by Lois Winston
“Damn straight. If it helps to ease your conscience, consider the fact that I’m doing this as much for me as I am for you.”
“How so?”
“I need the peace of mind of knowing that you and the boys are safe and that you have a way of getting help if you’re not.”
I stared at him, realizing we’d become a family, maybe not a traditional one, but a family all the same. “Did you ever expect your life would change so dramatically when you called about the apartment I had for rent?”
Zack laughed. “Life certainly works in mysterious ways, but since I now can’t imagine life without you, please stop dwelling on the cost of the phones.”
“I’ll try.”
He reached over and squeezed my hand as we turned onto our street. “Try hard.”
Instead of answering, I pointed out the window. “Speaking of dead bodies, there’s a car parked in Carmen’s driveway, and the crime scene tape is down. I think that’s her daughter Lupe’s car. I should offer my condolences.”
Zack continued down the street and pulled into my driveway. “Not by yourself. I’ll go with you just in case you’re wrong about the car.”
Given that a police cruiser still sat at either end of the block, I thought Zack was being over-cautious, but I didn’t argue. We stepped out of his Boxster and walked back down the street to Carmen’s house.
The temperature had dipped at least fifteen degrees from earlier in the day, and the wind had picked up. The carved pumpkins that dotted the steps and porches of houses we passed had transformed from grinning and grimacing jack-o-lanterns into grotesque, deformed monsters, thanks to the squirrels that feasted on them. The few leaves that had valiantly remained clinging to branches now rained down upon us and joined the ones crunching under our feet. I glanced up at the leaden sky, covered in a skeleton of bare oaks and maples, and shivered from both the cold and the death around me—both physical and metaphysical.
Lupe answered the door when I knocked, took one look at me, and threw herself into my arms. “Oh, Anastasia!” She then burst into tears.
As a teenager Carmen’s daughter Lupe often babysat for Alex and Nick when they were toddlers. Now a professional businesswoman with children of her own, she often asked one of my boys to babysit her kids.
I may have come across a plethora of murdered bodies recently, but none of them had been my own mother. I couldn’t imagine Lupe’s grief. I held onto her for several minutes until she’d cried herself dry. Then I guided her to a chair in the living room.
“Why would someone want to do such a horrible thing to Mami?” she asked as she swiped away at her wet cheeks. “Why couldn’t he just take her jewelry and leave?”
I had no explanation for such a senseless crime other than the one Detective Spader had suggested, but I didn’t think voicing that possibility would ease Lupe’s anguish. So I simply shook my head.
“Do the police have any leads?” asked Zack who had met Lupe previously at one of Carmen’s block parties.
“No, one of the officers suggested he might have been lying in wait for her, but that makes no sense.”
Zack and I exchanged a quick glance. Spader had inferred Carmen interrupted a burglary in progress, but what if the killer only took some of Carmen’s jewelry as an afterthought to make her murder appear to be a burglary gone wrong?
“Lupe,” I asked, “was your mother having problems with anyone?”
“Only Batty Bentworth but everyone always has problems with her.”
Except Betty was already dead when Carmen was killed. “Did something happen recently?”
Lupe nodded. “Mami was behind her in line the other day at Target. When Mrs. Bentworth went to pay for her items, she couldn’t find her wallet and accused Mami of being a pickpocket.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“Security detained Mami and called the police. When they arrived, one of the officers asked Mrs. Bentworth if he could check her purse to make sure she hadn’t overlooked her wallet. She refused, grew defensive, and stormed out of the store.”
“So this was all a stunt to cause trouble for Carmen? How typical of Betty!” How could one woman have been so unbelievably vile? She made Lucille look like Mother Theresa. If Betty weren’t already dead, I’d have had to sit on my hands to keep from strangling her.
Lupe’s reddened eyes grew wide, and her voice shuddered as she spoke. “You don’t suppose Mrs. Bentworth had something to do with my mami’s death, do you?”
