by Susie Gayle
Sarah and I exchange an uneasy glance as Birnbaum reaches down for something near his feet behind the bench. When he stands again, he holds in both hands a stack of thin books, which he drops on the tabletop with a resonant thud.
“These,” he tells everyone, “are the Seaview Rock treasury ledgers. I’ve been reviewing them myself, very carefully, and what I’ve found is somewhat startling. It seems that these ‘wonderful’ revitalization projects that have been so beneficial to our town are actually costing significantly more than we were led to believe.
“In fact, someone—and again, I’m not here to point fingers—has been siphoning funds from other places.” He gestures to Patty Mayhew. “Our police force, for example. Pensions. Zoning enforcement. Historic restorations. Even the local library.”
Birnbaum scoffs in disgust. I furtively glance over at Sammy. He holds his stoic gaze, arms folded, but I know internally he must be clamoring. He didn’t know until recently that his pet projects were costing the town so much; Rachel Stein had kept that from him to safeguard the secret of her affair with Savage.
“My friends,” Birnbaum says dramatically, “Seaview Rock is nearly bankrupt.”
Murmurs and hoarse whispers erupt from all around the assembly hall. I look over at Patty, standing near the door. Her mouth is just a tight little line in her face, but her eyes flash with anger.
“Now let me pose one more question,” Ezekiel Birnbaum says loudly, over the hushed tones of the assembly-goers. “What motivation would council members have for not only pushing such an agenda, but at the same time committing a crime that would ultimately harm our town?”
He lets the question hang in the air for several seconds before he continues. “I believe that they were coerced, in exchange for silence, by another party.”
Beverly Quigley’s hand, still holding the pen, shoots into the air. She doesn’t wait for Birnbaum to acknowledge her. “Mr. Birnbaum, are you suggesting that someone discovered the affair and blackmailed them?”
Birnbaum smiles. “I can’t say for sure. I would hope, considering what I’ve brought to light, that an investigation will be pending.” His gaze flits to Patty Mayhew for a moment, and then back to Beverly Quigley. “But I can only speculate.”
Sarah grabs my hand and squeezes it. I glance over at her, but she stares straight ahead, her face a little pale.
“Mr. Birnbaum—” Quigley starts again.
He holds up a hand. “Please, hold your questions for now. I’m almost through.” To the congregation, he says, “I’m calling for a snap election for two additional council members, to be held two days from now. Any resident that wants to be listed as a candidate can do so through the town clerk. And since I’m currently the only council member… the motion passes.” He’s silent for a moment, and then adds, “I’ll now open the floor to questions.”
Beverly Quigley jumps to her feet like she’s spring-loaded. “Mr. Birnbaum, can you be more specific about what you discovered in the—”
Before she can finish her question, a man a few rows in front of us stands and shouts over her. “How are we supposed to elect a new council when we couldn’t trust the one we had?”
“I assure you, you can trust me,” Birnbaum insists. “After all, I brought all this to your attention—”
A woman standing near Sammy shouts, “The town was supposed to be improving, and you’re saying it’s getting worse?”
“Please, one at a time…” Birnbaum says, but it’s too late. He’s lit this powder keg.
Someone else bellows, “What do you mean the town is almost bankrupt? What’s going to happen?”
Those in chairs jump up, while those already standing start shouting, until no particular voice can be heard over any others.
Patty Mayhew hurries to the front of the room and puts her hands up. Her mouth is moving, but from the rear of the hall I can’t hear anything she’s saying over the crowd.
Sarah whispers in my ear, “If you’re going to go, now would be a good time.”
“Yeah. I’ll meet you back at the pet shop.”
“Be careful.”
I push past the increasingly irate citizens of my town, toward the door, and out into the cool night as our dirty secret, or at least part of it, becomes public knowledge.
CHAPTER 12
* * *
I get into my SUV and start it up, and then I have a mild heart attack as my passenger door suddenly swings open.
“Hey,” Dennis says, sliding into the seat. “Things got a little crazy back there. Mind if I come with?”
“Hey… look, Dennis, I’m not going back to the pet shop. I have to, uh, run an errand.”
He shrugs. “Fine by me.”
“Um… okay.” I’m not sure what to say in the moment to get Dennis out of my car, so instead I pull out of the parking spot and head downtown.
“I’ll say one thing,” Dennis comments. “Your town here is pretty interesting.”
“Interesting. Sure,” I mumble.
“So… I guess that woman, the one that got hit, she died?” he asks quietly.
“Yeah.”
“Did you know her?”
“Yeah, a little.”
“Oh.” He clears his throat. “I’m sorry.” I look over at him, but he just stares out the window.
I parallel park in front of the police station and Dennis cranes his neck to see. “Why are we here?”
“There’s someone inside I need to talk to,” I tell him. “It’s best if you just stay in the car.” I figure that since Patty is at the council meeting, there are likely only one or two cops in the station at the moment. How I can get past them to talk to Savage, I’m not entirely sure. If it’s Officer Tom, he might just let me back there; I’m on pretty decent terms with him. But actually, that’s no good. I’m sure he’d tell Patty that I was there.
