by Jane Heller
“Yeah, well we never found this photo, so we can’t prove he’s the same guy.”
“What about the scratches on his face? Can’t you do tests on the cat?”
“I don’t have any samples from Mr. Shiller. I can’t confirm the presence of his blood or skin under the cat’s claws if I don’t have any of his blood or skin to match ‘em up with.”
“How about fingerprints at both crime scenes?”
“If Mr. Shiller has no priors, I won’t have a match there either.”
“You’re saying the fact that Barry and Jeffrey went to college together and then Jeffrey gets murdered and then, miraculously, Barry turns up as my sister’s lawyer and then Joan gets murdered in exactly the same way as Jeffrey did doesn’t raise any red flags here?”
“Nothing I can haul him in for, Ms. Peltz. Where’s the motive, for instance? Even if he did have a connection to both Dr. Hirshon and Ms. Sheldon, why kill them?”
“Over the vitamin business,” I offered. “I’m positive that Barry and Jeffrey were partners in the company, a company we’ve already established looks pretty questionable. So—you want motive? Maybe Jeffrey was cheating Barry out of his share of the profits, and Joan took Jeffrey’s side. Maybe Jeffrey got scared that the IRS would catch onto their scheme and wanted out, and Barry said, no way. Maybe Jeffrey and Joan had something on Barry and were threatening to blackmail the guy. I can come up with a thousand maybes.”
“I can’t arrest people on maybes.”
“Really? You were going to arrest my sister and me on a lot less.”
“But I didn’t arrest your sister or you, Ms. Peltz. I’d keep that in mind.”
I sighed. “You’re right, Frank. I’m sorry. I’m just—”
“—worried about your sister.”
“Yes. Does that seem odd to you, since you have it on record that we fight like a couple of lunatics?”
“My wife has a sister, Ms. Peltz, and you should see the two of them go at it. But if I make one comment, one innocent little remark about my sister-in-law, my wife gives me the silent treatment.”
“Then you understand about sisters.”
“I understand. Look, what I’m gonna do is get somebody to dig into Mr. Shiller’s background, pay him a visit, see what he knows. Maybe we’ll get lucky and stumble on a bona fide link between him and Dr. Hirshon and Ms. Sheldon.”
“That would be great. Then we could go after Barry and rule out the other suspects.”
“Other suspects?”
“Yes. Francine Hirshon.”
“Right, but you said suspects, plural. Who else did you mean, Ms. Peltz? My department has already ruled out Ms. Walters, Dr. Elkin, Ms. Hornsby, Ms. Kendall, Ms. Orwell, and Ms. Ross.”
“I meant—” No, I wouldn’t mention Ray’s name. There was no reason to. Barry killed Jeffrey and Joan, I was sure, and Gillby would find a way to prove it soon enough.
“Were you about to say something, Ms. Peltz?”
“No, Frank. I was just thinking, it would really move things along if we could get more information on Heartily Hirshon. All we have now are the stupid vitamins.”
“Well, wait a minute. Dr. Hirshon must have sold your mother the pills, since she was his patient.”
“He did.”
“Then depending on how she paid for them, she may have a cancelled check—with the name of the bank where the money was deposited. That would give us a lead.”
I brightened. “I’ll get back to you, Frank.”
I called my mother. There was no answer. I drove over to her house. There was no one home. Sharon’s car was gone, so I assumed she and Norman had already headed down to Boca. I panicked as I imagined her spending the night with Barry only hours after Norman boarded the plane for South Carolina the next afternoon. If I wasn’t able to convince her not to, my pain-in-the-ass sister would be rushing into the arms of a murderer, completely clueless, utterly helpless, with no one but me to rescue her. Talk about a twisted turn of events.
“Where in the world is my mother?” I muttered to myself as I paced back and forth outside her front door, my nerves fraying.
Probably with Fred, I decided, thinking it was a helluva time for her to get a life after seventy-five years.
I was about to give up and go home when she pulled in the driveway. When she emerged from the car, I saw that she was wearing sneakers, a pink leotard, and matching leggings.