“You’re mother didn’t tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
“Betty Bentworth died sometime Tuesday.” I inhaled a deep breath and let it out slowly before adding, “Someone killed her.”
All the color drained from Lupe’s face. “You don’t think Mami…she would never—”
I reached over and placed my hand on her knee. “Of course not. And I don’t think the police believe your mother had anything to do with Betty’s death, either.”
“Was she robbed and killed the same way as Mami?”
“No, she was shot.”
Lupe jumped to her feet. Clenching and unclenching her fists, she shook her head as she paced back and forth from the fireplace to the windows on the opposite end of the room. “That’s why the detective asked me if Mami owned a gun. At the time I thought he wanted to make sure the killer hadn’t stolen any weapons.” She stopped pacing and turned to me. “But that’s not it, is it?”
“He was conducting a thorough investigation,” said Zack.
“To determine if both crimes were connected in any way,” I added. “You shouldn’t read too much into the question.”
“No? Then why did he also ask if I owned a gun?” Her voice grew shrill and filled with panic. “He knew about the incident at Target. Does he think I’m some sort of vigilante? That I killed Mrs. Bentworth? I’ve never owned a gun in my life. Neither has Mami.”
I stood and grasped Lupe’s hands in mine. “Detective Spader told me he doesn’t believe the murders are connected. Go home, Lupe. You shouldn’t be here by yourself right now. It’s too stressful for you.”
“I only came for Mami’s address book. I need to make sure I’ve notified everyone about her death, that I haven’t forgotten anyone.”
“Did you find the book?”
“Yes.”
“Then go home. Get some sleep.”
She choked out a bitter laugh. “Sleep? I can’t sleep. Every time I close my eyes, I see my poor mami. It was the most gruesome thing I’ve ever seen, Anastasia. Like a scene right out of Psycho.”
“What do you mean?”
“He attacked her while she was showering. I found her in the tub, the water still running.” Lupe burst into tears again.
Zack and I exchanged another quick glance before I gathered Lupe up in my arms. If Carmen was in the shower, she wouldn’t have known an intruder was in the house. Why didn’t he simply grab her jewelry and leave?
As we fought the whipping headwinds on our walk back to the house, I posed the question to Zack.
He thought for a moment. “My guess is he was after pills. The elderly often have prescription narcotics for various ailments. He ducked into the bathroom, figuring the shower curtain would prevent Carmen from seeing him, but she heard him rifling through her medicine cabinet. If Spader’s theory about the burglar being an addict is correct, maybe the guy was a meth-head or hopped up on PCP and went Breaking Bad crazy when she discovered him in the bathroom.”
Breaking Bad. This was the second time in less than a week that someone had referenced the former TV show in regards to a gruesome murder. Why couldn’t real life be more like The Brady Bunch?
*
“Crap!”
“What?” asked Zack as he fed sunflower seeds to Ralph later that evening.
“I forgot about Catherine the Great. Do we have time to make a quick stop at the condo before dinner?”
“Braaawwk!” Ralph swiveled his head to face me and flapped his wings
. “Within this hour it will be dinnertime. The Comedy of Errors. Act Two, Scene Two.”
Zack placed another sunflower seed in Ralph’s open beak before glancing at his watch. “Sure but can’t it wait until after dinner?”
“I was hoping we could stop at Home Depot after dinner.” I explained how the toilet in the main bathroom kept running unless the boys stuck their hand in the tank and manually adjusted the rubber flapper. Of course, Lucille didn’t bother. She just left the toilet running until someone else fixed it.
“Mama will have a fit if she arrives home before I’ve had a chance to fill Catherine the Great’s food and water bowls.”
“Assuming she didn’t fill them herself this morning.”
“True. And even if she forgot, it’s not like Catherine the Great couldn’t stand to lose a few pounds. Still, I’d prefer to do it now rather than run the risk of Mama arriving home while I was at the condo later. I’ve already dealt with too much Flora drama for one week.”
Zack laughed.
“What’s so funny?”
“Your idea of a romantic dinner date—plumbing supplies and cat food.”
