Secondhand Stiff

by Sue Ann Jaffarian

  “Could be.”

  “Does Tiffany know about this?” I asked.

  Buck’s shoulders sagged. “No. At least I don’t think so. I tried to tell her, but she wouldn’t listen. She got the wrong idea.”

  The wrong idea. More puzzle pieces were coming together, or else I was trying to force them to fit. “Tiffany said you two had a falling out because she’s a lesbian. Is that true?”

  “No,” Buck insisted. “Like most fathers, I just want my daughter to be happy. I don’t care if she’s gay or not as long as she’s happy and safe.”

  “But,” I continued, “she thinks you objected to it, especially when she moved in with Kim Pawlak.”

  At the mention of Kim’s name, Buck visibly stiffened. Greg and I both caught the change and exchanged glances.

  “It wasn’t Tiffany’s sexual orientation you objected to,” Greg suggested, “it was her choice of partner, wasn’t it?”

  Buck remained silent for a minute, then said, “Red might not have been involved, but I believe Kim is, deeply. I need to get my daughter away from her. I couldn’t do that if I’m stuck talking to the police about the bombing. I’ll talk to them when she’s safe.”

  Greg didn’t seem satisfied. “How did you find out Kim Pawlak was involved? Was it from Ina?”

  “Tiffany told us,” I added, “that one of the reasons Ina went to the auction that morning was to tell you something. In all the chaos of that day, did she manage to tell you something important, like maybe how Kim was involved?”

  He looked surprised. “No, Ina didn’t say anything to me about the drug business. I didn’t see her before the auction, and after Tom was found, that’s all the focus was on. But I don’t think she knew about Kim.”

  “So who told you?” Greg pressed, unable to give up on that line of questioning. “Frankly, I think it was Red Stokes.”

  Buck looked up at the sky, then over toward the tables where students were enjoying their lunch. “Yes,” he said, not looking at us. “It was Red. He came to me after Tiff got involved with Kim and said he was pretty sure Kim was involved in something illegal. He wasn’t sure exactly what it was, just that he felt she was using Acme to cover her activities, and he was investigating it. He was warning me to get my daughter away from her so she wouldn’t go down when Kim went down.”

  It was all starting to fall in place in my crammed head. “So Red was investigating Kim and told you, and on the same day he was killed, an attempt was also made on your life.”

  Buck nodded. “Kim must have found out he was watching her and had talked to me.”

  “Buck,” someone called. We looked over at the truck to see Eric van den Akker sticking his head out the back door. “Come on, man. It’s getting busy.”

  “I gotta get back. These college events mean big money for Heide, and she needs the extra hands.”

  “Where’s Paul today?” I asked. “Is he off writing hateful reviews about resale shops or is he backing off now that yours burned to the ground?”

  Buck looked surprised at the question, then wary, answering my question with some of his own. “How do you know so much, and how did you find me?”

  “The important thing is,” I pointed out, “if we could find you, so can the police.”

  “We think we saw Eric at Busy Boxes early this morning,” Greg told him, finally throwing that information onto the fire.

  Instead of speaking, Buck spread his thick legs and planted himself like a tree, crossing his arms in front of his beefy chest. A snake tattoo on his right arm nearly came alive with the itch to strike.

  Greg didn’t back down. “He’s mixed up in this mess too, isn’t he?”

  Buck stuck a meaty index finger in Greg’s face. “Eric has nothing to do with this. Nothing! Is that clear?”

  Buck’s earlier passion was straying into anger, but I moved closer. “We think Eric was scraping a mark off a unit today. We think he was sending a warning to whoever was going to buy it not to do it. That means he’s working with them.”

  “I’m telling you, Eric has nothing to do with this. He’s a good kid—moody, but solid and dependable. Hell, he supported his mother and brother after his father was killed.”

  Greg pulled out his cell phone and showed Buck a photo taken in front of Busy Boxes.

  Buck started to comment but instead took off for the truck. He climbed into it and closed the door behind him.

