by Jane Heller
“Or maybe the killer took them, so he wouldn’t be linked with Ms. Sheldon and Dr. Hirshon.”
“Why would he take all of them?”
“He was probably in a hurry, Ms. Peltz. Why pick through dozens of pictures when you can pile the whole bunch into a bag and beat it?”
“True.”
“Chances are, if the killer and the man in the picture are the same person, he panicked that Ms. Sheldon might give him up.”
“You mean, he killed her because she knew too much.”
“And because she talked too much. You did say she was a talker.”
“Yes, but who isn’t in this town? I’ve never met so many people who are willing to spill their guts.”
“Well, Ms. Sheldon won’t be doing any more spilling.”
“Poor woman. She wasn’t a barrel of laughs but she didn’t deserve to die. Have her children been told? I think she had a few.”
“Two. We notified them about an hour ago. They were pretty shaken up.”
“I’m sure they were. Her cat must have been freaked out too. She was very attached to him.”
“He was freaked out all right. Wouldn’t let any of us near him. It took three of our guys to grab him and bring him in.”
“Bring Sheldon in? Why would you do that?”
“Evidence. The kitty was up to his little paws in blood. Most of it’s got to be the deceased’s, but some of it could be the killer’s.”
“If the cat scratched or bit him?”
“Right. Even the most cuddly animal can get spooked by the sound of a gun going off, not to mention the sight of his owner lying on the floor, unconscious. If the cat tangled with the guy, there should be traces of the killer’s blood and/or skin under his claws, which would be a nice break for us.”
“Let’s hope.”
“Getting back to the man in the photograph. If he’s the partner in the doctor’s vitamin company, he shouldn’t be that tough to track down. The business has to have an address, a warehouse, and a bank account, and there should be financial records, tax returns, the works.” He got up from the futon, looking more upbeat than he had earlier. “We’ll find the guy, Ms. Peltz,” he said.
“I know you will, Frank,” I said.
“We’ve got to,” he added as he moved toward the door. “Or I’ll be out of a job.”
“Before you go,” I said, “there’s something else.”
He rolled his eyes. “What?”
“Francine, Jeffrey’s ex-wife. She’s back in town. She was buying shoes at Dillard’s yesterday. That’s why I called you.”
“I’m a busy man, Ms. Peltz. You don’t have to inform me of everybody’s shopping habits.”
“She told me she inherited Jeffrey’s money, Frank. Apparently, he really did forget to change his will after the divorce, exactly the way I hypothesized a couple of weeks ago. Remember?”
He nodded, cracking his knuckles again.
“It might be prudent to interview her a second time,” I suggested. “Just to be thorough. Where there’s money, there’s motive, right, Frank?”
When Ray returned from his motorcycle odyssey and called to check in, I told him about Joan. He was as shocked as I had been—or so he seemed. A little later in the conversation, when I asked him about his trip, he was vague about it, wouldn’t say anything specific about it, leaving me to wonder: did he actually go to Daytona?
Of course he went, I laughed at myself, laughed at the sad fact that I had become suspicious of everybody. Ray was honest and decent, for God’s sake. Ray was always there for me. Ray was my friend.
Still, it was interesting that he was out of town the weekend Joan was murdered. Interesting that he had been inside her house only two nights before she was killed. Interesting that he hated Jeffrey and, perhaps, by extension, he hated Jeffrey’s nurse too.
Talk about hate. I despised myself for even considering the possibility that Ray could harm anyone. But, given the mayhem swirling around me, I wasn’t taking any chances. I decided to stay away from him for a while. Just until the picture got clearer.
Chapter Twenty-four
It was several days before I spoke to Detective Gillby again. I understood how much pressure he was under, plus I remembered that it took awhile for forensic test results to come back, so I didn’t bug him for bulletins. But when I couldn’t stand the suspense any longer, I called his office.
“Any news?” I asked.
“Yeah, but it isn’t good,” he said. “First off, we can’t locate Francine Hirshon.”