“Mom! Where have you been?” I said as I followed her inside.
“At the Y,” she said. “Working out. It wouldn’t do you any harm to spend a little time there, dear. You’re looking stressed out. You might consider doing some yoga.”
“I might,” I said. “But first, I want to talk to you about Heartily Hirshon Vitamins.”
I explained what Gillby had learned about the company, and asked her to track down her cancelled check for the pills she’d bought (I omitted any reference to Barry). Within ten minutes, she found it.
I thanked her and high-tailed it to the sheriff’s office. I presented the check to Gillby, who smiled after examining it.
“What?” I asked. “Tell me.”
“Have a seat, Ms. Peltz.”
And then he vanished down the hall. I waited anxiously. Waited. Waited. When Gillby returned, he was still smiling.
“Okay. What?” I said.
He told me that my mother’s check had been deposited in a Bahamian bank in Nassau and paid to the account of the Blue Waters Corporation... the same corporation that owned the Laundromat in Riviera Beach, where Jeffrey’s vitamin E pills were supposedly manufactured... the same corporation that owned the title on Barry’s house in Boca.
“Yesss!” I said, jumping up from my seat. “There’s the link! He did it, Frank! Barry Shiller really is the murderer! You can go and arrest him now, right?”
“I can’t arrest him just yet, but I’ve sure got plenty to question him about.”
“Good. When are you going to question him?”
“As soon as you stop questioning me, Ms. Peltz.”
I hopped into the Pontiac and sped over to Ray’s house, my mind a jumble of emotions. I was terrified that Sharon had involved herself with a killer, but I was also extremely relieved that I had not; that Ray was innocent; that I had been wrong to suspect him of anything.
When I stopped the car in front of his house, he was standing at his mailbox, leafing through the latest issue of Gator Bait.
“Hey,” he said, his eyes lighting up when he saw me. “Where’ve you been keeping yourself? I dropped by the cottage a couple of times but missed you, I guess. Have you been avoiding me?”
In response, I practically flew out of the Pontiac, throwing my arms around him, knocking the newspaper out of his hands. “Please say you’re not busy.” I had no intention of admitting that I had been avoiding him or why. I was too ashamed.
He laughed, seeming perplexed and pleased by my display of affection. “I’m not busy.”
“You’re not about to go for a ride on your motorcycle?”
“Nope.”
“Or pick up a date?”
“No date tonight.”
“Good. I’d like to talk to you, to my best friend.”
He took my hand and led me inside the house.
We were two steps into his foyer when I began to weep on his shoulder, my chest heaving with deep, wet sobs. I felt lost suddenly, out of control, my adventures of the past few months finally getting to me. It was as if my problems at From This Day Forward, the break-in at my apartment, my mother’s heart attack, my move to Florida, my squabbles with Sharon, my entanglement in a murder investigation, my doubts about Ray, and my discoveries about Barry had congealed into one giant load that was too heavy, too burdensome, for me to carry. “Oh, Ray,” I said, realizing I was staining his nice blue-and-white striped shirt with my big sloppy tears. “You don’t need this.”
“How do you know what I need?” he said softly, stroking my hair. “Why don’t we sit down and you
can fill me in?”
I nodded, and moved myself and my tears into the living room.
“I don’t want my mother to find out yet,” I said after reporting the Barry story, winding up with Gillby’s reluctance to arrest him until the evidence was more conclusive. “The same goes for Norman. My mother will worry herself sick, and Norman will feel torn because he has to get back to school. Besides, it’s Sharon who has to be told; Sharon I’ve got to warn. Unfortunately, by warning her I’ll be setting off another war between us.”
“Why a war?” said Ray. “All you have to do is wait until Norman leaves tomorrow and then call her and tell her to stay away from the guy.”
“She’ll never buy it. She’ll accuse me of belittling her choice in a man, the same way she always does. She’ll turn whatever I say into a thing, a conspiracy, a putdown. She’ll insist that I’m trying to smear Barry not because he deserves smearing but because I’m jealous. God, I can write the script.”