  “Do you think he’s going to make a run for it?” Greg asked.

  “Maybe, but it will take a few minutes before they can close up and maneuver the truck out of that spot without running people over. Hopefully Fehring will get here by then.”

  A minute later, loud male voices boomed from the Comfort Foodies truck. Around us, people stopped eating and stared at the restaurant on wheels. Customers at the window backed up. Next, a female voice joined the argument. I scooted over near the back door, hoping to catch what the fight was about, but before I could hear anything of value, the back door flung open, nearly smacking me in the face. Out jumped Eric van den Akker. As soon as his feet hit the ground, he took off running toward the parking lot.

  Greg motioned for me to get out of the way, which I did, joining him by the table again.

  “I couldn’t hear much except swearing,” I reported.

  Greg took me by the elbow. “Let’s get out of here too, sweetheart.”

  “You don’t want to wait for Detective Fehring and tell her what we found out?”

  “We can tell her by phone. Right now I’d feel better if we helped Buck out by finding his daughter and getting her away from Kim. If Kim is mixed up in this, she may use Tiffany as leverage.”

  A shiver went down my spine. “Meaning she could be the third victim?”

  “Exactly. The police can handle this and find Eric.”

  It was then we noticed campus security had moved in and posted themselves near the truck. In their hands were radios, which they were actively using. As Greg and I started toward the parking lot, taking the same path as Eric, we saw police cars edging their way down the paved walkways, being careful of the people milling about. They made their way toward the food truck—a pack of wolves moving in for the kill. No doubt Fehring was in one of the lead cars, and she’d brought reinforcements from the local cops. I started moving faster, with Greg keeping pace alongside me. We had to get out of there or we’d be caught up in questioning hell for hours.

  twenty-three

  With the police shutting down the Santa Ana auction, I wasn’t quite sure where we might find Kim and Tiffany—or, more importantly, just Tiffany. I wanted to find out if she was involved in this or how much she knew. Was she blinded by love for Kim Pawlak or was paternal love blinding Buck Goodwin? It was difficult to say, but I felt confident that Buck believed with all his heart that Tiffany was not in the loop about the drug trafficking at the auctions. And who knew how much Kim Pawlak was involved. Was she a soldier or a general in the setup? Did she have Red killed and try to kill Buck or was someone else calling the shots?

  Greg and I got our van out of the college parking garage as fast as possible just in case Fehring shut the place down in her hunt for Eric van den Akker. She would expect us near the Comfort Foodies truck and might be relieved to not find us, or she could worry that we were off pursuing another lead on our own. We drove several miles away from the campus before Greg pulled into a busy mall parking lot. Along the way, we’d discussed my thoughts and questions about Kim.

  “I’m wondering,” Greg said after pulling the van into a spot between two high-profile SUVs, using them for cover just in case Fehring had patrol cars on the lookout for us, “about the timing of Kim becoming a half owner in Acme Auctions.”

  “The woman who told me that said it was recent. Do you think Red would have sold it to her if she was mixed up in a drug trafficking business?”

  �
�No, I don’t. I’ll bet he found out about the illegal stuff just after she became his partner.”

  Greg shifted in his seat. “Makes you wonder how many other auction houses might be involved or if it’s just this one.”

  I nodded. Greg was right. It could be the drug traffickers had their fingers in several auction services, not just Acme. “Here’s a thought. What if Red and Tom weren’t murdered by the drug guys but by another auction house wanting in on the action?”

  Greg blew out a gust of frustrated air at the thought. “For now, let’s just focus on who and what we know.”

  I nodded in agreement and kept the hamster wheel inside my head moving on our track.

  Greg looked out the window, watching a young woman pushing a stroller from her car toward the mall entrance. “But if Kim is deeply involved in this mess, do you really think Tiffany would miss that?”

