Secondhand Stiff

by Sue Ann Jaffarian

  Released by the paramedics, I made my way to Fehring and Greg. While the cops dispersed the crowd, Detective Whitman approached Tiffany Goodwin and Kim Pawlak.

  When I reached Greg’s side, Fehring said to me, “I see you still have a knack with people.”

  “Yeah,” I answered, carefully touching my nose. “It’s a gift.”

  “Cut the smartass remarks. You’re lucky.” She looked from me to Greg. “Both of you are lucky that McIntyre didn’t pull the gun and start shooting. People like her don’t carry guns as fashion accessories.”

  “People like her,” I parroted. “So she’s a criminal?”

  “Nothing major on record, but she’s a very tough cookie. No telling who her friends are.”

  “Someone like her has friends?” In spite of just having the snot smacked out of me, I couldn’t help myself or my mouth.

  “The way I see it,” Greg said to Fehring before she could scold me, “there are only two reasons to carry a gun—offense or defense. I have no doubt the gun Ina had in her backpack was for defense, but why would Linda McIntyre be carrying one? I’m guessing for the same reason or else she would have pulled it on us.”

  “Which means she’s afraid of something,” I added, quickly seeing where my hubs was going with this. “She didn’t have a gun the last time she was here. The way she was dressed, there was no place to hide it.”

  Fehring gave us a look that said loud and clear we weren’t telling her anything she hadn’t already thought of on her own. “Listen,” Fehring began, “I really appreciate you letting me know Linda McIntyre was here. We weren’t very far away at the time. But you two are too smart for your own good. Hopefully this altercation will put the fear of God in you, since I can’t seem to. I have no doubt Linda is afraid of something. I wouldn’t be surprised if a few others here today have weapons of some sort on them.”

  Greg and I looked at each other, both knowing what Fehring said about the others was probably true.

  Whitman came up to us. “Any news on Buck yet?” I asked him.

  He ignored me and spoke to Fehring as if she was the one who had asked the question. “Tiffany still claims he hasn’t contacted her. Says she’s worried sick.”

  “Do you believe her?” asked Fehring.

  Whitman ran a hand over his chin. “Yeah, I do. Seems he’s gone to ground.”

  When a wave of pain passed, I said, “Linda thinks he set the blast at his store to cover the fact he killed Tom Bruce.”

  Fehring nodded. “It’s a definite possibility.”

  She closed her little notebook and stashed it in a pocket of her trousers. As usual, she was dressed very masculine. Not for the first time, I wondered what Andrea Fehring would look like in a dress and heels. She was fairly attractive in a no-frills way, and I had to admit she was growing on me.

  “By the way,” Fehring said, “where’s Mrs. Littlejohn today?”

  “She and my mother are getting their hair done,” Greg answered.

  “Good,” Fehring said with a hint of a smile. “Just where she belongs. Last thing I need is another nosy Nellie.” She turned to me. “You should have gone with them.”

  I placed a hand gently on the side of my face and winced. “No argument there.”

  The auction crowd had dispersed quickly after the third and final auction of the day. Some stood around hoping to see more girl-on-girl Fight Club, but when Linda was hauled away in the patrol car, they also left.

  Kim Pawlak approached us with Tiffany in tow. Up close, Tiffany looked more worried and exhausted than she had before. “What am I supposed to do with that storage unit?” Kim asked the police. “Linda McIntyre hasn’t paid for it yet.”

  “Give her a few days,” Whitman said. “Unless we find something more serious than a concealment charge, she’ll probably be released in record time.”

  “That’s not how this works,” insisted Kim. “It’s a cash business. You bid. You pay. Elite needs that locker. Acme needs their money.”

  “A couple of days,” pressed Whitman. “It won’t kill you or this dump to give her that. Just charge McIntyre rent on the unit until she clears it out.”

  Seeing Kim wasn’t sold on the idea, Fehring added, “My partner is right. You can always put it back up for auction, but won’t that take several days to set up again anyway?”

