“Yes, it is. Thank you for returning my call.”
“I hope I’m not calling too late, but it seemed urgent. I’ve been at an all-day strategic planning retreat and just got your message. What can I do for you?”
“I’m trying to track down a woman my aunt hired through your agency about a year ago. I understand there was a lot of staff turnover during that time.”
“What was the woman’s name?”
“All I have is a first name—Betty. Ida Mae Katz hired her as a housekeeper and paid her in cash. Betty has mousy brown hair, two hearing aids, eyeglasses, and deaf speech. Sound familiar?”
“Well, I started here about a year ago. The only Betty I recall was a temporary secretary. She left shortly after I arrived. I don’t think it’s the same person, because this Betty had brassy blonde hair, no hearing aids, no glasses, and a husky voice, like Lauren Bacall.”
“Did you say Lauren Bacall?” Sarah held her breath.
“Yeah,” he chuckled. “I’m a film nut. I love all the Bogie and Bacall movies.”
“Mr. Harlow, this is probably a long shot, but do you recall Betty’s last name?”
“Freed? Something like that?”
This was the lead she needed. “Do you have any idea of where she went?”
“No, I never got a call for a reference from anyone. She just sort of disappeared. Sorry, I can’t be more helpful.”
“You’ve been terrific. Thanks, Mr. Harlow. Have a great night.”
She tried to reach Officer Corrigan.
“Whom shall I say is calling?”
“Dr. Sarah Wright.” A long pause in the conversation told Sarah that her call wasn’t welcome.
An ice cold tone confirmed her hunch. “What is it you want to tell him?”
“Tell him Lauren Bacall is Betty Freed, F-r-e-e-d. It’s important.”
“Okay, Dr. Wright, I’ll get right on that.” Was the dispatcher being sarcastic?
Arlene came out of the ladies room. “What’s next?”
Sarah gave her a hug. “Leaping over tall buildings on your way home, Superwoman”
* * * *
On her return to the hotel, Sarah found Dan was still out, but Winston was happy to see her. She walked around the parking lot and urged him to hurry up. She needed to get some sleep.. An old-time telephone rang in Sarah’s purse and she fumbled to get to the cell. Only family members had that ring tone. She pulled the cell up to eye level and almost dropped it from surprise. The Caller ID said: Ida Mae Katz.
“I knew you were alive!”
“Oh, I wouldn’t count me out just yet,” said a man with a familiar voice.
“You!” Sarah shouted. “Where’s Aunt Ida?”
“If you ever want to see the old lady alive again, you’ll follow my instructions.”
Chapter Nineteen
Sarah put the key in the door and it swung inward before she could turn the deadbolt. Panic rose up in her chest, urging her to run, but the thought of keeping Aunt Ida safe pressed her feet forward. The man had said he’d kill the older woman if Sarah didn’t do exactly as she was told. She flipped the light switch. Nothing happened.
“Hellup me, hellup me!”
It was Betty, screaming in pain.
“Hang on Betty, I’m coming. The lights are out, I can barely see in here.”
As her eyes adjusted to the light of the full moon filtered through the kitchen windows, she made out the figure of Betty sprawled on the floor. Her back was to Sarah, so all she could make out were the other woman's jeans, sweatshirt, and bright yellow rubber gloves. The cleaning woman's leg twisted out at an awkward angle.
Winston at her side, Sarah knelt on the floor. “Betty, what happened?”
“Hellup, I fall, can’t geddup.” She moaned. “Hurt.”
“I’m going to have to call for help. I don’t think I should move you.”
“That’s right, don’t move her.” The man from the van stood behind the kitchen door, wearing a yellow slicker and an eye patch. When he limped forward, Sarah saw he held a gun in one hand and a bottle in the other one.
“Who are you? What did you do to Betty? Why are you doing this? Why---?”
The man’s face twisted in a snarl. “Why don’t you shut up?”
“What have I have done to you? I don’t even know you.”
“I told you to come alone. Get rid of the dog.”
Holding her hands up to show she was unarmed, Sarah stood and led Winston to the back door. “Go on out and do your business, Winston.” As she said the words, Sarah made the sign for “Help!”
