Sleuthing Women

by Lois Winston

  “He didn’t leave us with so much as a lousy cornflake!” I said.

  I wanted to throw myself on the linoleum and kick and scream like an overtired two year old, but I contained my tantrum to an adult-like two-fisted pummeling of the refrigerator door. In hindsight, considering the size of the dent I created, I should have gone with my first and baser instinct.

  “He was here a long time,” said Mama. “Surely one of the neighbors saw him carrying stuff out the front door and can give the police a description.”

  “Yeah, Mom,” said Nick. “Batty Bentworth probably even wrote down his license plate number. You know what a busybody snoop she is.”

  Fogarty grimaced. “We know all about Mrs. Bentworth. She calls at least once a day to report alien sightings. No one at the station pays attention to her.”

  “Maybe you should this time,” said Mama.

  Fogarty shook his head. “We’ll check it out, but most likely the perp pulled a truck around to the back before ringing the front doorbell. He wouldn’t have been seen from the street, and you have high shrubbery masking the yard from your next door neighbors.”

  “He also may not have been here as long as you think,” added Harley.

  “But it had to take hours to empty the house,” I said.

  “He probably had help,” said Fogarty. He turned to Mama and the boys. “Did it ever sound like more than one person was in the house? Did you hear him speaking to anyone?”

  “I couldn’t hear much of anything,” said Nick.

  “Me, neither,” added Alex.

  Mama scrunched up her face and shook her head. “Not with the way that woman was carrying on with her grunting and groaning.”

  “This guy is a real sicko,” said Harley. “We’d better check the garage and apartment. He probably hit those, as well.”

  I turned to reach for the keys I kept on a hook by the phone. They weren’t there.

  Harley and Fogarty, their hands poised on their guns, headed out into the back yard.

  “I’m starving,” said Nick.

  “What are we gonna eat?” asked Alex.

  He and Nick began to open and inspect the contents of every cupboard and drawer, for what I couldn’t imagine. It wasn’t like I hid Hershey bars inside the crock-pot. Not that we still had a crock-pot. Ricardo—and at this point I had absolutely no doubt the burglar was Ricardo—had helped himself to all the small appliances, as well. However, my normally reasonable and understanding sons reverted to whining babies when hungry. And like babies, they needed feeding every two to three hours or things got ugly.

  Having checked every nook and cranny of the kitchen, the boys moved on to the mudroom. “Jeez, Mom! He even took the dog and cat food.”

  “And Ralph’s bird seed,” added Alex.

  I let loose a string of four-letter words that made Mama blush. “Anastasia!”

  Too bad. Between the few dollars in my wallet and the forty left in my checking account, I might be able to feed three adults and two teenagers for a day or two. Tops.

  Trimedia cut payroll checks every two weeks. I wouldn’t see another dime until next Thursday. I’d never stretch fifty dollars or so until then. And that left nothing for the menagerie. Not to mention gas for the car.

  And I didn’t even want to think about the vet bill. Mama and Lucille were responsible for Catherine the Great and Devil Dog, but what would the vet charge for the care and feeding of a Prozac-riddled parrot?

  Harley and Fogarty returned, shaking their heads. “Looks like he helped himself to anything of value,” said Harley. “If I remember, you had a computer in the apartment, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s gone. So’s the lawn mower and snow thrower. I don’t remember what else you had in the garage in the way of garden gizmos. If you had a leaf blower, he helped himself to that, too.”

  “We’ll need a list of the missing items,” said Fogarty. So will the insurance company.”

  I wondered how long it took our homeowner’s policy to pay out a claim on a robbery. I was still waiting for a check from the damage Ricardo inflicted Monday.

  In all the years of owning the house, we’d never had to place ourselves in the insurance company’s trademark good hands. Now, two claims in a week. I wondered how much that would increase my premium—assuming the good hands people didn’t simply wipe their hands of me, since I was fast becoming an extremely poor risk.

  We had to eat. I saw but one option. “Mama, I’m going to need to borrow some money.”