“You knew what you were getting into.”
“And I wouldn’t have it any other way.” He drew me into his arms and kissed me in a way that made me want to jump his bones right there in the middle of the kitchen.
After enjoying the moment a bit too long, I mustered all my willpower and wiggled out of his embrace. It’s one thing to have Ralph watching us, quite another to have my sons or Lucille walk in on us.
Not that I had to worry about my sons at the moment. They were in their room, totally absorbed with their new smart phones. Hopefully, they weren’t going overboard texting. I had threatened them with Torquemada-style bodily harm if they exceeded the monthly data plan or spent so much as ninety-nine cents on an app.
“Dinner’s ready,” I called loud enough for the boys and Lucille to hear me. Then I removed a tuna casserole from the oven and a salad from the fridge, placing both on the table. Zack and I darted out the back door before anyone arrived in the kitchen.
*
Zack let out a whistle of surprise as I keyed in the alarm code at the condo. “That’s a pretty sophisticated system for a Fanwood apartment.”
“Mama hates having to deal with it, but she said Lawrence insisted on installing one. Apparently his laundry was broken into several times before he upgraded to this system. So he bought one for the condo.”
Zack raised an eyebrow. “With his own money?”
“He probably finagled the cost of it out of Ira.”
“I wouldn’t think a commercial laundry would be a high target for burglars. It’s not like they’d have lots of cash lying around.”
I shrugged. “Who knows? He wants to make sure Mama is safe when he’s not home. I can’t argue with that.”
I headed into the kitchen to check on the empress’s food situation. Two empty ceramic cat bowls sat on the floor next to the French doors that opened out onto a small patio at the far end of the kitchen.
I then scoured the pantry and opened every single drawer and cupboard, unable to find a single bag, box, or can of cat food. “Where do you suppose she keeps the cat food?” I asked Zack.
Hands on hips, I scowled at the condo’s sleek galley kitchen with its cherry cabinets, granite countertops, and stainless steel appliances—a far cry from my own circa 1970’s kitchen of chipped Formica and cracked linoleum. “Do you suppose she ran out and forgot to buy more?”
Such a lapse would be totally out of character for Mama. Catherine the Great meant the world to her, but what if her forgetfulness was an early sign of dementia? I fought back the tears threatening to well up behind my eyes. For all her quirks and annoying habits, I loved my mother and couldn’t imagine life without her. I didn’t want to think about the possibility of her succumbing to any of the ravages of old age. Mama was hardly old.
Zack opened the refrigerator and removed a package of pork roll. Catherine the Great immediately jumped onto the counter and began yowling.
I frowned at the package. “I’m not frying up pork roll for Her Highness.”
“It’s not pork roll,” he said. “It’s premium cat food.”
I grabbed the package out of his hand and read the label. “This has got to cost at least ten times as much as a box of Meow Mix!”
“Nothing’s too good for a Russian empress,” said Zack.
I went from teary-eyed over the imminent demise of my mother to wanting to strangle her faster than Zack’s Porsche goes from zero to sixty. I guess my emotions showed on my face because he grabbed my shoulders with both of his hands and held fast. “Don’t. She’s never going to change. You know that.”
“But—”
“I know.”
I sighed, knowing there was no point in voicing my frustration. Mama would always be Mama, living in her own Mama world of unreality.
At that moment the doorbell rang. “Life is so freaking unfair,” I muttered as I headed into the living room to answer the door.
“I’ll take care of Her Highness,” said Zack.
I opened the front door to find a slightly overweight man with hunched shoulders and a Yankees ball cap pulled over closely cropped salt and pepper hair. Mirrored aviator sunglasses and the upturned collar of his leather bomber jacket obscured much of his face. I fought to keep from gagging on the rancid odor of tobacco emanating from his clothes.
ELEVEN
The man kept his hands shoved in his jacket pockets as he spoke. “I’m here to see Lawrence.”
I took a step back to keep from breathing in his nicotine-laced breath. “He’s out for the day.”
