by Dale Mayer
She could feel his glare all the way across the kitchen. She turned and looked at him. “Hey, I heeded the No Trespassing sign, even when I wanted to dash inside the security gates and have a look around. What else could I do that at least was legal?”
“Fine,” he said. “What is it?”
“For all I know it’s just pizza flyers because that’s the only thing in his recycling bin. A million pizza boxes.”
“Really? With all that money?”
“Right? That’s what I thought,” she said. “He could have a private chef, but who knows?” At that, Doreen picked up the stack, divided it in half and handed him half. “Take a look to see if anything’s there.”
They went through the papers and found receipts and bills.
She whistled at the amount on the electric bill. “Seriously? People pay this much for lights?”
“For big houses like that, yes,” he said.
She had a bunch of other bills. “His phone bill is here.”
Mack looked up at that comment. “Does it have a listing of calls made?”
She nodded and handed over the top couple pages. “Why would he print off this stuff?”
“Maybe he prefers paper bills over digital.” He looked at them and frowned. “These are older.”
“These are newer,” she said. “This is last year anyway.”
“What number did you just call? For the sister?”
She read it off to him.
He nodded. “We’ve got lots of calls from that area code but not to the same number.”
“So, probably somebody else.”
“Maybe.” He pulled out his phone and dialed one of the numbers. “I’m so fishing this time.”
Doreen looked at him in delight. She loved it when he took the initiative. Often it was to the case’s advantage.
“Yes,” he said, “Jude Burns recommended you to me. I understand you might help me with a problem.”
At that, Doreen’s jaw dropped, and she sank back against her chair and watched the pro at work.
“Yes, I understand there’s a price,” he said. “Can we meet?” He turned his gaze to Doreen. But she didn’t understand his expression.
“No, I’m not in the same province,” he said. “That’s part of the problem.”
Doreen so wanted to hear what the guy was saying on the other end.
“Right, of course, you only work by reference.” His eyebrows shot up, as he listened further. “I guess I’m wondering what the fee is.” He nodded at whatever was said on the other end. “For the same deal as Jude, yes.”
Doreen held her breath.
“It’s hard to say. Right now there is a heart condition.” Mack stared at Doreen, his eyes going wide. “Right, so we’re talking ten thousand if there’s already a heart condition. But it’ll be what, two to three times that if we don’t have a heart condition?” He nodded. “Right. Okay, I can see that. And I guess you don’t have a website or an email or anything like that?” He stared at Doreen. “Of course not. Just a phone number.”
Another moment of silence passed.
“Okay, let me know how I’ll get back to you.” He hung up. “Jesus Christ.”
“Did you just contact a murderer-for-hire?”
He raised his gaze to hers and said, “Yes. Not only that, basically I said Jude referred me to this guy, and that’s the only way he works—by word of mouth. And to get the same deal as Jude was literally to have somebody declared dead by a heart attack if they already had a heart condition.”
“For ten thousand dollars?”
“Ten thousand dollars with a heart condition, three times that if not.”
“What do they do if not?”
“Let’s just say it’s a whole lot more complicated,” Mack snapped.
“But …” she said, staring at him. “It looks to me like you have a killer out there charging fees, and Jude might have paid him.”
“Based on what I just heard,” he said, “Jude definitely paid him. I don’t know if it was for his ex-girlfriend, his father, or the lawyer.”
“Well, if I get to add my opinion in the matter,” she said stoutly, “it’ll be all three.”
Mack looked at her and nodded. “I’m afraid you’re right. I need to talk to the captain.”
And, like that, he booked it.
Chapter 29
Tuesday Morning …
Doreen waited for the rest of the evening to hear back from Mack—but nothing. Tuesday morning, she woke up a little groggy. Just something about the ultimate lack of humanity in a person who makes a phone call that orders the death of somebody for ten grand could do that to a person. At least to a good person. The fact of the matter was, she and Mack now had that phone number and had contacted the person on the other end of the line.
But she was the one who had taken the material from the recycling bin. She also worried she would have to go to court over a lot of this stuff, which was definitely not what she wanted to do. A roomful of lawyers did not make her feel warm and fuzzy. She frowned as she thought about all the issues going forward and then just shrugged. “It will be what it will be.”
To keep her mind otherwise occupied, she opted to dig in her garden in the backyard. Nothing was quite as good as pulling weeds on a mild sunny day to keep a person happy. And sane.
She looked down at the animals sprawled out on the grass around her. She was still working her way back from the creek toward the house, taking out weeds, fixing the beds. The compost bins were well past full, so she was just making a big separate pile for when the compost bin got picked up and emptied. Then she’d refill the bins. She could do only so much every week because she was filling them so fast.
She could ask Mack to do a dump run or pay for somebody to come and get it, but that wasn’t what she wanted to spend her money on. Money wasn’t that fluid for her. In fact, it was a whole lot less than fluid.
When she needed to take a break from digging, she made a huge pitcher of lemon water and sat outside drinking it. She kept studying the area of her future deck, wondering if anybody from Mack’s department had said anything to Mack regarding extra building supplies they might have. She also needed to clean the house. Just because her house was mostly empty didn’t stop the dust from collecting.
