The Booster Club

by Angela M. Sanders

  * * *

  For a moment, Claudine stalled, letting the implications of the text message sink in. Gone. He’d left for the jewel heist without her. With a few adjustments, he was perfectly capable of carrying it out. And of cutting her out of the proceeds completely, which he would. Of course. And it was only right. Maybe he’d known her better than she’d known herself and planned a back-up. That wouldn’t surprise her, either.

  She waited for the pang of regret, but it didn’t come. She was where she needed to be.

  Which was standing in the middle of Eleanor Whiteby Millhouse’s office in the dark. Imagine that.

  Ellie’s desk was the size of a billiards table with a polished mahogany surface, washed over by the sparse light of a new moon. A Chinese porcelain cachepot with a white moth orchid sat in one corner, and a tidy in-box in the other. Tasteful prints framed in chrome lined the wall behind her desk, including an award for Carsonville Businesswoman of the Year. Most of all she noticed the cold. She was warmer hiding in the cubicle down the hall. The air here sliced to the bone.

  It took only a few seconds to pick the filing cabinet’s lock and get the papers she needed. She slipped them into her shoulder bag. Now that she wasn’t leaving for San Francisco, she’d take them to the Villa in person. She also had the time to do a bit more looking around. Ellie would be too smart to keep evidence of collusion, but it wouldn’t hurt to look. Ten minutes later, she scanned the room to make sure she hadn’t left signs of her presence. The office was still and icy. She turned to leave.

  Through the glass door appeared a face. Ellie’s. Adrenaline streaked through Claudine’s muscles, then as fast as it had soared, it cut. Ellie’s face broke into a grin, the same grin Claudine had seen at the county commissioners’ hearing—and a long time ago in the vice principal’s office. But it wasn’t the grin that captured Claudine’s attention. It was the snub-nosed handgun Ellie held waist high.

  Ellie pushed open the door. “I could shoot you right now, you know.”

  “But you won’t,” Claudine replied. Her voice was perfectly calm, her pulse remained even. All those years of training paid off.

  Ellie seemed surprised at her response, and her smile faltered. “Why not?”

  “Because it might stain the carpet.”

  In two steps Eleanor reached the phone. “I’m calling security.” With the gun trained on Claudine, she picked up the receiver. Then put it down without dialing. She clicked on her desk lamp. “You look familiar.”

  Claudine remained expressionless.

  “Where do I know you?”

  She didn’t reply.

  Ellie stared at her, and the satisfied smile appeared once again. “You’re Deanie Dupin. I remember you.” She laughed, a shrill, uncomfortable sound that belied her expensive trench coat and Hermès bag. “Oh, my God. This is too much. Deanie Dupin the thief. I’m not calling security at all.” She looked at Claudine to see how she took that statement, but Claudine knew she appeared perfectly indifferent. “I’m calling the police.”

  Her fingers punched 911 on the phone. “I have an intruder and need the police immediately. Yes.” She gave the dispatcher the address, all the while keeping her gaze trained on Claudine’s. Claudine did not look away.

  “You always were trash,” Ellie said. “Thought you were too good for everyone else, but you were just a little thief. And you still are. Amazing.” She shook her head.

  “You’ve spent a lot of time thinking about me, haven’t you?”

  She choked off a bitter laugh. “You’re not worth a second of my time. Just because you always had someone dropping you off at school, telling you to have a good day, handing you some disgusting bagged lunch….” Her smile only faltered a second.

  Now Claudine understood. Ellie was jealous. It hardly seemed possible.

  “And you had that hood of a boyfriend, Oswald,” Ellie continued. “Just because all the girls liked him, it didn’t mean he was anything special. Where’d he end up, anyway? Sing Sing?”

  Claudine leaned against the window frame and crossed her arms. “I’m impressed you remember so many details after all these years.”

  “Shut up. What did you break in for today? Maybe you thought you’d steal the engravings. Or maybe you’re working for a competitor and you want my business plans. Good thing I stopped by to pick up some work.” She smirked. “What’s wrong? You’ve got nothing to say? You can’t contradict me, can you?”

