She saw me trying to knit with it and suggested I try some other needles.” Rosa threw up her free hand. “Life is too short, so I gave it to her.”

  “Who is ‘she’?” I asked.

  Rosa pointed, and Dinah and I said in unison, “Rhoda?” I was determined to get to the bottom of this once and for all, so we walked right over to where Rhoda was sitting. I brought up the yarn, and Rhoda seemed upset.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you had the yarn?” I asked.