A mental instant replay affirmed that yes, he was signing on. The Garvey Group was real. IdaClare was permanently off the emergency-employee list, but if push came to panic, there was always Delbert, Marge and the Schnurs.
Hannah nodded. "Ah-ay, Yack. I'ss a 'eal."
He pecked a kiss on her trout-puckered mouth. "Gotta go not surprise my mother. Thanks for the car, and tell David the world's second luckiest guy says hi."
* * *
Removing his white fedorathe same, exact model that Matlock wore on TVDelbert strolled into the First National Bank of Sanity's lobby at precisely 1158 hours. The lone weekend teller cut his eyes to the clock, as though willing the minute hand to snick two hash marks to the right, before he was forced to inquire, "May I help you?"
Delbert approached the counter and Clay S.whose name was written on the gold plastic tag pinned to his shirt pocketsaid to him, "That's, uh, some suit."
"Like it, eh?" Delbert flicked an imaginary dirt speck from his lapel. "This baby's a hundred percent pure seersucker with a gen-yew-ine silk lining. I guarantee, they don't make 'em like this anymore."
Clay S.'s head whipped sideward. He coughed loudly into his fist, making Delbert's ribs ache. "Hey, are you okay, son?"
The teller nodded, the flush gradually draining from his face. "Sorry. Something caught in my throat." Clearing it, he said, "Are you making a deposit? Need a check cashed?"
Delbert laid his hat on the counter, pulled his billfold from his pocket and fanned a wad of fifties and twenties across the counter. "Altogether, that's five C-notes. I want a cashier's check in exchange, payable to Chlorine Moody."
Clay S. counted the money, dividing it into equal stacks. "Five hundred dollars." He looked up, as though Delbert hadn't already told him how much was there.
"Uh-huh, that's the size of it. Now, about the cashier's check"
"Do you have an account with us?"
"No, but that's cash, sport." Delbert removed another twenty and pushed it forward. "And here's another Tom Jefferson to cover the fee for typing nine words, four letters and some hyphens on a ding-danged blank check."
Clay S. peered down his nose, which didn't appear to have yet been broken. "May I see some ID, please?"
The expletives raging through Delbert's mind ended in two-bit whippersnapper. He savvied that the kid had jumped the gun on tallying the morning's receipts and disbursements, thinking it'd get him out the door by 12:01. A last-minute transaction bollixed things, sure enough, but that's the way the cookie crumbled.
Timing was everything for this caper. Arriving just as the bank closed for the weekend wasn't coincidence.
"Here's the situation," Delbert said in a reasonable, but mano y mano tone. "You want me outa here. Me, I got better things to do, myself, but I ain't leaving without that check. Now, are you gonna get with it, or am I gonna hail whoever manages this joint on weekends when he moseys out from the back to lock that lobby door?"
Five minutes later, Delbert tipped his fedora to the foxy, hazel-eyed blonde securing the door behind him. 'Twas a crying shame that phase three of Operation: Royal Flush had to deploy tonight.
Story of a P.I.'s life, he thought. So many dames, so little time.
The next female face that eyed him through a glass door wore a pair of steel-rimmed trifocals. Her finger-waved hair was a drab bottle-brown, then hair-sprayed as stiff as a cheap wig. Delbert assumed the lick of gray brushed back from the crown was supposed to look jaunty.
The aluminum storm door opened about a foot. The escaping air smelled the same as when he'd cased the joint a few days agocool, and a little stale, but not unpleasant.
"Good afternoon, ma'am. Are you Mrs. Chlorine Moody?"
She eyed his classic summer-weight suit, white side-buckle shoes, and the metal clipboard in the crook of his arm. "Who wants to know?"
A wave of nervousness slammed Delbert so hard he thought she'd smacked him with the door. If he faltered, Code Name: Epsilon would be scrapped. He'd have put himself and Leo in danger for nothing.
He pulled his shoulders back and pasted on a confident smile. "I'm Frank Larson, of the Sanity Public Works Department."
Borrowing the name of a real city employee cadged off the municipal directory was an agonizing decision. If Clay S., or the foxy blonde at the bank, or Chlorine knew this Larson fella, it was all over. An alias would be safer in that respect, but if Chlorine got on the horn to somebody in the know, he might smell a scam. It was, of course, but Delbert had five hundred big ones invested in pulling it off.
"I've got nothing to say to anyone with the city." Chlorine's fingers tightened on the storm door's handle. "Get off my property and stay off."
The shoe Delbert surreptitiously planted at the bottom of the door held it fast. Still smiling, he showed her the cashier's checkin view, but out of reach.
Her eyeballs jittered as she read the pay-to-the-order-of line, then the amount, then the signature. Delbert didn't notice before he left the bank that Clay S. had typed C.P.D.W. under Larson's name, not C.P.W.D. for City Public Works Department. If Chlorine spotted the typo, he'd have to convince her the official designation was City Public Department of Works.
So far, the five hundred dollars made out in her name had her complete attention.
"I'm authorized to compensate you for your shrubs and fence. They're encroaching on the city's easement, but the department feels it's the neighborly thing to do."