  “Don’t worry, dear, I’ll get my purse.”

  She headed for the bedroom.

  The rest of us returned to the living room where Lucille waited impatiently, her arms still folded across her chest, her mouth set in its classic grimace. I explained the latest catastrophe, adding, “I’ll need to borrow whatever you’ve got in the way of cash in order to buy food for all of us.”

  “Only if you promise to buy Manifesto’s regular food, not that cheap dry crap you forced on him.”

  Unfortunately, I knew she was serious. Mephisto came before her grandchildren. “Be reasonable, Lucille. A can of that stuff costs as much as a quart of milk.”

  “He’s having digestive problems, thanks to your selfishness!”

  And I was getting a whopper of an ulcer thanks to her. “Look, Lucille—”

  Before I could finish, Mama returned empty-handed from the bedroom. “My purse is missing,” she said. “My wallet. My credit cards. My check book. My passport. All gone.”

  “And Lucille’s purse?” I asked.

  Mama shook her head.

  “Now what do we do?” asked Nick.

  “You can have whatever I’ve got, Mom. Alex reached into the back pocket of his jeans. His jaw dropped. “I don’t believe it! That creep pinched my wallet.”

  Nick checked his pocket. “Mine, too.”

  That left me with no choice. I couldn’t let my family starve to death. Not when I had fifty-thousand dollars in marked bills locked in my car. Batswin and Robbins would have to understand.

  Fogarty and Harley waited for back-up to take their place watching the house, then left to file their report. As soon as they were gone, I scrawled an IOU on a scrap of paper and added it to the envelope with the Burberry receipt. Then I removed two crisp hundred dollar bills from one of the stacks and stuck the envelope in the tote with the money.

  But the thought of continuing to ride around with fifty thousand dollars in a car without an alarm system creeped me out. So I decided to freeze the assets. Literally. After stuffing the money-laden tote in the empty freezer, I headed for the nearest twenty-four hour supermarket.

  ~*~

  At ten-thirty on a Friday night, most people had better things to do than push a shopping cart up and down the aisles of ShopRite. Once upon a time when I led a predictably normal suburban, middle-class life, I was one of them. No more. I sailed up one aisle and down the next of the near-empty supermarket, filling my cart with low-priced store brands. Cheap was good. Cheap on sale was even better.

  As I stood in front of the spaghetti aisle, studying the little shelf labels to figure out which brand was the best bargain per pound, my cell phone rang. I fished it out of my purse and looked at the display. Private Call. Not a good sign. I pushed the button. “Hello?”

  “You set me up, bitch.”

  Even though I was prepared to hear it, I nearly dropped the phone at the sound of Ricardo’s menacing voice. “No! I went to the mall. I did everything like you said. I waited. You never called.”

  “The mall was crawling with cops. I warned you not to tell anyone.”

  “I didn’t!”

  “So they just happened to be hanging around for the hell of it, huh?”

  “I have your money.”

  “In marked bills, no doubt. I wasn’t born yesterday, Sweet Cheeks. I’ve been keeping an eye on you. I know what you’ve been up to.”

  “You’ve got it all wrong.”

  “Oh yeah? H
ow many other people in Westfield have their phones bugged and cops watching their houses?”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I told you. I’ve been keeping an eye on you. I even know where you are right now. No food in the house, huh?”

  I gasped, spinning around to check up and down the aisle. I saw no one except a bored-looking teenage clerk stocking cans of tomato sauce, and he wasn’t talking on a phone.

  Even though I suspected Ricardo had broken into my house, assaulted my family, drugged the pets, and robbed us blind, hearing him confirm it was like getting flattened by a Hummer. I leaned against the shelf of spaghetti for support. “You’ve taken everything I have. There’s nothing left. Leave me alone.”

  “What I took doesn’t even make a dent in what Karl owed me. I want my money.”

  “I don’t have it!”