The man closed the door and stood in front of it, blocking her exit. “What’d you tell him with your hands?”
“It’s the sign for ‘go to the bathroom’.” Sarah stepped toward Betty's prone body.
“Don’t move, girlie.”
Sarah stood with her back pressed to the kitchen counter and her hands down at her sides. She pressed her right hand against her thigh, searching her pocket for the cell phone. Her stomach plummeted. It wasn’t there. She had to do something. “At least let me help Betty.”
“Hellup me, hellup me…”
“No.” He took a long swig from the bottle and the moonlight fell on the label. It was Johnny Walker Black, one of her mother’s favorites.
“Is it money you’re after? Just tell me what you want.”
“Just tell me what you want!” He mimicked in a falsetto voice. “You sound like that old lady. Here's the deal. I want you and your old bitch of an aunt dead and you’re gonna do it.”
“What?”
“Are you deaf? You’re going to knock the old lady off.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Well, after you kill her, you’re going to feel so guilty about killing your poor old aunt, you won’t be able to live with yourself.” He smirked and took another swig from the bottle. “And, you’re going to write all of that in your suicide note.”
“What are you talking about? I didn’t kill my aunt. It was you. You killed her. Why? Why would you kill a dear old lady like Aunt Ida?”
The man snickered. “You want to tell her?”
“Who are you talking to?” Sarah asked.
“He’s talking to me, stupid,” said a woman with voice just like Lauren Bacall. Betty rolled over on the floor, stood up, and stretched.
“I’m so sick and tired of wearing these freaking hearing aids!”
Betty reached into her ears, yanked out the flesh-colored pieces of plastic, and threw them on the floor.
“And these glasses!”
She pulled the thick eyeglasses off her face and threw them down.
“And this godawful itchy wig!”
She yanked the wig off, threw it on the floor along with the other pieces of her disguise, and dug at her scalp with gloved hands. Static electricity made her brassy blonde hair stand up on her head.
“Whew, that feels so much better. Give me some of that, will ya?” She reached for the bottle and took a long pull. The man laughed, and she put her arm around his waist. “Now, aren’t you glad we had a back up plan, baby? Isn’t this fun? Miss Smarty Pants P-H-D doesn’t look so brainy right now, does she? She looks stooopid.”
Sarah stood with her mouth open, astonished by the transformation. At last, she found her voice. “You’re Betty Freed.”
“Reed, you moron, not Freed.”
Sarah pointed at the strange man, the very one who had tried to run her down with the white van. “Who’s he?”
“This is my husband, Patrick Reed, recently of the Maryland State Penitentiary.” She smiled up at him. “While he was there, he studied to become an electrician. Rehabilitation is a beautiful thing. I noticed you and Ida have a lot of trouble with your electricity.”
“He turned the power off at Aunt Ida’s?”
“Yup, just long enough for me to pour some water on the floor so you’d think the meat in the freezer would go bad. ‘Food go bad!’ Remember that?” Betty cackled.
“I shoulda been an actress. The year I spent working at WorkForce with those morons finally paid off. God, I’m good!”
Sarah's mind reeled with the shock of their relentless attacks. “You knocked me on the head and tried to drown me.”
“That wasn’t planned. Patrick has a little impulse control problem, right, Hon?” She smiled at Patrick.
He grinned back. “I liked cutting the old lady. I’d be happy to knife this one, too.” His lip curled. “She owes me.”
“Now, darling we’ve been over this a million times. That wouldn’t be suicide. It has to be a suicide to make the plan work.”
She'd had enough. They were crazy. “I have no intention of killing myself.”
“Why do you think he’s wearing a slicker and I’m wearing these rubber gloves? We’re going help you kill yourself. You see, I’ll hold your hand, and you’ll hold the gun. I’ll help you pull the trigger. By the way, thanks for the gun. That was a real find.”
“What did I ever do to you to deserve this?” Her voice cracked. “What could my aunt possibly have done to offend you so badly, you'd want to kill her?”
Betty smirked. “We have reasons. A couple million.”
Patrick snickered.