“Damn. She probably grabbed her inheritance and beat it for Beverly Hills.” I pictured her cruising the leather-goods shops on Rodeo Drive.
“Could be. Problem number two: Heartily Hirshon doesn’t exist.”
“What do you mean? Of course, it exists.”
“Well, according to the label on the vitamin bottles, the product was produced less than an hour from here, in Riviera Beach. We went down to the address and, lo and behold, it wasn’t a pharmaceutical operation; it was a Laundromat.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I wish I were. Not only that, we searched Dr. Hirshon’s office, his home office, and Joan Sheldon’s home and office, and we couldn’t find a single scrap of paper having to do with the vitamin company—no bookkeeping records, no deposit slips, nothing.”
“I can’t believe this.”
“Believe it. There’s more. We got hold of Hirshon’s tax returns and guess what: no profits from a company called Heartily Hirshon. Not even a hint that there’s ever been a Heartily Hirshon.”
“So he was cheating the government,” I said, astonished. “Every penny he was making from those pills was going straight into his pocket.”
“It looks like.”
“And Joan was in on it.”
“Most likely.”
“Which brings me to the partner. Any updates there?”
“Nope. At the moment, we’re trying to get the real story on where the vitamins were manufactured and where the cash and checks from the business were deposited. My guess is, we’re talking about money coming and going from an offshore bank account, say, in the Caymans or the Bahamas.”
“The Bahamas,” I said excitedly. “Jeffrey took his boat there on long weekends. There’s even a navigational chart of the islands hanging on the wall of his office. Plus, Francine told me that the two of them used to go there together, in happier times.”
“Could be a lead. I’ll keep in touch, Ms. Peltz.”
“Good luck, Frank. I’m rooting for you.”
The following week, Norman, my nephew, came home for his spring break. Our little family was abuzz with his arrival, since we hadn’t seen him since Christmas. On a Wednesday afternoon, Sharon drove him up to Stuart so he could spend a couple of days with his grandma. They arrived in Barry Shiller’s Rolls-Royce—chauffeur driven, according to my mother, who explained that Barry himself had wanted to make the trip but was very busy with a case and, therefore, insisted on offering his car and driver to Sharon and her son. Yech.
The first night of Norman’s stay, I was permitted to join everybody for dinner at my mother’s.
“Norman,” I said, hugging him. “You look great.”
“Great” may have been overstating it a bit, but he did look better than he had at Christmas. Always on the short, scrawny side like his mother (one of the reasons, I suspected, that he had chosen to attend military school—so he could prove he was a manly man despite his slight build), he had seemed even skinnier in December. But now he had filled out somewhat and walked with a more confident stride. Even his haircut—his “knobcut”—wasn’t as pitiful anymore. “How’re you doing, Smoothie?” I joked as I ran my fingers over the shaved portions of his head.
“I’m doing fine, Aunt Deborah,” he said. “I can’t believe you’re living down here in a cottage on the beach. That’s too cool.”
“For someone your age, Norman, it’s cool,” said Sharon. “For someone your aunt�
��s age, it’s peculiar.”
“If you’ve got time tomorrow, maybe you’ll borrow your grandmother’s car and drive over,” I said, ignoring my sister. “We could take a walk on the beach, catch up.”
“Sounds like a plan,” he said, high-fiving me.
During dinner, Norman told us stories about life at the Citadel. I asked him if the male cadets were as abusive to the female cadets as the media led us to believe. “Not any more abusive than the male cadets are to each other,” he replied, proudly lifting his shirt to show me his battle scars.
After the meal, he went into the den to watch an old John Wayne movie; my mother went into the kitchen to do the dishes. When they were both gone, Sharon and I found ourselves alone with each other—always a tricky business.
“You must be happy to have Norman home,” I said.
“Ecstatic,” she said. “I’m especially pleased how quickly he’s bonded with Barry.”
“Do you really think that’s wise?” I asked. “Norman has seen so many of your men come and go.”
