Sticky Fingers

by Nancy Martin

  No surprise, she didn’t answer.

  At the traffic light, I saw a flash of chrome as the Escalade turned left. Away from the direction of Sage’s school. When I reached the light, I got caught behind a bus and missed which way they went after that. Cursing, I trolled a couple of side streets, hoping to catch sight of them, but no luck. Sage had disappeared, and I knew she wasn’t going to study for a chemistry test.

  I tried her cell phone a couple more times. She didn’t answer.

  Fuming, I picked up Nooch. He got into the truck and sniffed. “You smell good. Like bacon.”

  “We should invent a perfume that smells like bacon. Men would love it. Of course, men love everything as long as there’s food or sex involved, preferably both.”

  Nooch blinked fearfully at me. “What are you so mad about this morning?”

  “Sage has a new boyfriend, and I think they’re skipping school together.”

  Nooch looked grave. “That’s not positive.”

  “It’s about as negative as it gets.”

  “But Sage is a nice girl. She wouldn’t get into any trouble.”

  “Don’t bet the farm on that.”

  But Nooch was right. Sage was a good kid, and I had to trust that—especially on a day when I had other stuff to worry about.

  I tried to think through what I could accomplish in the hours before I had to meet Bug for lunch. First, I drove down to the salvage yard. Rooney was waiting for us at the gate, holding his bone in his teeth.

  Nooch yelped. “Oh, no. Look!”

  We jumped out of the truck. Rooney bounded over and shoved his face into mine, and I realized somebody had spray-painted him, too. His face was splotched with green paint, and his body had a fine green tint all over.

  “What happened to you?” I asked the dog.

  “Somebody painted him!” Nooch cried.

  “Probably through the fence.” I examined Rooney more carefully. He was green, all right, but it didn’t look as if it hurt him any. He waggled his whole body—happy to see us. I pried open his mouth to check if maybe he’d inhaled anything poisonous, but his teeth and tongue were clean.

  “It was that idiot Gino.” I hugged Rooney. “Damn it, it’s time to saddle up and go after him.”

  “Oh, jeez,” Nooch groaned. “It makes me nervous when you go all cowboy.”

  I gave Rooney more pats and pulled out my keys again. “Nooch, I need you to pull out all the pocket doors in the inventory. The beveled glass ones. Tomorrow there’s a guy coming from Fox Chapel who’s interested. You do that. I’ll go after Gino.”

  “What about lunch? Will you be back for lunch?”

  “If I’m not, you can order a pizza. There’s money in the petty-cash box.”

  I went into the office and looked up some addresses in the phone book. Then I loaded Rooney and his bone into the truck. I phoned Flynn from behind the steering wheel.

  “What?” he said, sounding hostile.

  Better to skip any pleasantries. “Do you still play hockey at night with your friends?”

  If the topic of conversation surprised him, he didn’t sound that way. He said, “Yeah, couple nights a week when I can. Why?”

  “Do you know any ice-skaters?”

  He paused. “You’re going to have to be more specific.”

  “Not hockey skaters, but the girls in the sparkly outfits.”

  “You mean figure skaters?”

  “Yeah, any of those?”

  “A couple. What’s this all about?”

  “Do any of them teach little kids?”

  “Yes. Rox, I’m busy here—”

  “How about a name? Somebody I can talk to?”

  “Is this about Sage? She wants to learn to skate?”

  “No, I just need to learn in general about skating.”

  “Sometimes you’re more nuts than others,” he said. “Try Jenny Osterman. She works at the Harmar Rink, teaches lessons after school. She’s a nice girl, Rox. Don’t go trying to intimidate her, okay?”

  “What kind of jerk do you think I am? Wait—don’t answer that. How was dinner last night?”

  “Crazy,” he said. “I’ll talk to you later.”

  He hung up.

  I had other things to do before I could intimidate the skating teacher after school, but first I headed over to Petrone’s gas station to wash the truck. On the way, I tried to think up an appropriate punishment for Gino. I envisioned everything from pelting him with water balloons to eviscerating him with a sharpened pencil.

