Sleuthing Women

by Lois Winston

  “And if there aren’t any bugs?”

  “We’ll get to the source of this one way or another.”

  “Before or after he harms my family?”

  “We won’t let it come to that.”

  And she expected me to believe her? “You’ve got police in several jurisdictions working together, and Ricardo managed to outsmart all of you. What makes you think you’ll even get another shot at nabbing him?”

  “He’s greedy. He wants his money, and he’s made it clear he’ll stop at nothing to get it.”

  “Oh, that makes me feel so much better. Good night, Detective. I’m off to have a nightmare or two or twelve.” I hung up the phone and headed for bed, but sleep—nightmare-filled or otherwise—proved elusive.

  ~*~

  At six-thirty the next morning, the doorbell rang. Dragging my sleep-deprived body out of bed, I tossed on a robe, pulled on a pair of thick socks, and padded to the front door. Batswin and Robbins stood on the porch. “A little early for a house call, isn’t it, Detectives?”

  “We came for the money,” said Batswin.

  I motioned them inside. “I wanted to give it back last night. Why now?”

  “We were in the neighborhood,” said Robbins.

  I got the impression he and Batswin had rehearsed this encounter before ringing my doorbell. They had screwed up big-time. Their visit to retrieve the money was Step One in their Cover Our Tushes cover-up.

  Robbins unzipped his bomber jacket. The brown leather looked like it had seen combat back in Vietnam—if not Korea. Underneath, he wore an equally worn pair of jeans, a denim button-down shirt, and an Inspector Gadget tie. A Yankees baseball cap covered his balding head; brown leather gloves covered his hands.

  Batswin wore a turquoise and emerald ski jacket, complete with a Hunter Mountain lift tag hanging from the zipper pull, over a pair of acid-washed jeans. No hat. No gloves. Silver and black onyx fetish bears dangled from her ears. She kept her jacket zipped.

  I doubted Robbins’s explanation. Westfield was out of their jurisdiction. Besides, they certainly didn’t look dressed for duty. The detectives didn’t want me handing the money over last night because they feared the Essex County cops would discover the phony Franklins used as bait.

  Most likely, they’d taken the fifty grand without even signing for it. They probably planned to slip the money back into the evidence room this morning and not say a word about the missing two hundred dollars. After all, what were the odds of someone actually counting every counterfeit bill in each counterfeit stack?

  “Where’s the money?” asked Batswin.

  “In the kitchen.”

  I headed down the hall. They followed. “I’d offer you a cup of coffee,” I said, opening the freezer and pulling out the Burberry bag, “but Ricardo stole my coffee pot.” Besides, I wanted them gone before anyone else woke. Explaining Batswin’s and Robbins’s presence held as much appeal as a day at the endodontist.

  Neither commented on my hiding place. Robbins took the bag from me.

  “What about the receipt?” asked Batswin.

  I pointed to the tote. “Inside. Along with a signed I.O.U. for the money I borrowed.”

  She grimaced.

  Without another word, they both headed back toward the living room.

  I followed. “What happens now?”

  “We’ll wait for Ricardo to make the next move,” said Batswin.

  “What about the murder investigation? Am I still a suspect?”

  They both paused at the front door and turned toward me. Robbins, his free hand poised on the doorknob, cleared his throat. “We’re not at liberty to discuss that.”

  I glanced at the bag of counterfeit money dangling from his hand. I knew something that could plunge Batswin and Robbins into deep doo-doo. They knew I knew. Maybe that would give them incentive to get off my back and concentrate their investigation elsewhere.

  I closed the door behind them and headed back to bed. Five minutes later the phone rang. “Hello?”

  “Mrs. Pollack?

  “Yes?”

  “This is Angie at the We Care Animal Clinic. You can pick up your pets this morning.”

  “They’re okay?”

  “Fine. Doc ran a few tests to be sure, but it looks like they were only doped with Dimetapp.”

  “Cold syrup?”

  “It’s got the same ingredient they put in over-the-counter sleeping pills. Apparently, your robber didn’t intend to kill your pets, just put them to sleep for awhile.”

  “A real animal lover,” I muttered.