  I shrugged. “In spite of her tough-girl appearance, Tiffany’s pretty young and she’s in love. Haven’t you had relationships where you knew something was wrong but chose to ignore it?” I myself was remembering a man named Franklin Powers whom I almost married years before I met Greg. Franklin was a manic depressive given to bursts of violence. I ignored it in the name of love until I simply couldn’t any longer and broke off the engagement two months before the wedding. “I know I have.”

  “Yes,” Greg agreed, rubbing my arm with affection. I’d told him about Franklin when we started getting serious. “We all have.”

  “I think the question is how much does Tiffany know or suspect, and if she’s involved herself.”

  “I hope for Buck’s sake she’s not involved at all.” Greg started up the van. “So what’s the plan?”

  “Give me your phone.” I held my hand out. “If I call and get the same woman, she might recognize the number and my voice.”

  Greg handed me his cell phone, and I placed a call to Acme Auctions. The same woman answered, and I tried to change my voice up a bit, which is another skill I lack.

  “Hi,” I said as soon as she answered. “Is Kim Pawlak in?”

  “Why are you asking?” the grouchy woman asked.

  Ah, geez, I really should have had a story ready. The Acme receptionist may not be Miss Congeniality, but she didn’t strike me as stupid either. I decided to get snotty back and see if she’d back down. “I don’t think that’s any of your business.” I paused and gave off a very audible and inpatient sigh. “Look,” I said to the woman, “I’m a friend of Kim’s and she told me to call her. Said it was very important. End of story. So is she there or not?” I held my breath, waiting to see if my plan worked.

  “No, Ms. Pawlak is not in at the moment.”

  “How about her assistant? She said if she wasn’t there, I should talk to her assistant. Oh gawd, what’s her name? Tanya? Terri?”

  “Tiffany.”

  “Yes. Tiffany. Sounds like some blond bimbo from Beverly Hills. Kim always did have a secret fancy for girls like that.”

  “Ms. Goodwin is here,” the woman said with a voice so sharp I got a paper cut in my ear, “but she’s on the phone right now. May I take a message?”

  “How about voice mail?”

  Without another word, the woman slapped my call into voice mail. I heard Tiffany’s recorded voice telling me to leave a message and phone number and she would return the call as soon as possible. I didn’t leave a message.

  “Tiffany is there,” I said to Greg after I ended the call and handed him back his phone. “And Kim is not.”

  “Nice job, sweetheart,” he said with a grin. “Now where to?”

  I smiled at my husband and looked up Acme Auctions on my own phone. Even before I gave him the address, he was pulling out of the parking space.

  Acme Auctions was located in Norwalk, back in the direction of Bellflower. We were certainly getting around today, but at least everything was fairly local and nothing was sending us off into Los Angeles proper, where the traffic would be worse.

  The address brought us to a very small strip mall on the corner of Pioneer Boulevard and Lindale Street. There were only four businesses on the premises—Acme Auctions, a tax service, a liquor store, and a dry cleaners. Acme was sandwiched between the tax service and the dry cleaners. The parking lot for the businesses was tiny.

  “Look for a back alley when I go around the corner,” Greg told me.

  “I don’t see one.”

  “Good. That means she’ll have to go in and out through the front. Too bad we don’t know what Tiffany drives.”

  Greg went around the block. Once we were back at the small shopping plaza, he pulled into the lot by the dry cleaners and parked in a space on the end that gave us a good view of the front of Acme and an easy exit if we needed to pull out quickly.

  I glanced at the clock on the van’s dash. “It’s only twelve thirty,” I noted. “Feels like it should be two or later.”

  “That’s because we ate lunch at eleven,” Greg chuckled. “We’re going to want dinner by four.”

  “Let’s just hope she didn’t leave for lunch while we were driving here. If she hasn’t, we might be able to snag her on her way out.”

  “My guess,” said Greg, “is that Acme doesn’t get a lot of walk-in traffic or have a lot of employees. Might just be Tiffany and the receptionist in there. If no one comes or goes soon, we might want to go in.”