“So… are you waiting for something?” Dennis asks after a minute or so.
“I’m thinking,” I tell him.
“Ah, I see. You need whoever’s in there to come out.” He grins.
“What makes you say that? And why are you smiling like that?”
He shrugs. “Sarah and I talk on the phone, you know. She told me some things about you, what you’ve done, stuff like that.” He lowers his voice, even though no one else is in the car with us. “Are you doing your thing right now? Investigating?”
“Yeah, sort of.”
“Cool. I can help with that. I’ll meet you back at your store.” He opens the car door and clambers out.
“Where are you going? Dennis!” I call after him, but he’s already dashing down the sidewalk. As I watch, he puts both hands on the hood of a car and starts rocking it, up and down. In seconds, the car’s alarm goes off, blaring and whooping. Then he hurries to the next one. In under a minute he has six car alarms going off at once, lights blinking and a cacophony of noise echoing throughout downtown.
“Great,” I say aloud, “I’m going to get Sarah’s brother arrested.” I glance over at the police station, and sure enough Officer Tom comes running out, looking around wildly. He spots Dennis, shouts at him, and dashes toward him down the street. Dennis laughs and takes off, too. “Huh. That actually worked.”
I enter the station cautiously to make sure there’s no one else around. Once I’m sure there isn’t, I hurry toward the rear, which I know from unfortunate personal experience is where the holding cells are.
“Hi, Tom,” I say to the glum, chubby man in a beige suit sitting on the small rigid cot in the cell.
He looks up at me in surprise. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to find out why I’m not in there with you.”
He furrows his brow. “What are you talking about?”
“You had every opportunity to tell Patty about us, and you didn’t. Why not?”
He shakes his head. “Obviously because I didn’t kill Rachel.”
“And… you don’t think any of us did ei
ther?”
“No, of course not. We’re supposed to all be in this together. What, just because I’m a used car salesman you assume you can’t trust me?”
“Actually, I assume I can’t trust you because you had an affair and lied to the whole town,” I admit, “but that’s neither here nor there.”
He scoffs. “Look, yeah, at first I considered that it could have been one of you. But then I thought about it for a while, and I realized that none of you have anything to gain from it. It wouldn’t make sense.”
“That’s true. So… tell me what happened.”
He sighs. “I was in my office. It was just a little after noon. I got a text message from an unknown number. It said that they knew my secret, and that the whole thing was written down and hidden in the glove compartment of one of my cars. Then the next message said that I should take the keys to one of the other cars and leave them on the driver’s seat, and then they’d tell me which car the note was in. So I did that. They texted me which car it was; it was all the way on the other side of the lot.” He shakes his head. “There was something in the glove compartment, alright. It was today’s newspaper. I thought maybe they’d hidden the note inside it somewhere, so I took that whole paper apart looking. But there was nothing. And of course, when I came back, the first car was gone.”
“But you didn’t call the police…”
“Because whether or not there was a note, they said they knew the secret. I couldn’t take that chance.”
“So what did you tell Patty when she brought you in?”
“I told her the truth, or at least half of it: that I was out in the lot by myself. There’s nobody that can corroborate my story. And worse, my fingerprints are the only ones on the door.”
“They wore gloves,” I say aloud. And Mr. Casey is probably right; the car thief must have been wearing a hat as well, to avoid leaving any hairs behind. “Listen, Tom, I have to admit that it doesn’t look good right now. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I am going to try to solve this thing.” Part of me wants to mention the council meeting and the fact that their “creative accounting” is now public knowledge, but the guy doesn’t need any more stress right now.
He shrugs. “Why bother? Everyone knows about the affair now. My wife kicked me out of the house. And even if you can prove I’m innocent, no one is going to want to do business with someone like me, caught up in all this. My life is over.”
“Hey, now…” I start, but I trail off. I mean, the guy’s not wrong—and he’s using the term “innocent” pretty loosely. “Listen, just, uh, sit tight. There’s more at stake here than just your freedom. And rest assured, it was not any of us. Like you said, we wouldn’t have anything to gain from it.”
He chuckles sardonically. “Well, if we knew who did, I wouldn’t be sitting here right now, would I?”
CHAPTER 13
* * *
When I get back to the Pet Shop Stop, the door is unlocked and the lights are on, but the sign is flipped to “closed.” I head in to find Sammy, Karen, Sarah, and Dennis, the latter breathless and grinning wide.
I barely lock the door behind me before Sarah assaults me, slapping me lightly on the arms and shoulders with her palms as she scolds me. “What… were… you… thinking?!”
“Ouch! What?”
“Dennis could have been arrested!”
“I didn’t ask him to do that! He just kind of… went for it.”
“He’s right, Sarah,” Dennis tells her. “It was totally my idea.”
“Oh?” Sarah marches over and slaps around her little brother instead. “What… were… you… thinking?!” She scoffs. “That’s it. The two of you aren’t allowed to hang out anymore without me.”
“Sorry,” I mutter.
“Yeah, sorry,” says Dennis.
“Anyway,” Sammy cuts in loudly, “we need to talk about what just went down.”
“Yeah,” I agree. “What happened at the council meeting after I left?”