  “I’ve got something to say, all right.” Claudine’s temper simmered. Only sheer discipline kept it out of sight.

  “Go ahead. I’m listening.” Ellie’s grip tightened on the handgun. The other hand rose to her pearl necklace.

  “Your Kelly bag is a fake. I don’t know where you got it, but the Hermès stamp should match the hardware.”

  Ellie’s breath came in angry puffs. “I paid three thousand dollars for this bag.” The gun, her finger on the trigger, waved erratically.

  “I have a question for you. You were homecoming queen. You even dated the quarterback.”

  Ellie’s breathing calmed. “Yeah. Chad. I think he’s selling refrigerators now.”

  “You were in the honors society. You won heaps of scholarships.” She didn’t have long. Soon the police would arrive. “Why did you ruin my chances at college? Why couldn’t you let it go?”

  “What you did was wrong. I had to tell.”

  “And it wasn’t wrong to shoot down my future?” Claudine stepped forward. “Or ruin the lives of the people whose homes you worked with the county to have condemned?”

  Ellie’s nostrils flared. “That’s the way the world works, Deanie. There’s not room for everyone at the top. It’s a meritocracy. It’s pretty clear who the deserving are.” She raised the gun. “You know, I could shoot you for breaking in, and I’d be within the law.” She cocked the hammer. “No one would miss a piece of garbage like you.”

  At movement in the hall, Claudine let out her breath. Blood hummed in her ears.

  “Police.” Two uniformed men, guns drawn, stood in the hall, with one of the building’s security guards behind them. “Drop the gun.” Ellie swung her arms toward them. “Drop it!” She lowered her arm and let the handgun slide to the desk. One of the officers edged to the desk and grabbed the gun, handing it to the other officer.

  “I’m not the intruder,” Ellie barked. “She is.” She pointed at Claudine.

  Claudine could have been a burglar. She was dressed all in black—black pants, black jacket, black turtleneck—although they were street clothes. Her hair was pulled into a neat ponytail.

  “I’m building security,” Claudine said. “I saw a light on and stopped in to investigate.”

  Ellie rolled her eyes. “Please. I came in my office, and she was here getting ready to steal something.”

  “I’m on the building security staff,” Claudine repeated. She took a leather folder from an inside pocket and flipped it open.

  “You don’t know her. I do. She’s a thief, I tell you,” Ellie shouted. “She stole in high school, and she steals now. Don’t trust her.”

  “Her I.D. looks real,” one of the officers said. The other officer holstered his gun.

  “It’s a phony. She probably had it made up for just this kind of situation. I’ve never seen her here before.” Ellie’s face was breaking into red splotches.

  “You know her?” the policeman asked the security guard and jerked a thumb toward Claudine.

  He nodded. “Sure. Claudine Dupin. Works nights. That’s probably why Ms. Millhouse doesn’t recognize her.”

  The first officer holstered his gun, too, and turned to the front door. “Next time, ma’am, you might want to call security before you dial 911. We have real emergencies to deal with.”

  Claudine silently thanked M&M Security.

  * * *

  Safely in her car, Claudine punched Ruby’s number into her cell phone. Her breath steamed in the cold.

  When Ruby answered, Neil Young singing i
n the background, Claudine said, “Listen. I ran into Eleanor Millhouse tonight and—”

  “Oh, my God. She was there?”

  “I’m fine. It’s taken care of.”

  A few bars of “Harvest Moon” played faintly. “You’re okay, then.” A pause. “I thought you had a job to do tonight. Something big. In another city.”

  Claudine started the car and turned on the heater. “I did. Someone else is taking it over. This is the most important thing now.”

  Ruby was silent, but Claudine knew she hadn’t hung up because she still heard music. “Thanks, Claudine. This means a lot to the kids—and to us.”

  Claudine’s throat thickened. “I’m here to help. For the commissioners’ meeting tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Good. We’ll need you.”

  27

  The county commissioners’ meeting was unrolling exactly as they’d expected—and as the commissioners had expected. Except for one thing, Ruby noted. The crowd.