  Too bad Ricardo didn’t extend the same consideration to higher order primates. I doubted he merely intended to slip my kids a Mickey and tuck them into bed. Not after trussing them up like a pair of Christmas turkeys and dumping them in the bathtub last night.

  “By the way,” said the receptionist, “the bill comes to three hundred twenty-seven dollars.”

  More good news. “Why so much?”

  “Tests, boarding, and flea dip for all.”

  “They had fleas?”

  “The dog did. We dipped the cat and parrot as a precautionary measure.”

  “Fleas in the middle of winter?”

  “It happens from time to time. You’d better check your house, especially any of Manifesto’s favorite curling up places.”

  Just what I needed. I don’t know why I should have been surprised, considering the current state of my Karma, or lack of it.

  Have I mentioned that Lucille believes flea collars are a capitalist conspiracy to force hard-earned dollars from the hands of animal lovers throughout the country? When the dear Lord was handing out the Rational Gene, my mother-in-law must have been off protesting the use of In God We Trust on our currency.

  So now her skewed sense of righteousness had cost me more of my hard-earned—not to mention bordering on nonexistent—dollars. Thanks to Ricardo’s pilfering fingers, I could count on neither Mama nor Lucille to kick in anything toward the vet bill. I had a few piddling dollars left to my name. I hung up, hoping I could spring the beasties with a post-dated check.

  I also hoped that if there were any fleas residing in my house, they’d all hitched a ride on Ricardo as he helped himself to our possessions.

  ~*~

  Mama and Lucille insisted on accompanying me to the animal hospital. I wanted to sneak off without telling them, but the dog and cat carriers were stored in the closet in their room. So the three of us, along with the feline and canine transporters and Ralph’s birdcage, bundled up and shoehorned ourselves into the Hyundai for the fifteen-minute drive to the We Care Animal Clinic.

  The car coughed and sputtered as I turned the ignition key and depressed the gas pedal. As the Hyundai chugged to life, the needle on the gauge dipped toward the red pump icon. I detoured into the first gas station we came to, pulling out two minutes later with five gallons of gas in the tank and less than two dollars left in my wallet.

  When we arrived at the animal hospital, Lucille refused to place Mephisto in his doggie transport. “He hates the carrier, and he’s traumatized enough after last night.”

  She clasped him to her chest and nuzzled the top of his head. The Devil Dog squirmed and whined. “See? Poor baby. Don’t worry. Mother’s here,” she sang, clutching him even tighter.

  He yelped.

  One of these days she’s going to love that dog to death with those Arnold Schwarzenegger arms of hers. I was too tired to argue about the carrier. I grabbed Ralph’s cage in one hand and the empty dog carrier in the other. “Fine. Make sure he stays on your lap.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Mama. “If that beast doesn’t have to go in a carrier, why should Catherine the Great suffer? She has claustrophobia, you know.”

  Since when do cats suffer from claustrophobia? “Mama, it’s only a fifteen minute drive.”

  “She won’t know that. Look at her. She’s far more traumatized than that...” She pointed to Mephisto. “...that mutt.”

  F
rankly, neither Mephisto nor Catherine the Great appeared anything close to traumatized. They both looked like they’d spent the night at The Golden Door Spa. “Fine, but it’s up to the two of you to keep them separated and contained in the back seat. The last thing I need is a dog and cat fight while I’m driving.”

  “Stand, stand and fight!” squawked Ralph. “Cymbeline, Act Five, Scene Two.”

  Another county heard from. I raised his cage until we were eye-to-eye. “Don’t you dare egg them on.”

  As it turned out, Mephisto and Catherine the Great behaved fairly well throughout the ride home. They only occasionally growled and hissed at each other. Too bad the same couldn’t be said for Mama and Lucille. They squabbled and bickered non-stop.

  Shades of he-touched-me/did-not/did-too arguments between a five-year-old and his seven-year-old brother flashed before my eyes. In retrospect, I think Nick and Alex were better behaved on their worst day than their grandmothers at their best. Relief surged through me as I turned the Hyundai onto our street.

  Until I pulled into my driveway.