“When do you expect him back?”
“Not until later this evening.”
His mouth quirked into a frown of annoyance. “I was supposed to pick something up from him.”
Even though I couldn’t see most of his face, something about the man seemed vaguely familiar to me. “Did we meet at the wedding?”
His cheeks shifted upward, and his nose wrinkled. Although the sunglasses hid his eyes, I had the distinct impression he was squinting at me in a lecherous, old-geezer sort of way, not that he qualified for old-geezer status. I pegged him at no more than mid-fifties. “Couldn’t make it. I was out of town on a job. You his new missus?”
“Her daughter. Anastasia Pollack.” I let go of the doorknob and held out my hand. “And you are?”
“Steven.” He withdrew his right hand from his pocket and nearly crushed my fingers with an overly firm handshake as he stepped uninvited across the threshold.
“Steven?” I waited for a last name, but he didn’t seem inclined to offer one. Undeterred, I wriggled out of his vice-like grip and asked, “Steven what?”
“Steven Jay.” His head pivoted left and right as if scoping out his surroundings. “Lawrence didn’t leave anything for me, did he?”
“Like what?”
“An envelope, maybe?”
“Not that I know of. We just stopped by to feed the cat. What size envelope?”
“Not sure.” He approximated an inch with his thumb and forefinger. “It would be about this thick. Lots of papers. Could be a regular size business envelope. Could be one of those bigger ones, the kind that hold full sheets of paper without folding.”
I glanced at the empty mail table to the side of the front door. “I’m afraid not. Would you like to leave a message for him?”
Steven shifted his weight slightly, craning his neck. He appeared to focus on something over my left shoulder. I turned to find Zack approaching from the kitchen.
“Everything okay?” he asked, coming up behind me and wrapping an arm across my shoulders.
“Yes. This is Steven Jay. He came to pick up something from Lawrence.”
“An envelope,” said Steven. He grabbed hold of the door and closed it behind him. “Awfully cold out there. More like December than the end of October. No point letting the heat out, right?�
��
“Yes, of course,” I said, then added, “What sort of paperwork did you say you came for, Mr. Jay?”
“I didn’t.” He paused for a moment, then added, “It’s business related.”
“From the sale of his laundry?”
“Yeah. That. In regards to tying up some loose ends for him.”
“Wait here. I’ll see if there’s anything sitting on his desk.”
Zack stayed with Steven while I checked Lawrence’s desk in the apartment’s small den that also served as an office. I found only a laptop computer on the desk. No envelopes. No loose papers. The top of the file cabinet next to the desk held a tray marked Bills to Pay but no papers of any kind, bills or otherwise, filled the tray.
The remainder of the room held a low console with a flat-screen television opposite a small black leather sofa. There were no papers or envelopes sitting on either the console or the sofa.
I stared at the sofa, so not Mama’s taste, and was reminded of her brief romance with Lou Beaumont. I wondered if she’d battled Lawrence over this sofa the way she’d fought against leather upholstery for the set of Morning Makeovers. If so, it appeared she’d lost this latest decorating brouhaha as well.
A moment later I returned empty-handed to the foyer.
“Nothing?” asked Steven.
“No, sorry. You’ll have to come back tomorrow when Lawrence is home. He must have the papers filed away somewhere.”
Steven shrugged. “Guess so. Thanks for looking.” He tipped the brim of his Yankees cap toward me. “Nice meeting you, ma’am.” Then he turned and headed toward a black SUV parked in front of the condo. I closed the front door. The tobacco smell remained.
“You look pissed,” said Zack.
“I’m developing an extremely strong dislike toward my newest stepfather, Lawrence the Moocher.”
“Don’t be too quick to rush to judgment.”
“What do you mean? The man recently sold a successful commercial laundry. Where’s all that money? Why did Ira pay for this condo and the wedding and honeymoon?” My voice climbed several octaves as I gave way to the anger that had been growing inside me for some time. “Why am I stuck with two extra mouths to feed most nights?”