  The meeting was the final order of business that afternoon, and as a sign that it was expected to be a short one, the meeting was scheduled for four-thirty. By four-fifteen, the recorder had to call for help from upstairs to log the meeting’s participants. People of all sorts filed into the meeting room. Families, elderly people, kids, individuals. The recorder and her assistant were stumped. Ruby didn’t know any of them, either—except for the residents of Villa Saint Nicholas.

  The size of the audience didn’t seem to faze Eleanor. She was as calm and unflappable as ever, chatting with the commissioners before the meeting started. Ruby snapped open her fan and flapped it at her face. Eleanor had assured them that the sale would go through just fine. If all went well, a family shelter would be up and running before long.

  “Nervous?” Ruby asked Deborah.

  “A little.”

  “About Eleanor?”

  Deborah nodded. “The agreement we signed—”

  “Don’t worry. She won’t let us down.” Ruby patted the chair next to her. “Sit. They’re just about to start.”

  The chair rapped her gavel. “I call this special session to order.” She seemed to realize that the room was a lot more crowded than usual. “Welcome, citizens of Carsonville County. Today’s meeting—wait, the press is here?”

  “Channel Two, Madame Chair,” the clerk said.

  Brenda waved from the side of the room. A cameraman stood next to her.

  The chair drew a deep breath. “Fine. This is a fairly routine meeting. Are you sure you didn’t mean to go to next month’s meeting? We’re discussing school funding then.”

  Brenda shook her head.

  “All right. Fine,” the chair said again. “Let’s get this over with. Clerk, will you read the motion?”

  “I, Chair of the Carsonville County commissioners, move to offer for sale the warehouse district firehouse and the land on which it sits to Eleanor Millhouse of Fine Properties of Distinction at a price determined by the county appraiser’s office.”

  “I second the motion,” Ned Rossum said promptly.

  “All in favor.”

  A chorus of “aye”s came from the dais.

  “Thank you.” Eleanor took a microphone from the dais. “I’m certain that the warehouse district will soon be one of Carsonville’s most vibrant neighborhoods. At the same time, I know there was a movement to convert the firehouse into a family shelter that this project derailed. I would like to announce that I plan to donate use of the firehouse to the Booster Club so its members can carry out their plans.”

  The crowd in the room clapped, then stood and continued to clap. Ruby nodded at Deborah. Deborah joined Eleanor at the front of the room.

  “Thank you so much, Eleanor. When we discussed your plans, I can’t even tell you how happy I was. Now, families won’t have to be split up when they fall on hard times.” The crowd was beginning to clap again, but Deborah put up a hand. “And to think that you are actually deeding the land to us is wonderful. Thank you so much.”

  A murmur of thanks went through the audience.

  “I’m afraid you’ve misunderstood.” Eleanor held her smile. “I’ll continue to own the firehouse. I’m simply letting you take over the firehouse for a while. A lease, free of charge, of course. The firehouse will be mine. As will the land’s other assets.”

  Ruby’s heart beat double-time. This wasn’t part of their deal. Eleanor planned to screw them over. Then Ruby smiled.

  “But you said—” Deborah started.

  “I’m sorry if you didn’t understand me. It’s all right here in our contract. The contract you signed.” She pulled a sheaf of legal-sized papers from her briefcase.

  Deborah picked up the papers. “But here, on page two, it says, ‘I, Eleanor Millhouse, shall relinquish all rights to and ownership of the firehouse and its lot and transfer ownership to the Booster Club for the purpose of creating a family shelter.’” Deborah flipped ahead.

  “No, it—”

  Deborah interrupted. “Oh, but here’s the part that really warmed my heart. ‘As part of the warehouse district’s renovation, I will provide twenty-five units of low-income housing for people displaced by the new sewage treatment plant.’” She pulled a similar sheaf from her briefcase. “It’s in my copy, too.”

  Now the crowd not only clapped, they whistled and stamped their feet.

  “No. That’s wrong. That’s not what the contract says.” She yanked away the papers and shuffled through them. Her face blanched. She slammed the contract shut.