  Outside the car wash, I did a double take.

  “Holy shit,” I said. “Maybe this envisioning thing works!”

  Pulling through the big-rig bay was one of Gino Martinelli’s tow trucks. I pulled in front and blocked it.

  Gino himself leaned out of the cab. “Bitch!”

  It was all I needed. I was out from behind the steering wheel in a heartbeat, and I yanked open Gino’s door. He gave a squeak as I grabbed a handful of his jacket and dragged him out of the truck.

  He fought me, kicking and scratching. I kneed him once and he went limp, but only for a second. In another instant, he reared up and tried to bite me on the neck. He got a mouthful of hair instead.

  I snapped. Okay, I’d had a bad couple of days. On the front seat of his tow truck I saw a clipboard, some jumper cables, and a bunch of other stuff. I leaned in and seized the jumper cables. In another second, I wrapped them around Gino’s scrawny neck.

  He wound his fingers through the cables and turned purple, chanting, “Bitch, slut, dirty whore—”

  “Call me all the names you like, hamster man. I saw you without your pants, remember? You go after little girls ’cause you can’t make a real woman happy?”

  He choked and gagged and struggled.

  I hauled him up by the neck. “Listen up, Gino, you miserable shit. You painted my gate. You messed up my truck. But when you try to hurt my dog, you son of a bitch, you get what’s coming to you.”

  He made gargling noises and started to slide to the ground. Panting and cursing, I tightened the cables until the muscles in my forearms screamed. I heard Rooney barking like crazy, but he sounded very far away. If Nooch had been there to pull me off Gino, it might have turned out okay. But I could feel the wildfire in my veins. My brain stopped functioning on anything but the most primitive level.

  Then suddenly a police cruiser passed the entrance to the car wash.

  The cop stopped the car. As he backed up to get a better look at what was happening, Gino and I both caught sight of him.

  I dropped the jumper cables and put my arm around Gino’s shoulders, hoping it looked convincing.

  Likewise, Gino straightened up and smiled at the cop. He even waved.

  The cop rolled down the window of his cruiser to take a longer look at the two of us. He stared hard.

  We smiled back.

  After an eternity, the cop put up his window and drove away.

  The interlude gave me enough time to regain my wits. With a little less fury than before, I slammed Gino into the side of his truck and pinned him there with one hand against his throat. “Listen to me, you baby-screwing asshole. You come near one of my daughter’s friends again, I’ll get out my hedge clippers and do some serious damage, you know what I mean? And picking on Nooch? That’ll get you something just as bad. But if you touch my dog, I’ll core you like an apple.”

  “Whore,” he snarled.

  I reached inside the cab of his truck and came out with a stapler—the one he used to attach his overpriced receipts to the credit card slips of the car owners he cheated. Then I pulled a five-dollar bill out of my hip pocket and slapped it into the palm of his hand.

  “Here,” I said. “This should cover the damages.”

  I stapled the five into his hand.

  Gino howled, but I threw the staple gun and walked way. I got into the Monster Truck and drove out of the car wash.

  A little while later I drove into a pretty residential neighb
orhood. By then, I was no longer blind with rage. I could almost think again. I was wishing I could summon a little of Nooch’s positive energy, because I was still shaking with diffused anger.

  But I’d managed to find myself in the Eckelstine neighborhood.

  The Eckelstine house was a century-old brick two-story with Tudor beams on the front, like Henry the Eighth might drop by to behead somebody. Similar homes lined the street—mansions built back during the first steel boom and still well maintained. They had rolling front lawns and sculpted flower beds, and brick driveways led to garages out back—garages once big enough to hold carriages and a couple of horses, too.

  Today, a bunch of satellite trucks were parked in the street in front of the house. Now that the story of the bigamist lady was out, news reporters milled around on the sidewalk, drinking coffee out of Starbucks cups and waiting for the next update. As I cruised past, I recognized a guy who wrote up crime stories for the newspaper. I’d slept with him last summer, except we hadn’t exactly slept.

  He caught sight of me going by, and his head nearly swiveled off his neck as he tried to make sure it was really me.