"Neighborly?" she sneered. "Taking me for a fool is more like it. You idiots at city hall think I'm too simpleminded to see this for what it isa bribe, so's I'll drop my lawsuit against you. Well, my attorney will be hearing about this and"
"Excuse me," Delbert said, "but that's why I'm delivering this check, this afternoon." Which was true, in a manner of speaking. Banks, municipal and county offices, and Chlorine's hired shyster, judging by the answering machine at his office, were shuttered tighter than a convent.
It'd be Monday morning before she could contact anyone who'd pull the plug on his caper. If justice existed in this world, by tomorrow morning, she'd be eating breakfast off a foam jailhouse plate.
He continued, "I'm truly sorry to be the one to tell you, but right before court disconvened yesterday, the judge ruled your lawsuit null and void."
"What?" Seeing fear widen even an alleged murderer's eyes wasn't pleasant. Nor was it protracted. Recovering her wits in a blink, Chlorine pushed past him onto the porch. "That's a lie and you're trespassing." She shoved Delbert backward. "My attorney would've told me"
"He should have." Delbert stood his new ground. "Could be, Mr. Pratt thought he was doing you a kindness, waiting till Monday to tell you."
She started at his mention of her attorney's name. Lawsuits are public record, as any private detective knows. Well, those smart enough to do their homework at the clerk's office, anyhow.
Keeping the cashier's check in sight, but at arm's length, Delbert brandished a letter addressed to her printed on his gimcracking city stationery. "I'm further here to notify you of this alteration in the trench layout for the new gas line."
His fingertips underscored an indented paragraph. "As you can see, the project engineer is expanding the trench behind your property to install a K29-A Decompression Flange." Delbert tapped the bold-printed sentence declaring that construction would resume at 8:00 a.m. Sunday.
"You can't do that!" Chlorine blustered. "The city passed an ordinance years ago against construction work on the Sabbath. Any kind, shape or form." She pointed at the house across the street with the enclosed porch. "I've set the police on that godless heathen a half-dozen times for disturbing my peace." Her hand swept to the right. "And that one, the Sunday he started hammering a swing set together for those pickaninnies he's spawned."
Delbert struggled to contain his disgust. Except, Chlorine Moody was a human racist, not a garden-variety bigot. She hated everyoneherself includedso much that he almost tasted the bitterness exuding from her every pore.
Maybe he was wrong about a crime unpunished equaling twenty-three years of freedom.
"You're right about the ordinance," he said, "but it can be waived for extenuating circumstances. Cleanup from this week's storm damage, for one. The interest of public safety's another."
He nodded in the direction of the alley. "If a house caught fire along this block, trucks couldn't get in to fight it." Clucking his tongue, he surveyed Chlorine's immaculate siding, the porch's cobweb-free ceiling and vacuumed Astro Turf. "It'd be tragic for a home this fine to burn to the ground. A spark on the wind, though, and she'd be a goner."
Chlorine looked sicker than she did when he told her the lawsuit was thrown out. She'd sunk tens of thousands of dollars in the place from that game her husband invented. The prospect of watching it go up in smoke had her groping for a wall to support herself.
He laid the check atop the letter on the clipboard. From his suit's coat pocket, he removed a sheaf of brochures he'd collected en route to the bank. Whether they were the frosting on the bamboozle, or just mean-spirited, he didn't much care.
"Seeing how fond you are of roses," he said, "here's a couple of nurseries that specialize in 'em and literature from some fence companies. I'd say most of your chain link can be salvaged and reset after the trench is filled in."
The brochures were arranged on top of the counterfeit letter, with the check on top. Keeping your mark focused on the money was a con man's motto.
"Have a nice day, Mrs. Moody." Delbert tugged his hat brim, exactly like ol' Matlock fixing to spring a trap on a murderer. "Come morning, just ignore those earthmovers firin' up. The sooner your fence is ripped up and the dirt's dug down about six feet, the sooner this'll all be over with."
15
Hannah listened to the phone ring at the other end of the line. And ring. And ring. For the past ten minutes, she'd listened to phones ring and ring and ringeach of them enough times for a senior citizen to hitchhike from Iowa to answer the damned thing.
She put the receiver in its dock and her chin in her hand. Delbertly intuition warned that a misdemeanor, or several, were planned, if not already in progress.
He hadn't uttered a peep last night when Hannah quit the Moody case. Nor had he called or dropped by today to coax her back into the fold.
IdaClare Clancy was another one she hadn't heard from. To resist bragging about outsmarting Jack on his birthday was as uncharacteristic as Delbert surrendering without a single Jehosophat.
Hannah turned her head and gazed out the window at the muggy, late-afternoon haze. None of the gumshoes had answered their phones. She couldn't remember calling each of them in rotation before, but a mass exodus seemed significant. They were, after all, the Mod Squad.
But she wasn't their nanny. They didn't need one. Armed guards, maybe, and a team of defense attorneys on retainer, but not a babysitter.