“I remember now. You two have been this route before.”
“This exact route. The last time we really got into it, we didn’t speak for two years.”
“Still, you’ve got to call her.”
I nodded. “Tomorrow afternoon. After Norman’s gone.”
“Would it help if I sat there next to you when you made the call? For a little moral support?”
“I’d love it if you were there, Ray. Whether it’ll help or not remains to be seen.”
At five-thirty the next day, Ray and I plunked ourselves down on the futons in my living room, poised and ready for the call.
“Break a leg,” he said as I dialed Sharon’s number, the phone in my lap.
I mouthed the word “Thanks” and waited while there was one ring, then two. On the third, Sharon’s assistant, the Roaring ‘20s flapper from my mother’s birthday party, answered.
“Weddings by Sharon Peltz,” she said breezily.
“Hi, Paula. This is Sharon’s sister, Deborah. Is she there?”
“Oh. Deborah. Let me check.”
I turned to Ray. “I’m on hold. The assistant is asking Sharon if she wants to take the call. Sharon will make gagging noises and say she’d rather eat stale wedding cake than talk to me, but she’ll pick up the phone, because I could be calling about my mother’s health.”
“You know her pretty well,” he remarked.
“Yes, I’m afraid I do.”
“Sharon will be with you in a moment,” said Paula, coming back on the line.
I thanked her and gave Ray the thumbs-up sign.
And then I waited forever while dear Sharon decided to make her baby sister twist in the wind.
At last, she greeted me with, “What is it, Deborah? I’m swamped. I’m doing the Glasserstein wedding and the rehearsal dinner in two weeks.”
I did not ask who the Glassersteins were. “There’s something very serious I have to discuss with you, Sharon.”
“This isn’t about Mom, is it?”
“No. It’s about Barry Shiller.”
She snorted. “You’ve figured out what a fabulous catch he is and you’re dying to know if he has a brother for you, is that it?”
“Not exactly. Sharon, this will come as a terrible shock to you, but I have reason to believe that Barry may have killed Jeffrey, as well as Jeffrey’s nurse, Joan Sheldon.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me. I’m so sorry to be the one to—”
“Wait. Just wait. Have you completely lost your mind, Deborah? I mean, you did move to Florida to have a nervous breakdown, according to Mom, but surely you’re being treated with medication now. Prozac? Zoloft? St. John’s Wort?”
I pressed on. “Barry was Jeffrey’s partner in the vitamin company. He never told you that, did he?”
“Of course not. Because it isn’t true.”
“It is true.”
“Prove it.”
“I can’t.”
“There. You see?”
“I can’t, because he and Jeffrey hid their profits from Heartily Hirshon in a bank account in the Bahamas. The government can’t touch the money. He never told you about that either, I assume.”
Sharon sighed, in an attempt to sound bored. “I do hate to ruin your little game of cops and robbers, Deborah, but if Barry has a bank account in the Bahamas, it’s probably because he has a house in Nassau. In Lyford Cay.”
“In what key?”
“Lyford. It’s a private club. Extremely exclusive. Sean Connery has a place there.”
“I’m impressed beyond words.”
“You should be. Lyford is home to movie stars, captains of industry, members of various royal families—a Who’s Who of the rich and powerful. Barry has owned there since the seventies.”
“So he’s been burying his money in the Bahamas for over twenty years,” I mused, “and then laundering it through Laundromats, vitamin businesses, and God knows what else. He was the one who probably put up the money for Heartily Hirshon and came up with the plan to hide the company’s assets. Why else would Jeffrey have needed a partner? He was the doctor. He could have sold vitamins to his patients on his own. But he had to have a backer, someone who knew the ins and outs of offshore banking.”
“What in the world are you rambling about now?” said Sharon.
“They must have stayed in touch after college,” I went on. “Or they ran into each other a few years ago, during one of Jeffrey’s boat trips to the Bahamas, and hatched the vitamin scheme over a few Goombay Smashes.”
“That’s enough. I’m not listening to any more of this ridiculousness,” said Sharon. “I will not have you insulting Barry or insinuating that he’s done anything wrong or trying to come between me and marital bliss.”