  To avoid talking to the reporter, I decided not to park and stroll through the crowd to Eckelstine’s front door.

  Instead, I drove around the block, past a bus stop and a lady walking a sheepdog.

  The next block over was another row of nice old houses that shared backyards with the houses on Eckelstine’s. I parked the truck and looked through somebody’s driveway at the back of the Eckelstine house. What I hadn’t seen from the front was a plumber’s truck parked beside the Eckelstine garage.

  The side of the truck said, Busted Flush Plumbing.

  “Aha,” I said.

  Before I formed a complete plan, who should come popping out from behind a hedge but Richard Eckelstine himself. He must have gone out his back door and crossed the neighbor’s yard and come out on this side.

  It was him, all right. There was no mistaking his gray corona of hair. But instead of his bow tie and khaki pants, today he was dressed in a shapeless army surplus jacket and jeans. A throwback to grad students back in the hippie days. He hit the sidewalk, walking fast and adjusting his backpack straps on his shoulders.

  To me, he didn’t look like a grieving husband. He looked a lot like my daughter when she was happily bebopping down the porch steps to skip school with her new boyfriend.

  Which raised my blood pressure all over again.

  What the hell did I have to lose? I drove up beside Eckelstine and pushed the button to roll down the passenger window. “Hey,” I said. “Can I give you a lift somewhere?”

  Next thing that happened didn’t seem like the act of a grieving husband either. Eckelstine’s face got all surprised, and he bolted. He ran pell-mell down the sidewalk, holding on to his backpack straps for dear life.

  “Something I said?” I asked Rooney.

  I pulled to the curb, shut off the truck, and told Rooney to stay. Then I bailed out and started chasing Eckelstine. It was purely instinct—like when a lion sees a juicy gazelle come running out of the tall grass. Hard to suppress the urge to run it down and kill it.

  I was lighter and faster than Eckelstine, but I held back, letting the pace tire him out. When he turned the corner and began to run for his life, I ducked into somebody’s driveway. It was another big house—this one with lace curtains in all the windows and a decorative wreath on the double doors. I headed for the backyard, dodging trash cans, skirting a vegetable garden covered in straw, and jumping a koi pond with a little bridge over it. I hurdled a picket fence into the next yard and nearly landed on a dachshund taking a crap on the lawn. Two more dachshunds jumped out from under a deck and streaked in my direction, yapping murderously. I guess they didn’t notice I could have crushed them with my boots. But I like dogs, so I jumped another fence and ran across several more backyards. The lawns were soft underfoot, and I ran until I reached the corner. Then I popped out and there was Eckelstine, running toward me and glancing over his shoulder.

  When he turned back and saw me in front instead of behind, he missed a step, tripped over a hump in the sidewalk, and fell, splat, on his face. His backpack went flying.

  I went over to the grass and picked up the backpack. Surprisingly heavy, like maybe he had a bowling ball inside.

  “Jeez.” I stood over him, listening to his labored breathing. “You okay?”

  He panted and groaned at the same time. “No, I’m not okay!”

  “Want some help up?”

  He rolled over, clutching his nose. “No!”

  I crouched down on one knee. “Wow, you sure took a header.”

  “You were chasing me!”

  “Following,” I corrected. “I was following, not chasing. Why did you run, anyway? Got something to hide in here?”

  I dangled the backpack over him, and he forgot about his nose and made a grab for it. I pulled the backpack up again, playing keepaway.

  He summoned some anger, which was quite a trick being that he was still on his back on the sidewalk. “Give me that. It’s private property.”

  “This? Whatcha got in it, Mr. Eckelstine?”

  “Doctor. I’m Dr. Eckelstine.”

  “Oh, yeah? Got a minute to look at the rash on my ass?”

  “Not that kind of doctor.”

  “Then how about you give up trying to impress me? What’s in the bag? Should I take a peek?” I tugged at the zipper.

  “You open it, I’ll have you arrested.” He sat up stiffly and touched his nose with tentative fingers. “It’s just some of my wife’s papers. Confidential papers. And a key to her safety-deposit box. She’s dead, you know. There are matters to take care of.”