Sharon stiffened. “I’m not a hooker, Deborah. ‘My men,’ as you put it, weren’t customers. They were husbands.”
“Exactly. The last thing Norman needs is to form another emotional attachment to a man who ends up leaving.”
“Leaving? What makes you think Barry’s leaving? He and I are growing closer by the day. Look at how he sent us up here, with his car and driver. Even when he’s meeting with clients, he makes sure I’m taken care of.”
“Who are his clients?” I asked. “Other than you, of course.”
“He’s not at liberty to discuss them with me,” she said. “Attorney-client privilege.”
“So you don’t know anyone else he represents?”
“No. But I know that he must be extremely competent because he lives like a king—and treats me like a queen, by the way. Can you say the same thing about this carpenter you’ve been seeing?”
“He’s not a carpenter,” I said, wishing my mother hadn’t told Sharon about Ray. “And I’m not seeing him. We’re friends.”
“Whatever. My point is that Barry is a wealthy man, but he’s also a generous man. I really believe he could be The One.”
“The Fourth, you mean.”
“That’s hilarious, Deborah.”
“Sharon.” I sighed. “Snap out of it. Barry’s a sleaze.”
“You should have such a sleaze in your life.”
“I’m doing fine, thanks.”
“With the carpenter. What do you two do for entertainment? Watch This Old House?”
Just then, my mother came into the room, eyeing us. “I could have sworn I heard you two bickering,” she said. “But since you promised there wouldn’t be any more bickering—out of love for me and concern for my health—I must have been mistaken. Isn’t that right, girls?”
Sharon and I smiled and said, “Yes, Mother.”
On Thursday afternoon, Norman drove the Delta 88 over to the cottage for a visit. I made him lunch, showed him around the House of Refuge, bought him a House of Refuge T-shirt, and introduced him to Fred Zimsky, who clutched Norman to him and said, “Your grandmother is some kind of woman, kid.”
Later, Norman and I were taking a walk on the beach, trolling for shells, when he asked if I would do him a favor.
“Sure. Name it,” I said.
“Watch out for my mom,” he said.
“Why? Is she about to swoop down from the sky on her broomstick?” I said, pretending to duck.
“No, I didn’t mean it that way. I meant, take care of her for me. Look, I know you and she haven’t always gotten along, Aunt Deborah, and she can be a pain in the butt, no doubt about it, but she’s my mom and I love her, and since I’m going back to school tomorrow, I won’t be able to—”
“Norman,” I cut him off, realizing he was serious. “Slow down. Tell me what’s worrying you about your mother.”
He shrugged.
“Norman?”
“Okay. It’s the guy she’s going out with.”
“Barry Shiller?”
He nodded. “My father was a crook, and I’ve had to live with that my whole life. The last thing I expected is to come home and find this new crook hanging around.”
“What makes you think Barry is a crook?”
He shrugged again. “I just don’t trust him.”
“There must be some reason, Norman. Be specific.”
He thought for a minute. “He’s always on the phone, whispering about stuff. And when he does pay attention to my mother, he only wants to hear about the murder you and she got mixed up in—if she remembers anything about the night the doctor got shot, in case he has to defend her or something. He’s, like, so into being a lawyer.”
“Your mother did say that he was very driven, very focused on his law practice, and that his marriages broke up as a result. That makes him self-absorbed and one-dimensional, but it doesn’t make him a crook.”
“Okay. How about this? He had plastic surgery.”
I laughed. “Plastic surgery isn’t a crime, Norman. You’ll understand that better when you’re my age.”
“Maybe, but none of the guys at the Citadel would ever have it.”
“No, I don’t suppose they would.”
“Well, this clown had the fat sucked out of his face and he had—wait, what do you call it?—a chemical pull.”
“A chemical peel.”
“Right. Oh, yeah, and he dyes his hair. Talk about a girlie man.”
“His hair is sort of a muddy brown. What color did it used to be?”
“Gray. Like Grandma’s.”