“Marital bliss? Sharon, you can’t marry Barry. He’s a murderer, not to mention a tax cheat. He’s going to prison for a long time. It would be nice if he didn’t kill you first.”
She actually laughed. “He’s a wealthy attorney, he’s single, and he’s in love with me. You can’t stand that, can you, Deborah?”
“Sharon. Pay attention. This is not about Daddy. This is not about cheerleading. This is not about sibling rivalry. Do you understand?”
“What I understand is that you are intent on undermining my happiness.”
“No, I’m intent on saving your life. Norman’s father was a criminal. Barry Shiller is a criminal. There’s a pattern here. You’re a smart woman who makes foolish choices.”
“And you’re a woman who dresses badly, weighs too much, and can’t get a man.”
“I am not.”
“Are too.”
“Am not.”
“Are too.”
Click.
I looked helplessly at Ray. “She hung up on me.”
He nodded. “I had a feeling the conversation was heading in that direction.”
“I let her get to me, Ray. I promised myself I wouldn’t do that.”
“What was said was said. Now you’ll have to dust yourself off and try again. I think we should give Sharon the rest of today to calm down and then we should drive to Boca tomorrow and talk to her in person.”
“We?”
“Yeah. I don’t work on Saturdays.”
“I know, but are you sure you—”
“Positive.”
I thanked him. And then, suddenly overcome by a sense of dread, I asked, “What if Barry hurts her, Ray? What if he goes berserk when he realizes that the police are investigating him, and he blames my sister for tipping them off? What if he’s as crazy as he is cunning?”
“We can’t make her stay away from him.”
“We can’t?”
“Well, not unless we kidnap her.”
I smiled, relieved. “Then that’s what we’ll do.”
Part Three
Chapter Twenty-six
We had planned to be in Boca by noon, at the latest, but the gods were definitely not with us on Saturday morning.
First, my Pontiac wouldn’t sta
rt. I called Ray, who drove over in his Honda, took a peek under the Pontiac’s hood, and found that the alternator was shot.
“Can’t you fix it?” I asked.
“No, you need a real mechanic,” he said.
“I have a real mechanic,” I said. “What I need is a real car.”
We decided to take Ray’s Honda, only to have it not start.
“I never have trouble with this car,” he muttered, after not being able to diagnose what was wrong.
“Well, you have trouble with it now,” I said, growing more and more agitated.
Ray suggested we call my mother and see if we could borrow the Delta 88. I nixed that idea. “I don’t want her to know anything about this,” I said. “If fighting with my sister is bad for her heart, imagine what kidnapping Sharon will do to it.”
“There is another option,” said Ray. “We could take the Indian.”
“Your motorcycle?”
“It’s transportation, Deborah. It made it up to Daytona Beach last weekend. I’m willing to bet it can make it down to Boca today.”
“Yes, but can I?” I said. “I’m not sure I’m ready for an hour-and-a-half ride on it, beautiful as it is. Tooling around locally is one thing; speeding along I–95, dodging tractor-trailers, is another.”
“You’ll be fine,” Ray assured me. “Perfectly safe.”
“Okay then, what about Sharon? Where on earth would we put her after we kidnap her? On the handlebars?”
“No problem. I’ve got a sidecar that attaches to the bike. We could strap her in there. She’ll be nice and snug.”
“Nope. I don’t see it. If there’s one thing Sharon isn’t, it’s a biker chick. She wouldn’t be caught dead in one of those helmets, for example; it would flatten her hair.”
Ray took hold of my shoulders. “I hate to bring this up, but if we don’t hurry and get to Boca, Sharon could be dead, period.”
He had a point.
We left both our faithless vehicles at my house, called a taxi, and zipped over to Ray’s house to pick up the Indian. As I donned the helmet and the black leather jacket he lent me, I forced myself not to wail or whine or wimp out. I was on a mission to rescue my sister, and if I had to risk my life on the back of a motorcycle to do it, then that’s what I would do.