  TWENTY-SIX

  “Omigod!” I stared at the moving van parked in my driveway. “It’s Saturday.” The day Zachary Barnes was moving into the apartment above the garage. The apartment I still hadn’t gotten around to emptying and cleaning.

  “What’s going on now?” asked Mama. She unlocked her seatbelt and wedged her head, shoulders, and half of Catherine the Great between the two front bucket seats.

  “Move over. I can’t see,” said Lucille. She shoved Mama back and over to the side.

  Mama jabbed Lucille with her shoulder. “Get your commie pinko paws off me!”

  Annoyed by the jostling, Catherine the Great took a swipe at Mephisto. He bared his teeth and snapped at her. She jumped out of Mama’s arms and bounded into the front passenger seat, landing on top of Ralph’s cage. Ralph beat his wings against the wire mesh and let loose with a rapid-fire series of ear-piercing squawks.

  “Who’s that man with the police?” Lucille yelled over the din as she pushed Mama aside and shoved her own torso between the bucket seats. “Why is there a moving van parked in the driveway?”

  My new tenant stood off to the side, clutching a cup of coffee. He appeared to be having an extremely animated conversation with the two cops who were supposed to be keeping an eye on my property.

  I maneuvered myself around Lucille and one by one, pried Catherine the Great’s claws off the bars of Ralph’s cage, trying my best to hold each freed paw to prevent her from reattaching herself.

  “He’s renting the apartment above the garage,” I told Lucille as I passed Mama’s cat back to her.

  “The apartment that by rights should be mine,” said Lucille, “considering the exorbitant rent you’re charging me. Extortion. That’s what it is. My son never would have let you get away with taking advantage of me like this.”

  “Your son was the one who got my daughter into this mess,” said Mama.

  “Lies,” said Lucille. “Nothing but lies.”

  I ignored her. When it came to Karl, Lucille lived in her own private world of delusion. She should only know he’d tried to kill her. And when that failed, how he stole her life’s savings, killing three innocent people along the way.

  But as much as I itched to tell her, I wasn’t that cruel. Let her keep believing in Saint Karl—if Bolsheviks could believe in saints. I wished I had the luxury of assuming my husband was the man I thought he was.

  “Oh, it’s that handsome Zachary Barnes from the other night,” said Mama, strained her neck for a better view. “If only I were a few years younger...”

  Lucille snorted.

  Mephisto growled.

  Catherine the Great yowled.

  Ralph continued to squawk.

  Zachary Barnes strode his angry Pierce Brosnan-George Clooney-Patrick Dempsey-Antonio Banderas good looks toward the driver’s side of my car. The police followed close behind him. I exited the Hyundai to meet them.

  Lucille grunted her way out of the back seat and hobbled toward the house, her cane pounding the frozen earth with each labored step. As she passed us, Mephisto growled at the officers. Lucille glared at all three men but zeroed in on Zack. “Thief!”

  The officers turned to Zack. “Well?” said one, as Lucille doddered past them.

  Zack opened his mouth to protest. “Look, I—”

  “Ignore them.” Mama, embracing Catherine the Great, rounded the car to stand beside me. She gestured with a jut of her chin toward Lucille. “They’re communists. You know how they are.”

  All three men turned their heads to watch Lucille huff and puff her way up the back porch steps. “The dog, too?” asked one of the officers.

  “Of course,” said Mama. “French bulldog, my patootie. That dog’s as Russian as the Kremlin.”

  I steered Mama toward the house. “Why don’t you take Catherine the Great inside?”

  “You may need me, dear.”

  About as much as I needed a migraine, sciatica, and a case of hemorrhoids all at once.

  The back door of the house slammed behind Lucille. Zack transferred his attention to me. “For someone who was so worried that I’d back out of our lease agreement, you sure provided a strange welcoming committee. I arrived to find you not home and some of Westfield’s finest accusing me of criminal activity.”

  I flinched. The man was one very unhappy camper this morning. But could I blame him? “We sort of had another incident last night.”

  “So I figured.”

  “And I sort of didn’t get a chance to clean the apartment because of it.”