  “Look, Sweet Cheeks, I know Karl had the money. I helped him get it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your husband was one mean son of a bitch. I really admired him for that. Balls of steel. Lousy gambler, though. Too bad he had to die. I was racking up a nice piece of change from all those sucker bets he placed. The sap couldn’t pick a winner if it sat on his head.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “You know that accident his mother had? The hit-and-run on Queens Boulevard?”

  “What about it?”

  “That was no accident. It was a set-up to knock her off so Karl could get his hands on the money she had stashed in her apartment.”

  My brain went numb. A sickening feeling settled in my stomach. “Karl tried to kill his mother?”

  “His idea but I drove. So’s he wouldn’t chicken out at the last minute. Amateurs. You never know if you can trust ‘em or not.

  “That broad’s one tough bitch, though. And lucky. I woulda nailed her good except some SOB in a pickup cut me off at the last minute. So’s I only wound up winging her.

  “Then Karl, he comes up with another plan. While she’s in the hospital, he helps himself to the dough, then torches the place to cover up the theft.”

  “I don’t believe you. Karl wouldn’t do something like that. You’re lying.”

  He snickered. “They always say the wife’s the last to know.”

  My legs gave way, and I slumped to the floor. A wave of nausea swept over me. Eighteen years of marriage and no clues I’d shared a bed with a lying, cheating, murdering Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. “Three people died in that fire.”

  “We all gotta go sometime, Sweet Cheeks.” He paused for a moment, then continued, “Some sooner than later, if you get my drift.”

  I got it all right. And it set my heart pounding into my throat.

  “So’s you see, I know Karl had the money.”

  “Why didn’t he give it to you right away? Karl died weeks after that fire.”

  “The cops picked me up on some bogus warrant. Took a while to get sprung. Good for nothing shit lawyers. When I got out, I contacted Karl. We made arrangements for him to hand over the dough. Only he never showed.”

  No, instead Karl had hopped a plane to Las Vegas. I suppose all that money sitting around for weeks had been too much of a temptation for him. Then, after he gambled away Ricardo’s money, Karl dropped dead, leaving me to deal with Lucille, the debt, the bills, and Ricardo.

  “Why are you telling me all this?”

  “So’s you know I mean business, Sweet Cheeks. You want to keep your kids healthy, you come up with the money.”

  “How? I’m broke. Karl left me destitute. There’s no insurance money. He drained our bank accounts. Maxed out the credit cards.”

  “Not my problem, Sweet Cheeks. Sell the house if you have to.”

  “The bank will take the profit to pay off the home equity loan.”

  “There is another way,” he said.

  “What?”

  “I have some friends you could go work for. Evenings. Weekends. Easy money.” He sniggered. “They run a service-type business. Classy looking broad like you could work off that debt in no time.”

  I shuddered at the suggestion. “Tempting as the offer sounds, thanks but no thanks. I’ll find some other way to raise the money.”

  “I ain’t got forever, Sweet Cheeks, and I’m still not convinced you ain’t got the dough stashed someplace. But hey, I got a soft spot for brunettes. Since you’re new to all this, I’ll cut you a break. You got one more week. But this time you keep your trap shut. I find you working with the cops again, and the deal’s off. Capisce?”

  He hung up before I could answer.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Dinner that night consisted of store-brand peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on day-old, half-priced bread. Carrot sticks on the side with a milk chaser. Quick, cheap, and covering all of the major food groups. So I didn’t feel too guilty, especially since I’d bought whole wheat bread instead of white.

  Something Ricardo had said kept niggling at the edges of my exhausted brain cells. As I munched on my sandwich, I replayed the conversation in my head. “He knew too much!” I said, slapping my hand on the table.

  “Who knew too much?” asked Alex.

  “Dad?” asked Nick.

  Lucille leaned forward on her tree trunk arms and leveled one of her trademark narrow-eyed glowers at him. “Don’t you dare blame my son for anything, young man. If your father were still alive—”

  “He’d be making even more of a mess than the one he left behind.” Mama rose from the table and carried her empty plate and glass to the sink. “God forbid we blame the saintly Karl Marx Pollack for anything.”