  A shaggy-haired man and his wife, holding a toddler’s hand, stood. “Thank you. When we were forced out of our home for the sewage treatment plant, we had to move to a one-bedroom apartment on the east side. The money we got wasn’t enough for anything else. This will really help.”

  A Latina mother stood, her family sitting around her. “We, too, had to leave our home. Someone from Fine Properties of Distinction told us we had no choice. We were so scared. Now I have to commute an hour each way to my job.”

  Eleanor watched the audience with rising panic showing in her face.

  “Yeah,” another, younger man said. “She put the ‘stink’ in ‘distinction’ all right.”

  Claudine stood, a white-haired woman—Letty—on her arm. Funny, Ruby hadn’t even seen Claudine come in. “Go ahead, Letty.”

  “I—” Letty cleared her throat. “I live across the street from where they’re putting in the sewage treatment plan. In a different house than I used to. My—Madeleine died when we left that house. I feel a lot older now. Knowing that you’re giving us new housing, well, that means a lot. It won’t bring her back, but I think Madeleine knows even now.” Letty briefly closed her eyes. A rosy glow seemed to permeate her pores.

  Eleanor slammed the papers on the table and pointed at Deborah. “This isn’t the contract I drew up. You double-crossed me. Both of you. You want the radium for yourselves.”

  “Radium?” Deborah said. She did a bang-up job of looking flabbergasted, complete with dropped jaw and intermittent blinking.

  “Radium?” the chair echoed.

  “You signed over the radium mining rights to me, I saw you do it. That land is mine,” Eleanor said.

  Deborah continued to seem puzzled. “What mining rights? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You think there’s radium on the firehouse’s property, am I right?” the chair said.

  The commissioners looked at each other. One discreetly twirled his finger by his ear for the “loco” sign.

  “They signed the mining rights over to me. They signed it. I saw.” Eleanor crammed fingers into the hair at her temples. “Somehow they switched the contracts.”

  That was some tight chignon she’d crafted, Ruby noted. It barely budged.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. This is the agreement you signed. See?” Deborah pointed at the signatures.

  “Dr. Heilig has stacks of studies of the radium vein. Ask him,” Eleanor urged.

 
“I don’t know who Dr. Heilig is, but we do have the county surveyor present for the presentation of the deed.” She pointed into the audience. “Leonard. Come to the dais, please. Is there radium under the firehouse?”

  The surveyor couldn’t tear his gaze from Eleanor. “No, ma’am. Just bedrock. There’s no mineable radium within three states.”

  “And so many people here are concerned about the sewage treatment plant,” the chair said more quietly. A look of understanding passed over the chair’s face. “Rossum, the sewage treatment plant is in your district, isn’t it?”

  Ned Rossum smiled weakly. He didn’t say yes or no.

  The Latina mother rose again. An envelope in hand, she approached the chair. She withdrew a letter from the envelope and smoothed it before handing it over. She returned to her seat.

  As the chair skimmed the letter, other audience members filed to the dais, too, placing letters before the chair and rejoining their neighbors.

  “They’re all the same. Condemnation letters with my signature,” the chair said, placing the last letter on the stack. “But I didn’t sign these. Not one of them.” She turned to Rossum. “You have something to say?”

  Not a muscle moved on Rossum’s face. It was frozen into a wide-eyed rictus. Eleanor’s fist clenched her pearl necklace.

  “I see.” The chair reached for the firehouse sales contract. “We have an investigation to start. And restitution to make.”

  “You can’t tie anything to me. I’m innocent,” Rossum finally managed to say. “I never colluded with her on anything. Never.”

  “We found this list of displaced homeowners.” Deborah handed to the chair the list of people whose property Eleanor had purchased under the threat of condemnation, the list Claudine had stolen the night before.

  The double doors burst open, and a man in a navy blue suit entered. “Eleanor Millhouse?”

  “Yes?” Eleanor gasped. She looked like she didn’t know if she should panic or run to him for safety.

  “Agent Satter, Federal Drug Administration. I understand you’ve been illegally importing goat hormones.”