  Her eyes rolled behind her glasses as Kim weighed her options. “Yeah, you’re right. Linda has always been a good customer. I’ll talk to Elite about extending the time on the unit for her, but I’m sure they’re going to charge her for the extra time.”

  She turned to Tiffany. “I’ll be right back. Why don’t you stay here in case the other bidders have questions.” Leaving Tiffany behind, Kim took off at a trot for the front of the complex.

  Whitman zeroed in on Tiffany. “Anything you want to add or remember before we go?”

  The young woman shook her head, her eyes down, giving the appearance of being meek and mild.

  “You have my card,” Whitman added. “Give me a call if you do remember something or if your father contacts you.”

  In response, Tiffany held up a white business card pinched between two fingers like something sticky and stinky.

  Whitman and Fehring started to leave, but not without a parting gift from Fehring in my direction. “Go home, Odelia. Put your feet up. Put some ice on that face. We’ve got this from here.” The detective took a few steps, then turned again. “Or should I stay to make sure you leave?”

  “We’re going, we’re going,” I confirmed. To emphasize my point, I wobbled a little when I took a step. “Trust me, all I want to do is go home and take a long, hot bath.”

  With an assured nod, Fehring left.

  “You okay, sweetheart?” Greg asked, putting a strong hand on my elbow.

  “Dandy,” I replied. I turned my attention to Tiffany Goodwin, who was watching the detectives leave with a relief similar to my own, although I doubted it was for the same reason. I wanted to talk to her without them around. Tiffany probably just wanted them gone, which was confirmed when she crumpled Whitman’s business card and threw it to the ground in disgust.

  “Hi,” I said, approaching her. She gave me a steely look of wariness and studied the blood stains that had dribbled down my boobs. “We’re related to your friend Ina Bruce,” I told her. “My husband here is her cousin.”

  When Tiffany’s eyes moved to Greg, her defensive demeanor changed and her shoulders relaxed. “You’re Greg?”

  He wheeled closer. “That I am. And this is my wife, Odelia. We’re trying to help Ina and would like to talk to you.”

  “Ina’s told me a lot about you.” She took a solid stance and hugged the clipboard to her chest like armor. “Like I told the police, I don’t believe Ina killed Tom. It’s not who she is, even if he did smack her around.”

  “We don’t believe she did it either,” Greg assured her. “Did you know she was leaving town right after that auction?”

  Tiffany pursed her lips and stuck a hand in the pocket of her jeans. “Yeah, I knew. She told me the only way she’d ever be rid of Tom for good would be to disappear.”

  “But Tom was with Linda McIntyre,” I pointed out.

  “That wouldn’t have lasted. Tom and Ina have broken up before, but he always came back to Ina and she always took him back. This time she was going to put some serious distance between them so he couldn’t find her. She didn’t tell me where because she didn’t want Tom to try and squeeze it out of me.”

  “It was Paris,” I told her. “She had a plane ticket for Paris and a fake passport.”

  A sad smile crossed Tiffany’s lips. “She always said she wanted to see Paris.”

  “Linda just told us Tom was going to buy Ina out of their business,” Greg said.

  Tiffany scoffed. “With what? Tom was always broke. If not for Ina, h
e’d have spent every dime they made from the store.”

  “My cousin must have been a good little saver then,” commented Greg, “because the day she was supposed to fly to Paris, she withdrew three hundred grand from their bank accounts.”

  Tiffany’s mouth almost hit the pavement. “Wow! I didn’t realize their store was doing that well.”

  “Can a secondhand store generate that kind of money?” asked Greg. “Seems unlikely to me.”

  “Yeah, they can,” Tiffany answered, “depending on the type of merchandise and the turnaround time. The less time merchandise is in the shop, the sooner you can restock and make more money. Some of these guys have a good eye and stumble onto very valuable stuff from time to time. I’ve been around these resale shops most of my life. My dad has one.” She looked down at the ground. “Or did have.”