“How do you know all this, Norman? People aren’t usually so forthcoming about their nips and tucks and tints.”
“From my mom. When she met Barry a few years ago at some wedding, she thought he was much older. She must have mentioned that to him because he gave her the name of his surgeon. He does his hair himself, he told her. Grecian Formula.”
“I guess appearance is important in his line of work.”
“Then he’s gonna have to skip work for a while. His face is a mess.”
“Why? Did he have another chemical peel?”
“No, he had a wrestling match in his garden with a bougainvillea. That’s what he said, anyway. If you ask me, Aunt Deborah, he was on the wrong end of a woman’s fingernails.” Norman shook his head. “The guy’s got a lot of balls, acting so interested in my mom and then looking like he’s been in a goddamn cat fight.”
“A cat fight.”
“Yeah.”
“Because Barry’s face is full of scratches?”
“Yeah.”
“He claims he got them from bougainvillea thorns?”
“Yeah. Fat chance, right?”
“Fat chance.”
My heart was racing so fast at this point that I thought I might actually pass out. But I didn’t pass out. I held on. I had to. I didn’t want to scare my poor, sweet nephew. He’d had enough to deal with in his young life. And now there was about to be more for him to handle. A lot more. Because it finally dawned on me that his mother hadn’t merely latched on to yet another loser in Barry Shiller; this time, she’d landed a cold-blooded killer.
“Aunt Deborah? You okay?”
No! I wanted to scream. No!
If only I’d put things together sooner, I berated myself, my mind reeling, my breathing coming in fast, uneven gasps.
If only I’d followed my instincts, remembering that even after I’d learned that Barry had gone to the same college as Jeffrey, even after I’d confronted Barry about it, I still didn’t take the link between the two men seriously, still didn’t consider the possibility that Barry had only insinuated himself into Sharon’s life in order to stay one step ahead of the police investigation. But, of course, now it all seemed so obvious, so clear, the way it always does once the missing pieces of a puzzle reveal themselves. Barry was the partner in Heartily Hirshon. Barry was the gray-haired beachgoer in the photograph in Jo
an’s house. Barry was the person who had wrestled, not with a bougainvillea or with a woman, but with Joan’s cat. Barry was the one whose blood and skin Frank Gillby would find under Sheldon’s claws. Barry was the man who had shot both Joan and Jeffrey in their own homes. I knew these things as surely as I knew my own name. What I didn’t know was, why?
“Aunt Deborah?”
“I’m fine, Norman,” I managed. “Just a little dizzy from being out in the hot sun.”
He took my arm in a gentle yet commanding way. “Here. Lean on me,” he insisted, so mature, so take-charge. As we walked together across the sand, toward the cottage, I gazed at him with love and pride, and I thought, He sure isn’t “little Norman” anymore.
“I wanted to be at your graduation,” I said wistfully as we strolled along. “I hope you believe that.”
“I do. You had a fever that day,” he replied, still guiding me by the arm. “You were too sick to be there.”
“Your mother’s never forgiven me for not coming. But then she’s never forgiven me for so many things.”
“She just needs to bust your chops every once in awhile. That’s the way she is. Who knows why.”
“It doesn’t matter why,” I said. “Not anymore.”
When we got to the cottage, Norman glanced at his watch and said he’d better go.
“You won’t forget what we talked about, right?” he asked. “You’ll watch out for Mom while I’m away at school?”
I pulled Norman to me and hugged him tightly. “I love your mother,” I said with conviction. “And I’ll watch out for her. You have my word.”
But she’s not going to make it easy for me, I thought as I released him. Not our Sharon.
Chapter Twenty-five
The minute Norman left, I called Detective Gillby, praying he would be in his office this time. He was. As calmly as I could under the circumstances, I blurted out everything I had on Barry. Gillby was skeptical, at best.
“You think he was the guy you saw in Ms. Sheldon’s photo,” he said. “Before his makeover.”
“I don’t think. I know.”