Sarah stared at the two crooks while tears blurred her vision. Why? Why were they doing this?
“Let me spell it out for you. When Ida Katz called WorkForce for a housekeeper, I was working there as a temp. I took the call. She was chatty, told me all sorts of things about her house and what she needed. I decided to take the job myself. So, I picked out one of the institutionalized inmate’s files, used her social security number and became her.”
Such a simple plan, it staggered Sarah's mind. Steal the identity of a vulnerable person unable to speak or advocate for herself, and use that as a cover identity. All Betty needed was access to the data, which she had by virtue of her role as a temporary employee. So simple, so easy and so evil.
Betty took a swig of liquor. “Piece of cake. I use my real first name. That way I don’t forget what my name is supposed to be when people talk to me. The beauty of using a disabled person’s identity is she’ll never find out what I’ve done. And her caregivers never had a clue. Dumbasses.” Betty brayed and chugged from the bottle.
Stunned, Sarah gaped at her. Poor sweet little Ida, she believed in the best of everyone.
Betty snorted. "I know people better than psychologists do. I never steal from a mark until they trust me completely. Ida truly believed I was deaf, half-blind, and slow-witted. I heard all her phone conversations and read every important piece of paper in the house. I found out how wealthy the old gal was and the fact she was leaving it all to you and your alkie mother.”
Her mother had been suspicious of Betty from the start. The cleaning lady's inability to understand sign language had been a big red flag to Ethel. Sarah’s stomach knotted. “Did you attack my mother?”
“That woman is hard-headed. She wouldn’t come outside until we tied the damn dog to a bush and started beating him. Once he started yelping, she flew out there to save him. I yanked that cane right out of her hand. The rest, as they say, is history. Don’t worry. We’ll get over to Shady Rest and finish her off after we’re done with you.”
Biting her lip, Sarah struggled to keep her emotions under control. Her mother hadn’t gone out to stash her bottles. She’d rushed out to save Winston. Once again, she had underestimated her mother and the intensity of her love. She would never, ever make that mistake again. She heard herself speaking with a southern accent that only came out when she was enraged. “I still don’t understand how you expect to get Aunt Ida’s money. You’re not making any sense.”
“You are dumber than a rock. I’ll speak slowly so you can read my lips. By the time we’re done tonight, Ida will have no living benefactors. All that money shouldn’t go to waste, right?” The brassy blonde snickered and swigged at the bottle. “We decided her beloved housekeeper, Betty, was much more deserving. And Ida Katz has agreed. In fact, she’s in our basement, waiting to do her final paperwork. Just as soon as we get rid of you and your mother, so she has no reason to keep fighting us.”
“Yeah,” Patrick said. “Then I get to kill the old bag. I can’t wait to get even with her for poking that pen in my eye.”
“You’ll never get away with this!”
Betty glanced at the kitchen clock. “Oh, look at the time. You need to write your suicide note, missy.”
Patrick grinned at his wife and took another swig from the bottle.
“Let’s see, where’s a paper and pen?” Betty looked around. “There’s a piece of paper right next to you on the counter. I bet there’s even a pen.”
Sarah turned around and stared at the counter, looking for a weapon. The knife block was gone, along with every other small appliance on the counter. Everything had been taken by the police. Stall for time. “You have to tell me what to write. I’ve never written a suicide note.”
“Tisk, tisk. All that education and you can’t write a suicide note?” Betty laughed and hiccupped. “Okay, here’s what you write: I killed my aunt. I can’t live with myself. Please forgive me. Sign your name.” She hiccupped again.
“I can’t see to write. I need better light.”
“Patrick, you have a flashlight, don’t you?” He handed Betty the bottle, fished in his pockets, and handed Sarah a penlight.
“Stop dragging your feet and write the note.”
She wrote for a few minutes and then stopped. “How do you spell psychopath?”
“Write the note or I’ll shoot you one piece at a time, starting with your foot.” Patrick aimed the gun at her shoe.
“No. Don’t shoot. I’ll write the letter.” Sweat running down her back, Sarah started over, writing in tiny print everything they had told her, minus her confession and suicide note. In the distance, she could have sworn she heard a dog barking. Her pulse raced and she took her time finishing the note.
