I'll Be Home for Christmas

by Dawn Stewardson

  “Shouldn’t you go to a hospital?” Ali asked once she and Logan were sitting in the visitors’ chairs.

  “No, it looks worse than it is. Nothing’s broken.”

  “But when Mimi sees you...” Ali paused, turning and explaining to Logan that Mimi was Vinny’s wife.

  “Fortunately,” Vinny muttered, “she’s out of town. Gone to a spa to rest up before Christmas.

  “Go figure women, eh?” he added, glancing at Logan through the narrow slits beneath his swollen eyelids. “She’s resting up for the holidays.”

  “But what happened to you?” Ali asked a second time.

  “When I tell you, you’re not going to believe it.” Vinny looked in Logan’s direction again—pointedly, this time.

  “You can talk in front of him,” Ali said.

  “You sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “It’s about Bob.”

  “Good. That’s who we came about.”

  Ali leaned forward in her chair to listen; Logan got a little more comfortable in his. He had a feeling they were going to be in Vinny’s office for a while, but at least they were getting on topic now.

  “When I came in this morning,” Vinny began, “there were a couple of guys waiting for me. They—”

  The sound of a muffled sneeze, directly outside the door, stopped him mid-sentence. The sneeze was immediately followed by a knock.

  “What?” Vinny called.

  The door opened and Deloras stuck her head into the office. “You want hot mustard on that sandwich or not?”

  “What kinda question’s that? Don’t I always want hot mustard?”

  She shrugged. “I just figured maybe you wouldn’t today. I mean, I figured maybe you wouldn’t feel like spicy with all those bruises, because...oh, never mind. I was just trying to be thoughtful.”

  Vinny waited until she’d closed the door again, then said, “So where was I?”

  “There were a couple of guys waiting for you,” Logan reminded him.

  “Oh, yeah. So they wanted to know where Bob was, and when I told them he was six feet under, somewhere in Nicaragua, they didn’t buy it—just kept going on about how they knew he wasn’t really dead and trying to make me tell them where he was.”

  “Oh, Lord,” Ali whispered. “That’s what he meant.”

  “Who meant what?” Vinny said.

  “I...let me try to remember his exact words. Something about your not being cooperative. But I didn’t realize...the two guys who did this, their names were Nick Sinclair and Chico Gonzalez?”

  “Yeah. How did you know that?”

  “Because they came to see me, too. After they’d seen you. I mean, I didn’t realize they’d already been to see you...that they’d done anything like this. But when you didn’t tell them, they tried me.”

  “Tell them what?” Vinny demanded.

  “Where Bob is.”

  Vinny slowly leaned forward in his chair and stared across his desk at Ali. “What the hell,” he finally asked, “is going on here?”

  “They weren’t just fishing,” she said evenly. “They know Bob’s alive. And I gather they want to change that.”

  “Ali...you didn’t actually buy their routine, did you? You know Bob’s dead. So do I. So what the—”

  “Vinny, dead men don’t phone their wives and snatch their sons, so drop the act, okay? We all know he’s very much alive, and right here in town.”

  Logan thought Vinny went white at that, but his face was so bruised it was hard to be sure.

  “You’re serious,” he said after a moment.

  “You’re damned right, I’m serious. And I want to know where Bob’s got Robbie. Right now.”

  “You said he phoned you? You’re sure it was Bob?”

  “Vinny, don’t do this to me. I know you helped him get Robbie and—”

  “That bastard,” Vinny hissed. “I should have known he wasn’t really dead. It was too good to be true.”

  Chapter Seven

  Walking in to discover Vinny looking as if he belonged in an emergency room had really thrown Ali a curve. And his apparent shock at the news that Bob was alive had given her second thoughts about the original plan of attack.

  So instead of immediately threatening to call the police and implicate Vinny in kidnapping and fraud, she’d proceeded more slowly, waiting to see what he had to say and saying as little as possible herself. What you saw wasn’t always what you got with Vinny, so she certainly hadn’t bought right into his know-nothing routine. And she hadn’t entirely ruled out the possibility that everything she said would be repeated to Bob—which meant the less she said the better.

  But when Vinny insisted that the first he’d heard of anyone thinking Bob was alive had been when Nick Sinclair came calling, Ali gritted her teeth and played along—outlining the basic details of the kidnapping and of her subsequent conversations with Bob. Finally, when she not-too-subtly pointed out that Vinny was the most obvious person to be helping Bob, he started talking.

  All he did, though, was swear up and down he’d been certain Bob was dead and buried in Nicaragua, and that he couldn’t believe Ali thought he might be party to something that would hurt either her or Robbie.

  After he’d gone on that way for ten minutes nonstop, she was so upset she was having trouble thinking straight. If Vinny was lying, he was doing one hell of a convincing job. And if he was telling the truth, he knew nothing that would help her find Robbie.

  She just prayed he was lying, and that they’d finally get the real story out of him. Because if Vinny wasn’t Bob’s accomplice, she had no idea who was.

  “Can I interrupt here for a minute,” Logan said at last. “It would be a lot easier to believe you weren’t involved if we had some proof.”

  “Yeah? What kind of proof?”