  “My condolences. That still doesn’t explain how come you took one look at me and ran like a rabbit. Or why this bag weighs a hell of a lot more than papers.”

  “I ran because I—I thought you were the press. From a newspaper or something.” He gave me a disgruntled glare. “They’re all knocking on my door, trying to get a statement. Trying to get me to say something incriminating.”

  “Incriminating?”

  “They think I killed my wife.” Eckelstine looked insulted.

  “Did you?”

  “Of course not! I loved Clarice! We made a good team.”

  “That’s what keeps a marriage fresh, I hear. Teamwork.” I was starting to think Clarice married the other guy because Eckelstine’s view of married life was Dullsville.

  His glare turned suspicious. “What do you want?”

  “How about a little information?”

  “Will you give my bag back?”

  “Sure, why not? Just tell me this. Did you know your wife was married to somebody else?”

  Eckelstine opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

  I said, “I had a feeling you weren’t totally blown away by Mitchell when he showed up. Did you know Clarice had married him?”

  “No.” Carefully, Eckelstine said, “I knew a little about him, but not that they had married.”

  “You knew they worked together? In Siberia?”

  “Yes.” Eckelstine gingerly felt his left arm, maybe searching for broken bones. “Years ago, Clarice called me from a dig in Siberia, wanting to adopt an orphaned child. I refused, of course, and—”

  “You refused to adopt an orphan? Why?”

  “Because Clarice wasn’t fit to be a mother.”

  I had expected him to say he didn’t want a kid who might have fetal alcohol syndrome or whatever problems he imagined came with foreign adoptions, but he surprised me. “She wasn’t fit? Why not?”

  Coldly, Eckelstine said, “May I stand up now?”

  I put my hand down and pulled him to his feet.

  He dusted himself off. “If you must know, Richie isn’t Clarice’s child. He is my son with my first wife, who died. Clarice became his stepmother when we married. Richie was seven. She—well, she never really took to motherhood where Richie was concerned, an
d I didn’t want her trying a second time with another child—let alone a girl.”

  “What’s wrong with a girl?”

  Eckelstine didn’t want to answer, but I began to swing the backpack, so he said reluctantly, “Clarice had too many unresolved issues concerning her own mother. I knew she’d make a terrible mess of a daughter, so I refused. But she was very stubborn, and I should have guessed she’d find a way around me.”

  “So she married Mitchell in Siberia to get custody of Sugar?”

  Eckelstine rolled his eyes. “That’s her name? Sugar? See what I mean? Clarice had no common sense where children are concerned. I knew it would turn out badly, and I was right, wasn’t I?”

  “Sugar seems okay to me.”

  “But isn’t it obvious? Mitchell must have killed Clarice. Probably over some issue with the girl.”

  “What issue?”

  “Who knows? Clarice ran hot and cold with Richie, either ignored him or went overboard with discipline. It all stems from her own childhood and abandonment issues, I’m sure. Somehow, Clarice blamed her mother for dying, and her displaced resentment boiled over.”

  I was trying to process all the psychobabble and didn’t say anything.

  As if I were a dense student, Eckelstine sighed and said, “Don’t you get it? Clarice and Mitchell must have clashed over their adopted daughter. And Mitchell killed her.”

  “Or maybe you found out about Mitchell,” I said. “And you got mad at Clarice and killed her for stepping out on you.”

  “That’s ridiculous. I’d never let my emotions run away with me like that.”

  I could see Eckelstine was more annoyed with Clarice for getting herself killed than grieving for his loss. I said, “You wouldn’t lose control? Not even if you learned Clarice was having great sex with another man?”

  “Don’t be insulting,” Eckelstine said with disdain.

  “What about Clarice’s father?”

  “What about him?”

  “Could he have killed Clarice?”

  “Why would he do that? He was a giant in his field, and Clarice followed in his footsteps. He should have been proud of her.”

  “Should have been?”

  “I’m sure he was,” Eckelstine amended. “What parent wouldn’t be proud of a woman like her? Besides, he’s hospitalized now. For his own safety.”