“C'mon," her nemesis snarled. “We ain't got all day.”
The yapping grew louder. Please, God, let that be Winston with help.
She turned to hand him the note and the kitchen door crashed into Patrick’s back, knocking him onto the floor face first. The gun flew out of his hands and landed at Sarah’s feet.
The blessed sound of Winston's baying filled the kitchen.
“Goddammit!” Patrick shouted over the din.
Betty fell on her butt and started laughing so hard she couldn’t stand. “Hellup, I fall, can’t geddup!”
Winston stood on Patrick’s back, growling and snapping at him like a feral dog. A violent struggle between man and beast ensued. Howling yelps of pain filled the small kitchen as thuds of human fists connected with canine flesh.
Sarah shrieked, “Don’t hurt my dog.”
Enraged and out of control, Patrick didn’t’ stop. The moonlight revealed him on his feet, pounding at Winston, punching him over and over and over again.
The dog twisted left and right, trying to avoid the brutal kicks. The dog couldn't last much longer.
She had to do something, anything. What could she do? The gun. Where was the gun? She scrabbled at the floor and found the .22.
Winston's howling had become a high-pitched whine, like the sound of a crying baby. If she didn't do something, the sadist would kill him. She had no choice.
An ear-splitting blast filled the room, and Patrick fell to the floor, shrieking. Sarah’s ears rang. She looked down at her hands. She'd only wanted to stop him. Had she killed him?
“Sarah,” Dan shouted as he ran into the kitchen.
Sidearm drawn, Officer Mike pushed Dan and pointed his weapon at Sarah.
She dropped the Ruger, put her hands on her head and yelled, “I know where Aunt Ida is.”
She raced through the story, emphasizing that the elderly woman needed medical attention.
“You can put your hands down,” Officer Mike said. He turned and called out the door. “Hey, Pollack, get in he
re. We have the location of a kidnapping vic.”
Dan went to her side and put his arms around her. “Shh. It’s okay, you’re fine.”
“What made you come?” She hugged him for dear life.
“I went back to the hotel and you and Winston weren’t there. I found your cell phone on the ground in the parking lot. When I saw Aunt Ida’s name in the phone log, I had a feeling you’d come home to look for her.” He patted her back. “I saw Winston running down the street, and I knew something had to be wrong. I called 9-1-1. They told me to wait outside, not to do anything. Winston had other ideas.”
Betty and Patrick were handcuffed and kept at separate ends of the kitchen. Patrick lay on his side, moaning and cursing while Officer Mike examined him. Officer Pollack was on his cell phone.
Officer Mike rose to his feet. “Remember when I called you the other day and wanted to speak to you?”
“Yes. I was awful. I’m sorry.” Sarah glanced at Dan. “Someone told me I should have listened to you.”
“I wanted to tell you that while we wrapped up the crime scene inside your aunt’s house, another officer found a white van with a broken headlight a block over towards Stevenson. It was gone by the time we got the list.”
“And?” Sarah asked.
“That van was registered to an electrical contractor, Patrick Reed, a career criminal recently released from the Maryland State Penitentiary. Officer Pollack and I have been making extra patrols of this neighborhood to see if he’d come back. We didn’t see the van tonight.”
“Getting to be a liability,” Betty said in a slurred voice. “We got a car.” She hiccupped.
“Shaddup,” Patrick said, his voice muffled by the floor.
Betty cackled, hiccupped, and fell over.
“I don’t think either of these two is in any condition to make a statement. Nice shot. You got him in the butt. He’ll live. What have they been drinking?”
“I think they found my mother’s private stock of Johnny Walker Black,” Sarah answered. “The bottle’s over there on the floor. I don’t think they knew she’d added GHB to her whiskeys. They don’t seem to be used to that particular blend.” Mom, the mixologist, Sarah thought. Ethel's house special probably helped save Sarah's life. The brew evened the odds a bit when the drug hit Betty and turned her into an uncoordinated pile of giggles.
Some Other Child Page 21