Determined to at least accomplish something else today—and it all stopped her from worrying too much—she turned on the vacuum and swept the living room and then wiped down the inside of the big windows here. As she stood in front of them, watching the weekday traffic, another vehicle drove slowly into the cul-de-sac and around. Jude’s Porsche. She stared at him, her hands on her hips, wondering if he knew she lived here. But, when he parked right in front of her house and just sat there, she figured he must know. She pulled out her phone, stepped out onto her front porch, and took a picture of him. Immediately the Porsche engine roared to life, and he took off.
She smiled. “Yeah, run away, you little coward.” She went back to doing her windows.
When she was almost done, another vehicle pulled up, an old rattletrap truck, and backed into her driveway. She frowned, stepped out onto the porch, and thought she recognized the guy. Sure enough, it was old Arnold, the grizzled cop she’d met her first day here. She smiled at him. “Hey, what’s up?”
He just gave a “Hmmph.” He walked to the back of his truck and put down his tailgate, allowing her to see a whole pile of beams.
“Oh,” she said in delight, “are those for my deck?”
“I guess,” he said. “They’ve been sitting in my yard for at least six months. No sense in them sitting there any longer.”
She thought back six months and figured it was before Christmas. “What were you building?”
“We did an extra set of railings and widened a small deck. I don’t need these three. Mack said you could use them.” He lifted one over his shoulder and said, “Where do you want it?”
She raced around to the side of the house, saying, “Over here, please. Ov
er here.”
He made three trips, and she saw they were the same length as the others. She clapped her hands. “Thank you,” she said. “I really appreciate it.”
He just looked at her, scratched his head, and said, “Well, you’ll need a whole lot more yet.”
“I know, but every penny I don’t have to spend on a piece of wood somebody else doesn’t need can pay another bill,” she admitted.
“I’ll check around,” he said. “I don’t know if you need two-by-fours. I got some of them hanging around that I don’t want either.”
She remembered two-by-fours were also on her supply list. “Hang on a sec. Let me get my list.” She raced back into the house, grabbed her diagram and her list, and came out with both.
Arnold took a look. “So, wow, that would be good. Would give you a lot more entertaining space in the backyard, wouldn’t it?”
Doreen nodded. “I’d like a decent deck to enjoy. We’re looking for …” and she named off the list of things she needed.
“I got the twelve two-by-fours,” Arnold said, tapping one of the lines. “I’ll go get those and bring them over in the next day or two.”
She put Arnold’s name beside that entry. “That would be perfect,” she said, beaming.
“I might also have extras. It’s always good to have a few spares, in case they split.”
She didn’t know how many that meant, but she figured a few spares would be helpful. “Thanks so much.”
He hopped into the battered old truck, honked at her, and disappeared. She was beside herself with happiness. She had to walk around to the side of her house to look at the big stack of beams once more. She was a little confused about how they were all supposed to go in and stand in place, but, hey, she was happy with what she had so far. She sent Mack a text and a photo of them, saying, The pile is growing.
Then she sent him the other photo.
He called her. “Was that from Arnold?”
“It was,” she said, laughing. “And guess who came to visit just before him?”
“I saw that too. What did he want?”
“He didn’t get out of his Porsche. I stepped out in front and took his picture, but he took off then.”
“You let me know if he comes back,” Mack said in alarm.
“Why?” she asked.
“Because it’s possible his killer-for-hire called to confirm he’d given us a reference.”
“But how would he know it was me?”
“He wouldn’t,” Mack said, “unless he saw you in his backyard.”
“I don’t think so,” Doreen said. “He knew I was around the neighborhood, but he couldn’t have known I was in his alley. It’s impossible to see from the house. Besides, he drove away and only came back when I was leaving with the papers I took from his recycling bin.”
“Maybe, but he might have realized what he’d thrown out, gone looking for it, saw it was gone, and thought it had to be you because who else would take it?”
“And meanwhile, I’ll be sure not to eat or drink anything he offers me in case it induces a heart attack,” Doreen said jokingly. However, she would take Mack’s warning seriously. She locked the front door, and she reset the security.
“I’m not joking,” he warned.
“No,” she said, the fatigue hitting her again. “I’m not taking this lightly.”
“Good,” he said. “We’re on it on this end.”
“Good,” she said. “Just get on it a little faster.”
No sooner had she hung up her phone rang.
“Hello,” she said as she walked back into the kitchen.
“Bitch, I’ll get you,” snapped the angry man on the other end.
“Oh, hey, Jude. How you doing?” Doreen said in a totally bored tone of voice. “You got nothing better to do than rag on another woman? What’s the matter? You can’t get your girlfriends to talk to you? Oh, yeah, right, they’re dead.” She hung up on him.
“Probably not a good idea to poke the bear,” she said to Mugs. He sat on the floor at her feet, looking at her, a real hangdog look on his face. She crouched in front of him, and he woofed. “I know. I’ll be careful.”
He shook his head, his big ears flipping and flopping in all directions. She scratched him. “Let’s go for a walk,” she said. “Someplace to cheer us up.”