  From inside the closed car, Ralph continued to squawk. Even though I’d placed the door of his cage against the seat back, he’d somehow managed to rotate the cage enough to pick the lock and escape. He loudly berated us from his perch on the steering wheel.

  The cops leaned forward and stared through the windshield. “I’ll be damned,” said the second officer. “A parrot!” He tapped on the windshield with his fingernail. “Polly want a cracker?”

  Ralph hopped onto the dash and pecked at him through the glass. If it’s one thing my Shakespeare-pontificating parrot hates, it’s being reminded he’s only a parrot.

  Zack stepped closer to me, until our toes nearly touched. “Look, Anastasia, I don’t care if you didn’t get a chance to polish the doorknobs, okay? I just need to get my stuff into the apartment or the movers are going to dump it all in the driveway and take off.”

  “Doorknob polishing? Believe me, doorknob polishing is so low on my list of priorities that you’d need a bulldozer to unearth it.”

  Mama pushed me aside and stepped between us. “Now, Zachary dear, don’t twist your knickers. You’ll give yourself a stroke. Believe me, I know about these things. My late husband Seamus O’Keefe, bless his dearly departed soul, died of a cerebral aneurysm. You’re far too young and handsome to follow in his footsteps. Not that Seamus wasn’t handsome, mind you, but you never know if you’re a ticking time bomb, as the doctors later told me—”

  “Mama, please go inside.”

  “You know this man, Mrs. Pollack?” asked the officer who’d questioned Mephisto’s political leanings.

  “Yes. He’s renting the apartment above the garage.” I turned to Zack. “I’m sorry for the chaos. Please come inside and warm up.”

  Zack turned to the police. “You guys satisfied I’m not some serial killer?”

  “Just doing our job,” said the officer. He grabbed his partner by the arm and headed down the driveway. “We’ll be in the car if you need us, Mrs. Pollack.”

  Zack called to the men sitting in the idling moving van. “You can start unloading the truck, fellas. I’ll be out in a minute.”

  “About time,” said the driver.

  Before leading Zack into the house, I climbed back into the Hyundai and grabbed Ralph off the dashboard, tucking him under my coat to keep him warm.

  “Why the police surveillance?” asked Zack. �
��Exactly what happened?”

  “Long story.”

  “Some awful man taped us up and stuffed us in the bathtub last night,” said Mama. “And he nearly killed Catherine the Great.”

  Zack looked at Mama as if she’d had one too many white Russians. “Catherine the Great died several hundred years ago,” he said.

  “The cat,” I told him. “That’s her name. And the vet said that creep only fed the animals enough cold syrup to put them to sleep, Mama. Climb down from your drama queen podium.”

  “Really, Anastasia!” She stroked her cheek against Catherine the Great’s fur. “How would a deviant like that know how much cold medicine is too much? And why would he even care? He could have killed her. Poor sweet thing. And then to have to put up with that vicious Marxist mongrel trying to attack her. It’s all been too much for her.”

  “Marxist mongrel? I think I’m going to need a scorecard,” said Zack.

  “He belongs to my mother-in-law. She’s the one who called you a thief a minute ago. You didn’t meet her the other night. She and the Demon Dog were off sulking in her room.”

  “They’re communists,” said Mama.

  Zack gave her an odd look but addressed me, “Speaking of thief, I take it your two-by-fours didn’t do the job?”

  “That sneaky Pete rang the bell,” said Mama. “When I opened the door, he stuck a huge gun in my face. Can you imagine?”

  “The bastard wiped us out,” I said. “Down to our last jar of peanut butter and bag of cat food.”

  We entered the house, and I released Ralph from the confines of my coat. He flew up to the curtain rod above the sink window.

  “I didn’t noticed the parrot before,” said Zack.

  “He was watching PBS in my bedroom. Ralph’s a sucker for anything starring Helen Mirren. Reminds him of my Great-aunt Penelope.”

  “He has free reign of the house?”

  “Not to worry,” I assured him. “Ralph’s housebroken.”

  “You’re kidding! Is that even possible?”

  “Ralph’s a very unusual bird.”

  “And show the world what the bird hath done,” squawked Ralph, as if to prove my point. “As You Like It. Act Four, Scene One.”