  “Mama...”

  She spun around. “Why pussyfoot around the subject, Anastasia? Karl hoodwinked you. But what can you expect, considering he was raised by a traitor?” She jabbed a finger toward Lucille. “No Christian values. Total disregard for the law. A lack of respect for this wonderful country of ours. Under the circumstances, the man didn’t stand a chance of developing proper morals.”

  Lucille’s face darkening to an extremely unbecoming shade of magenta. “Traitor? I’ll have you know that as a communist, I fight for democracy!”

  Alex and Nick traded uncomprehending glances. “That doesn’t make sense,” said Alex. “How can—?”

  “Enough!” I jumped to my feet. “I wasn’t talking about Karl.”

  Puzzlement settled over Mama’s face. “Then who?”

  “Never mind.” I snatched my purse off the kitchen counter, fished inside for my cell phone and Batswin’s card, then headed for the back door. “I have to make a call.”

  The furrows of bafflement on Mama’s forehead deepened. “Outside?”

  “Definitely outside.” There were only two ways Ricardo could have known as much as he did. Either he’d planted a bug in my house, or he had inside help.

  Under the yellow glow of the back porch light, I punched in Detective Batswin’s number. “Not only did your great plan fail,” I said when she answered, “but now I’m in worse shape financially than I was before I let you talk me into playing a bag lady.”

  “Calm down, Mrs. Pollack. There could be any number of reasons why he didn’t show tonight,” she said. “He’ll contact you to set up another drop. We’ll nab him then.”

  “He’s on to you, Detective.”

  “What do you mean?”

  I began to recount the evening’s events from when I left the mall. “By the way, I had to borrow two hundred dollars from the money you gave me to buy food for my family.”

  She groaned. “Those were counterfeit bills.”

  “Counterfeit?” Angry cloud puffs of breath hung in the air as I shouted into the phone. “You told me they were marked! Even I know the difference.”

  “It wouldn’t have made a difference if you’d followed orders.”

  “You’re out to get me one way or the other, aren’t you? If you can’t pin Marlys’s murder on me, you’ll arrest me for passing bogus bills. What gives, Batswin? You down a few arrests on your
monthly collaring quota? Bucking for a promotion?”

  “This has nothing to do with me. The counterfeit bills were available.”

  “Available? You just happened to have fifty grand in counterfeit bills lying around the station?”

  “It’s evidence from another case. We borrowed it. It was quicker and easier than getting our hands on marked bills. You have any idea what kind of red tape that involves? Besides, you weren’t supposed to spend any of that money.”

  “I had no choice! Ricardo stole every crumb of food in my house. Even the pet food.”

  “You don’t know Ricardo was the thief. According to the Westfield police, there’ve been a rash of burglaries in your area lately.”

  “He called me.”

  “Ricardo?”

  “No, Antonio Banderas.”

  “When? We didn’t pick anything up on your phone.”

  “That’s because he knows my phone is bugged.”

  “Impossible.”

  “Really? He called on my cell a little while ago. Bragged about knowing everything—including your sting. I’m lucky he only robbed me blind tonight instead of killing my kids and mother.” I rubbed my arms and stamped my feet to ward off the cold from both the winter night and the sickening dread infiltrating my body.

  Batswin grew defensive and accusatory, probably because she was now up to her eyeballs in shit with her job on the line. I didn’t know much about police procedures, but I suspected “borrowing” evidence from one case to use in another was a humongous no-no.

  “He couldn’t have found out about the sting unless you mentioned it to someone,” she said. “We warned you not to say anything.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Then how the hell did he find out?”

  “You tell me, Detective. The way I see it, either he bugged the Trimedia conference room, or you’ve got a corrupt cop on the force.”

  When she didn’t respond, I thought the connection had gone dead, but finally she said, “I’ll have Trimedia swept for bugs and contact the Union County police to do a sweep of your property. If he’s planted any sort of spying devices, we’ll find them.”