Mugs raced for his leash, bringing it back, the red handle flying in the air as he dashed toward her.
Doreen laughed. “Okay, but, if we just go down to the creek or something, you don’t need a leash.”
“Woof, woof,” he barked.
She looked over to find Goliath sitting in front of the rear kitchen door, with Thaddeus hopping back and forth on the table, flapping his wings. “So, you all want to go out?”
“Go to Nan’s. Go to Nan’s,” Thaddeus repeated.
She looked at him in surprise. That was a new phrase. “Wow. Thaddeus, you are full of surprises. You know what? That’s not a bad idea. We haven’t seen her today. Not sure if we saw her yesterday either.” Doreen pulled out her phone and sent Nan a text. Up for a visit?
Absolutely.
Ten minutes?
Perfect.
“Okay, guys. We’re off to Nan’s.”
Chapter 30
Tuesday Late Afternoon …
It was late afternoon, heading toward dinnertime, but, if Doreen visited with Nan for a bit, she could eat when she got back. With the animals in tow, she walked down to the creek and stopped, amazed as it was even higher yet again. It wasn’t dangerously high; it was just amazing to see the water rush by at a terrific rate. The sun shone and twinkled as it danced across the moving surface.
Mugs got a little too close to the creek’s edge for her comfort, and she tugged him back in fear. Goliath, on the other hand, was on the other side of the creek a long way away from the bank. Thaddeus squawked and rushed toward her, trying to jump onto her shoulder. She gave him a palm, and he hopped up to her arm, then to her shoulder and to safety. Obviously he didn’t like the rush of water either.
“Thaddeus is here,” he crooned. “Thaddeus is here.”
Doreen rubbed her head gently against his and said, “I’m so glad to have you here.”
Together, the four trooped down toward Nan’s place. Doreen wondered how long they could walk the path before the high water levels forced them to go another route. That would be sad, indeed. If there was one thing she adored, other than Nan and her animals, it was walking along the water. Something was so freeing and so special about it.
As she walked, she remembered her conversation with Jude and wondered how bad this would get. Should she tell Mack? Then she decided she probably should. She took out her phone and called him.
“Now what?” he growled into the phone.
“Hi, Mack. How are you?” she asked in a sarcastic voice. “Are you home yet?”
“Yes,” he said. “Where are you?
“I’m on the way to Nan’s.”
“Good. What’s up?”
“After I talked to you, he called me.” Doreen relayed the call as they came up around the turn on the creek, after the last of the residential fencing.
“Interesting,” Mack said. “So he seems to have a vendetta against you, which is probably what you can expect after you attacked him publicly.”
“Whatever. Just checking in to let you know. I’m coming up to Nan’s, so I’ll talk to you later.” She pocketed her phone again and smiled as Nan stood there, a teapot in her hand. She put the teapot down and bent over as Mugs tried to get away from Doreen so he could go see Nan. Doreen let go of the leash, and he raced across the flagstones and hopped into her little patio. Nan laughed. Fred stood on the other side of the lawn, glaring at Doreen and her animals. Doreen smiled and gave him a nice wave.
“I saw some of your brother’s work online,” she said. “He seems like a really nice guy who does lovely woodwork.” And then she turned away and sat down at the little patio. She loved Nan’s bistro set. It was
perfect for the two of them; it was a small table and a little crowded sometimes when Nan brought out a lot of things, but it was cozy.
Nan greeted the rest of the animals, and Thaddeus, not to be outdone, hopped onto the table and walked over to Nan. “Thaddeus is here. Thaddeus is here.”
Nan chuckled and gently stroked the bird. “I’m so happy to see you, Mr. Thaddeus.” His head bobbed up and down and up and down, as if to say, Of course you are, of course you are.
Doreen laughed. “I have to admit it. The animals keep me on my toes.”
“They’re quite a handful, aren’t they?” Nan said.
“Very much so,” Doreen said. “But all very worth it.”
Nan poured the tea and asked, “So, what kind of trouble are you in now?”
“The usual. I don’t really have any evidence. I don’t have much except lots of supposition, so I pushed a button on that nasty little son, and he’s been pushing back.”
“Oh, really? How badly?” Nan’s eyes lit up. “Tell me,” she said. “Let me see if I can help.”
Doreen told her about going to Abbott Street to see the Burns estate and getting sidetracked once or twice with garden talk and then told her about collecting Jude’s recycling.
At that, Nan stared at her. “You dug in his garbage?”
Doreen shook her head. “No, no, not his garbage. The recycling bin. It was all pizza boxes, but I also found this stack of paper. Mack is not happy with me.”
“Of course not,” Nan said. “So, what was in the paperwork?”
Doreen hesitated.
Nan’s gaze narrowed.
“You can’t tell anyone,” Doreen said.
Nan huffed.
“You have to promise,” Doreen said quietly. “No betting pools, no going off and talking to your neighbors, nothing.”
Nan raised her hands in surrender. “Fine,” she said, “but life was never so interesting before you arrived. Then now, with all this hoopla, you’re such a stickler for not letting me share. You sound like Mack. I could have such fun with these tidbits.”
“It could get me killed,” Doreen worried.