  “Is that how you hooked up with this job?” I asked.

  She nodded without looking up. “I used to come to the auctions once in a while with my father.” She glanced up at us. “That’s how I met Kim. Since I already knew the business, when she became an owner of Acme, she asked if I wanted to work for them.”

  “Did you also work with Red Stokes?”

  “Sometimes. And sometimes Kim still acted as his assistant.”

  Before we could say anything more, Tiffany started to edge away toward the bowels of the storage complex. “Look,” she said, “I have a job to do here. I want to help Ina, but all I know is that she was leaving right after the auction.”

  “But,” I persisted, “why would she bother coming here at all if she was leaving?”

  Tiffany stopped walking. “She came for a couple of reasons. She wanted to say goodbye to Tom and to tell him it was over for good, and she wanted to say goodbye to my dad. She was like a second daughter to him. The night before the auction, she dropped by my place and said there were things she wanted to tell Dad, but she couldn’t reach him.”

  “Do you know what those things were?”

  “I think it was about me. About him being more understanding and not pushing me away.”

  “About you being gay?” I ventured.

  She was surprised by my question, but only for a second. “Yeah. He didn’t take it well. He was really pissed off when I moved in with Kim.”

  She started walking away, and we followed. We could walk and talk with the best of them.

  Greg pulled alongside her and kept pace with her strides. “Tiffany, do you have any idea where your father is?”

  She’d stopped short in front of the locker where Tom’s body had been found just days before in a lounge chair. It was difficult to miss the unit since yellow police tape was still stretched across the front like tape at a finish line—Tom’s finish line.

  From the look on Tiffany’s face, Greg’s question had hit a nerve. “As I told that slimy cop, I don’t.”

  “You mean Detective Whitman?” I asked. I wasn’t a big fan of his either and was pleased to see someone else had my good taste.

  “Yeah,” Tiffany spat. “He couldn’t keep his hands off of me while he talked.” She shivered. “Kept calling me ‘sweetie’ and rubbing my arm. He said he could help my dad if I’d cooperate. I got the feeling he didn’t mean cooperate with the cops either.”

  “Are you sure?” Greg asked.

  “He even put his private cell number on the back of his card.” She shivered again. “Pissed at me or not, my dad would have knocked his block off if he’d been here. For all his faults, my father has a soft spot for women, especially women being mistreated or in bad situations.”

  “He likes to save women?” I asked, interested. “Like be their knight in shining armor?”

  “Yeah, kind of, but not like make them dependent on him—nothing like that. Dad likes to empower women, help them stand on their own two feet. I think it’s something he does because he was raised by a single mom. That, and he always felt it was his fault my mother never kicked her drug habit.”

  I thought of the big bruiser of a guy in the muscle shirt standing next to my mother and taking her crap without so much as a blink of an eye. He certainly didn’t look the part of a sensitive feminist-supporting guy, but, as most of us discover in life, looks were often deceiving.

  “You sound sad but very proud,” I told her.

  “I am proud of him, but it also surprised me how angry he got when I came out and moved in with Kim. He always told me I could do anything I want as long as it made me happy. Guess that didn’t include sexual orientation.”

  I shook my head at the mix-up caused by Bill. Guess he wasn’t as observant as he thought. “Bill Baxter told us that you and Buck had a falling out about a young man who worked at the store.”

  “About Paul?” Tiffany seemed very surprised. “Please—even if I was straight, he wouldn’t be my type. He’s one of those creepy goody two-shoes types, always kissing ass and sneaking around. Dad only gave him a job as a favor to his mother, and even Dad thought he was weird. Paul hated the resale business and sucked at it.”

  “So his mother was a friend of Buck’s?” Greg asked.

  “Dad helped her out several years back when she lost her husband. Last year she and Dad started dating.” Tiffany looked thoughtful. “I think Paul was one of the reasons they broke up. Too bad, too, because I really liked Heide.”