  A few minutes later, we saw the door to Acme open, and a woman with gray hair pulled back into a ponytail walked out. She had her purse hooked over one arm and was holding a small box. She headed straight for a dull brown sedan parked in front. A second later she was pulling out into traffic.

  “I’ll bet,” Greg said, leaning toward me, “that’s the receptionist, and she’s heading somewhere for lunch.”

  I agreed.

  “If we can’t get anything out of Tiffany, we should try to crack that nut. Didn’t you say she sounded very unhappy the first time you called?”

  “More like she was disapproving of the new situation.” I really didn’t want to face the receptionist, especially now that I’d gotten a glimpse of her stony face. A bluff on the phone is one thing; in person, I doubted I could keep it up.

  “Did you notice,” I said, “that she didn’t lock the door when she left? That means someone is still inside. Hopefully it’s Tiffany and she’s still alone.”

  As soon as the woman was gone, Greg and I left the van and made our way to Acme. The décor inside was clean but sparse. The reception area also served as the main office area. A bank of old-fashioned, mismatched filing cabinets lined one wall. A big year-at-a-glance calendar was posted on another. Many of the date blocks were filled in with places and times. The front desk looked to be command central. I quietly moved around the desk to take a look. The bulletin board posted on the wall to the right of the desk was blank except for a few memos, but from the fading on the cork, it looked like until recently it had been covered with photos. There was a desktop computer, but it was old.

  I heard someone talking. It was muffled but clearly a single voice. I looked to Greg, who pointed behind me. In the back were two closed doors leading to offices. The doors were wood inset with frosted glass. To the side was a solid door with a sign on it designating it as a unisex restroom. Next to the bathroom door was a counter with a copy machine and a coffeemaker. Under the counter was a small fridge.

  I checked the phone on the front desk. There were several buttons evidencing several phone lines or extensions, but only one was lit. I looked from the phone back to the closed glass doors. The office on the left was dark, but lights were on in the one on the right. I started moving for it. Greg caught up to me. Since we didn’t know for sure that Tiffany was behind the closed door or what her involvement was with the drug scheme, we approached carefully, standing to the side and not directly in front of the glass. The voice sounded normal and businesslike, and
it was Tiffany. A second later, the call ended.

  Greg and I looked at each other a moment, unsure of whether to knock or barge in. What we did know for sure was that the clock was ticking. The receptionist might be back soon and the police might show up anytime, especially since drugs were found in the Santa Ana facility this morning. No doubt they would be questioning everyone at Acme about it.

  Our decision-making process came to an end when the door opened and Tiffany Goodwin popped out. We both let out a little yelp of fright at the unexpected surprise. Greg was the only one not shaken.

  “What are you two doing here?” Tiffany asked, recovering first.

  “We need to ask you some more questions,” Greg told her. “It’s important.”

  “To who?”

  “To you,” I answered. “And to Buck.”

  Tiffany’s face melted from stern into worry. “Do you know where my dad is? Is he okay?”

  “He was fine when we saw him about an hour ago,” Greg told her. “But he’s worried about you.” I was relieved that Greg left out the part about Buck being surrounded by police last we saw him.

  Hearing Buck was okay, Tiffany’s face morphed back into defiance and her eyes rolled. “Did he send you here to make peace? If so, you can just leave.”

  “No,” I told her. “He didn’t, but he has good reason to be concerned about you.” Before she could speak again, I quickly added, “He’s not mad because you’re gay. Really, he’s not.”

  “Yeah, right.” She put a hand on a slim hip. She was dressed all in black today—black jeans, black shirt, and black work boots, even thick black eye makeup. Only her spiky hair was light.

  “It’s true,” Greg added, “he’s concerned about Kim, about your relationship with her. He’s afraid she’s mixed up in something illegal and you’ll get dragged into it.”

  “You mean the drug thing?” She voiced the question with casual indifference. “Go back and tell Dad to mind his own business. Kim is not involved in that. That was all Red’s doing. That’s why he was murdered.”

  I felt my face scrunch into curiosity. “Who told you that?”