Everyone being out simultaneously was a coincidence, she thought. Just because I don't believe in coincidences, doesn't mean there's anything to worry about. Concentrate on tonight's dinner with David. How relieved and over-the-moon happy he'll be when I tell him I took months of bullshit by the horns. Stepped up to the plate and swung for the fence. Cleared the freakin' decks
She cursed, picked up the handset and punched in the number for the community center, also known as activity central, particularly when heat or rain drove tenants off the lake, golf course, tennis courts and walking trails.
Naturally, the line was busy. She clicked the disconnect button. Idly wondered what she'd wear to David's. Decided on the usual jeans and a top, since a cocktail dress might be a bit of a tip-off. Drummed her fingers on the desk. Sighed and redialed the community center.
Well, hell. Still busy.
Of all people, Delbert should own a cell phone. Why he didn't was another impulsive unpredictability. Much as he loved any type of spylike gadget that lit up, made noise and ran on batteries, he hated to talk on the phone.
Third call to the community center, same result.
Hannah dropped the handset on the desk. "C'mon, Malcolm. Like Great-uncle Mort always said, why walk around in a circle when you can go straight and get somewhere else?"
The giant Airedale-wildebeest was always up for a ride in the Blazer. In his mind, self-propulsion should be limited to meals, drinks, potty stops and nap positions. Anything else was animal abuse.
Hannah had taken a few steps down Valhalla Springs Boulevard before she noticed that Malcolm wasn't following alongside. The poor dog with the apparently painted-on legs was slumped against the Blazer's rear bumper. He gave her a longing gaze, much like Ingrid Bergman's departing look at Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca.
Hannah whistled and patted her thigh. "It's a hundred degrees hotter in the truck than out here, doofus. No way will the air kick in that fast and cool it off."
The translation of his answering burf would probably get his mouth washed out with soap. Head and tail adroop, Malcolm slogged forward to join his tormentor.
Heat shimmers twitched above the boulevard and the lake's glassy green surface. Gnats whirled in the air like flickering orbs, but most of the birds, bunnies, squirrels and people must have been taking siestas.
Her tennis shoes squitched on gummy asphalt that smelled, oddly enough, like mothballs. Wrinkling her nose, she automatically squinted her eyes and surveyed the community center's parking lot.
A few cars and canopied golf carts ignored the dimensions and intent of the lot's yellow lines. Numerous residents who'd never played golf and had no desire to try owned electric buggies to zip around the development.
Malcolm had been forbidden entry to the building, since an incident involving the ladies' swim-therapy class, so he belly-crawled under a hydrangea bush to sulk while Hannah went inside.
"No, a maybe is not good enough," a woman in a polka-dot sundress said into the wall phone. "I'm not hanging up until you promise you'll be at the dance tonight."
Having solved the mystery of the center's persistent busy signal, Hannah wandered from the main room down the hall leading to the club rooms, smaller banquet rooms and the kitchen.
"Hey, Hannah," a male voice called from behind her. "Wait up."
Willard Johnson, the part-time physical fitness instructor, was dressed in workout clothes and toting a gym bag. "I've been trying to catch you at the office for days."
"You have?" She thought back. "I guess I have been in and out."
"I was going to stop by this morning on my way here." He winked. "Hoo-eee, that was one sweet ride parked in your driveway when I went by."
"Uh-huh. And you know darned well it belonged to your boss and mine, Jack Clancy."
Willard's grin wilted to an expression somewhere between dejection and resolve. "That's sort of what I need to talk to you about." He motioned toward a seating area in the main room. "How about we grab a coupla chairs."
Hannah frowned and shook her head. "Something tells me I'll wish I was sitting down when you tell me what the problem is, but I'll take it standing up."
Willard hemmed and hawed, then dabbed his glistening forehead with the towel draped around his neck. "Okay, it's like this. You knew when I took the job that myself and five others write science fiction novels under a pseudonym."
"Corey Percival Spoon." She snapped her fingers. "Ye gods. I am so sorry. I completely forgot all about that writers' workshop/retreat we talked about. Listen, it's a little late for national advertising, but not too late"
"This isn't about a workshop I never wanted any part of in the first place." Willard shrugged. "No offense, but that was your brainstorm, not mine."
"It's still a great idea"
"Except I'm not the guy to do it." His eyes rose to a spot an inch above her head. "I love this job and the people and you're the best boss anybody could ever have but I've got to quit."
As predicted, a chair would be nice to have under her right now. Then again, if her knees buckled and she sank to the floor, she'd be in a better position to wrap her
arms around his ankles and beg him to stay.
Still vertical but wobbly, she said, "Whatever it takes to keep you, just name it. A raise, more hours, new equipment for the gym"
"I appreciate it. I really do, Hannah, but it's not"
"You can't quit." She cocked a hip and rested a fist on it. "I won't let you. Hell, there'll be a riot if you leave, and I don't have the time or energy for a couple of hundred screaming senior citizens picketing my office."
The image must have flashed in Willard's head because he chuckled, then laughed out loud. "Thanks for making me feel guiltier about this than I already do."
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