  Paul. Heide. Was Buck Goodwin the Good Samaritan who came to Heide van den Akker’s rescue after the accident that took her husband’s life? My brain itched with possibilities.

  “Maybe Heide had other children who objected to the relationship?” I was thinking of the surly Eric. He seemed more likely to cause a problem than the polite Paul.

  “She has another son named Eric. He wasn’t around much but seemed cool the few times I met him.”

  I was on a roll and didn’t want it to stop. “Does Heide have a third son, one named Bob or Robert maybe?”

  Tiffany shook her head. “No, just the two, but I think her late husband’s name was Bobby. Why?”

  “No reason,” I lied. “I thought maybe it was a Heide I met once. She also has a son named Paul and is a widow. Did you tell the police about Heide?”

  “No,” Tiffany said with defiant tilt of her chin. “They asked if Dad was seeing anyone, and I told them no. It’s the truth. They broke up a while back, and I couldn’t see dragging Heide into this mess if it wasn’t necessary.”

  Greg gave me a look that said he could tell I smelled a lead, even through an almost broken nose. He turned back to Tiffany. “We know you have to get back to work, but I want to ask you one more question. Do you think your father caused the blast that burned down his store?”

  “Absolutely not!” Tiffany fixed Greg with a tough look. “As I told the cops, my father loved that store. He built it from scratch and made a very good and respectable living from it. He’d sooner cut off his arm than destroy it. And he certainly wouldn’t do anything to hurt those other people at the mall or their businesses.”

  Greg gave her a reassuring smile. “That’s good enough for me.”

  From down the lane, Roberto Vasquez waved to Tiffany. “I gotta go,” she told us. “Mr. Vasquez bought the last unit at auction today, and I still need to collect his money so he can start cleaning it out.”

  After saying goodbye to Tiffany, I stood in front of the locker with the police tape and studied it, wishing it would talk to me. Give me a clue. Tell me what it saw that night like some oracle made of steel and concrete. “This is where Tom was murdered,” I told Greg. “I wonder what will happen to all the stuff in there?”

  “If they still auction it off, I’m betting someone will buy it just for the ghoul factor.”

  I turned to my husband and touched his hair, glad he was mine and fairly normal and with me for this journey. “I like it when we question people together. Makes me feel all Nick and Nora, but without the drinking.”<
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  Greg laughed and took my hand, kissing it before releasing it. “Where to next? Comfort Foodies?”

  “You read my mind. If Heide van den Akker is not the woman Buck was dating, I’m a twenty-year-old pole dancer. I’m also betting on one of her sons being Bob Y.”

  “My money’s on Paul,” said Greg. “He probably thought those reviews did his mother a service and harmed Buck at the same time.”

  “Hard to say. Eric is the one with the bad attitude, but Tiffany seems to think Paul is the one with problems.”

  As we moved back toward the front of Elite Storage, I pulled out my smartphone and started the search engine. By going to the Comfort Foodies website, I should be able to find out where the truck would be parked today.

  I was looking down at my phone when my eye caught something on the ground. It was Leon Whitman’s crumpled business card. I stooped to pick it up. Sure enough, on the backside he’d written a phone number. Then I noticed something else. I stuck Whitman’s card into my pocket and squatted down again. We were in front of the unit purchased by Linda McIntyre. When Tiffany tossed the business card, it had landed directly in front of the left bottom corner of the door. On the corner, just above the pavement, a black X had been crudely marked on the metal door.

  I stood up and looked at the doors of the units to the right and left. Neither had an X.

  “What are you doing, sweetheart?”

  “Checking something out.” I checked a few more. Still no X. I waved to Greg. “I want to go back to the other unit—the one with the police tape.”

  Together, we traveled down the short road, turned left, and found the unit with the tape. I checked the lower left corner of the roll-up door: a black X.

  “What do you think those mean, Greg?”