“Birnbaum got mobbed with questions,” Karen tells me. “People are really angry.”
“Patty ended up shutting it down,” Sarah adds, “because she couldn’t calm the crowd. Of course, that didn’t go over so well. I heard people talking on the way out about packing up and moving out of town.”
“Someone said they were going to start a class-action suit against Seaview Rock,” Karen says.
I roll my eyes. Funny how that’s become a lot of people’s kneejerk reaction, to try to sue. “There’s something of a silver lining. Savage didn’t kill Stein, and he has no intention of saying anything about us.” I quickly tell them about my conversation in the police station.
“Even so,” Sammy says, “Birnbaum knows at least a little bit.”
“Sammy, I need you to think really hard. Is there any physical evidence, anything or anyone at all that can tie you back to this, other than Tom Savage?” I ask him.
He shakes his head slowly. “No, not that I can think of.” Suddenly his head snaps up. “Wait. That kid, Ham Dobes… you said he knows more.”
Right. Ham overheard us talking at the Runside, and now that Birnbaum’s made it public knowledge, it won’t take a genius to put two and two together.
“So let me get this straight,” Karen says, counting off on her fingers. “We have to find out who actually killed Rachel Stein. We need to find out how much Ezekiel Birnbaum really knows about his ‘third party’ theory. We need to find out what this Dobes kid knows, and we need to do all that before the police do… who will also be looking into it.” She snorts. “Easy-peasy.”
“And don’t forget our reporter friend,” Sarah adds.
“Yeah, Beverly Quigley is pulling on this thread, too,” I agree.
“Hmm.” Sammy strokes his chin. “You know, Quigley would stand to gain from all this. It’s a heck of a story…”
“No way,” I tell him. “We’re not jumping to any conclusions without some sort of proof. We did that with Savage, and we almost turned on each other. Look, it’s late, and there’s nothing we can do right now. We should all try to get some sleep and reconvene in the morning.”
“Fine by me.” Karen stretches. “I’ll stop by before work.” She flashes us a peace sign and heads out the door.
“Yeah, I’ll check in tomorrow, too.” Sammy follows her, but he pauses with his hand on the door. “You know this wasn’t supposed to happen like this. I never meant for…”
“I know, Sammy.”
He sighs. “Maybe… maybe it would be better if I just admitted to it.”
“What?” I ask, incredulous.
“This whole thing is my fault. All of you got involved because of me. I can’t help but feel that things are going to get worse before they can get better, so maybe it’s best if I just turn myself in.”
“No way,” I tell him. “No. We agreed we’re in this together, and that’s how we’ll see it through.”
Sammy smiles weakly. “You’re loyal to a fault, Sullivan.”
I shrug. “You’d be lost without me.”
“Ain’t that the truth.” He pushes open the door and heads out.
“I gotta say,” Dennis pipes up, “you two are way more interesting than I thought you’d be.”
“Hush up, you.” Sarah points a finger of warning in his direction. “You didn’t hear any of that.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Uh, Dennis,” I say slowly. “I think I owe you an apology.”
“For what?” Him and Sarah both furrow their brow at me.
“Because, for a little while there… very briefly… like a minute, really… I thought it could have been you.”
Dennis balks. “Me? Why?”
“You conveniently disappeared right at the same time it happened, and you have a, you know, history with cars…”
Dennis whirls on Sarah. “You told him about that?”
“I’m sorry! All I did was tell the truth. Sort of.” Sh
e turns to me and explains, “Dennis didn’t really steal a car… at least not in the way you’re thinking.”
“There’s more than one way to steal a car?”
Dennis laughs a little. “When I was fourteen I got really mad at my parents for, I don’t even remember, some stupid reason. So I went out to the driveway with their keys and I put the car in neutral and just let it… roll away.”
“But we lived across the street from a lake,” Sarah adds.
“And the car sort of… rolled into it,” Dennis continues. “I knew I messed up big, so I did what any kid would do; I clammed up. I didn’t say a word. My parents reported it stolen, and, well—long story short, they found it eventually and I had to fess up.” He shrugs. “I don’t even know how to drive.”
I almost laugh. “You know, you could have told me that earlier.”
“Sorry,” Sarah replies sarcastically, “I didn’t realize my brother was at the top of your mental suspect list.” She rolls her eyes. “Dennis, do you want me to take you over to the hotel?”
“Eh… can I just crash with you tonight?”
“Sure. Let’s get going, before Will starts suspecting me, too.”
“Ha. Very funny,” I call after them.
CHAPTER 14
* * *
The next morning I unlock the Pet Shop Stop but leave the sign on “closed.” I let Rowdy and Basket in first, and then set about feeding the animals, changing bedding, and the usual store-opening activities, just slower than usual. I’m really dragging my feet this morning.
Around eight a.m. Sammy comes in, looking how I feel. “Get any sleep last night?” he asks me.
I shake my head. “Barely. Seemed like sirens were going off every two hours.”
“Yeah. From what I hear, there was some vandalism last night.”
“Oh?”
He nods. “Parking meters broken. Sidewalks cracked. And someone spray-painted ‘liars’ on the new park benches and bus shelter.”