  Logan turned to Ali. “Tell Vinny what Sinclair said about bugging his phone.”

  “What?” Vinny yelped. “My phone? You mean this phone here?”

  She shrugged uncertainly. “From what he said, I wasn’t sure whether he had or not. But he bugged mine, so—”

  “He admitted that?”

  “Well, Logan had already found the bug, so it wasn’t a big secret. But that’s how Sinclair knew Bob had called me. And he said he’d been sure Bob would get in touch with either you or me, so I assumed...” She paused, because Vinny had stopped looking at her and was eyeing his phone.

  “Want me to check it?” Logan asked him.

  “Yeah, be my guest.”

  “I need something to get the screws out.”

  “I think there’s a screwdriver here someplace.” Vinny shoved himself up, limped over to a cabinet next to the door and began rummaging around.

  “If his phone’s bugged, too,” Ali whispered, leaning closer to Logan, “does that means he’s telling us the truth?”

  “It makes it more likely,” Logan whispered back.

  “It’s not here,” Vinny muttered. “Maybe Deloras was using it,” he added, reaching for the door handle.

  When he opened the door, Deloras Gayle was standing directly outside. Even if her face hadn’t gone red, Ali would have been positive that she’d had her ear to the door.

  “What are you doing back already?” Vinny demanded.

  “I brought your sandwich. It’s on my desk,” she added when he looked pointedly at her empty hands. “I was just coming to ask if you wanted me to make coffee.”

  “No. No, thanks. But I’m looking for the screwdriver. You got it?”

  “I think it might be in my desk.”

  “What’s the story with her?” Logan murmured as Vinny followed her across the reception area. “She just naturally nosy or what?”

  “Probably.” Ali said. “But mainly, I think that when she just happened to be standing outside the door the first time—when she supposedly came to ask Vinny about the mustard—she overheard enough to know we were talking about Bob. And...well, that would have made her really curious.”


  “Oh?”

  Ali shrugged. She’d already told Logan so many embarrassing details about her marriage, what did one more matter?

  “Deloras was what you might call the final straw that broke Bob and I up,” she explained. “Not that I’d have stayed with him much longer, anyway, but when I found out he had something going with her, it sped things along.”

  “He was married to you and fooling around with her? That’s tough to believe.”

  “Thanks. But if you’d known Bob... He was constantly proving things to himself, and I guess having an affair made him feel like more of a man. After I’d caught on, he swore she’d never really meant anything to him. And that might have been true.”

  “Oh?” Logan prompted when she didn’t elaborate.

  “Well...she called me once, to try and convince me not to give Bob such a hard time about getting a divorce. When I said he’d never even asked for one, she went off like a rocket. I was never sure if it was because she didn’t believe me or because she did. I think he was using me as an excuse because he didn’t want to get permanently tied up with her.”

  “She sounds like quite the character—all around,” Logan said quietly, nodding toward the open door.

  From beyond it, they could hear Deloras snapping at Vinny about something.

  Ali shrugged. “They’ve always sounded as if they’ve got no use for each other, but that’s just the way they relate. Actually, Vinny thinks she’s great at her job. At least, I remember he always used to.”

  “And what does she think about Vinny?”

  “Who knows?” Ali lapsed into silence and sat listening while Vinny and Deloras snarled away at each other in the reception area.

  * * *

  “THIS DO?” Vinny asked, finally reappearing with a steel letter opener and shoving his door closed again. “We can’t find the screwdriver.”

  Logan nodded. It had a thin, flat-ended handle, so it would probably work. He started unscrewing the phone’s bottom plate while Vinny slumped down behind his desk once more.

  Inside the phone was the same sort of little transmitter that had been in Ali’s.

  “Son of a bitch,” Vinny muttered when he saw it.

  Ali sat staring at it, and Logan could tell her sense of frustration was growing stronger yet. She’d been totally convinced Vinny had been in on the kidnapping. But it was looking more and more as if she’d been wrong. Of course, things weren’t always the way they seemed.

  “Dammit, Ali,” Vinny was saying, “is that bug enough proof for you? If I had been talking to Bob, don’t you think Sinclair and his muscle would have been around to see me before today? And if I knew anything, don’t you think I’d have told them the minute they showed up? Do you think I’d let Sinclair’s pet ape practically kill me because I wanted to protect Bob?”

  “I don’t know what I think! Vinny, for all I know, you and Bob cooked up the entire story about his death to collect on the insurance. For all I know, you split that five million with him and—”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You have no idea what was going on before Bob disappeared. You never had a clue what he was doing when you were living with him, let alone after you split. If he’s really still alive, then that whole deal in Nicaragua was his way of trying to bail out. I sure wouldn’t have helped him, though.”

  “No? Not even when it was worth five million to you? Vinny, you’re the one who collected on that policy. You’re—”

  “Don’t I wish! Don’t I just wish I’d really gotten something out of it. But that money was gone the day I got the insurance check. Every cent of it, thanks to Bob.”

  “Gone where?” Logan asked.

  “To somebody Bob owed, that’s where. Somebody who figured his partner should make good for him and was leaning on me damned hard.”

  Vinny turned his swollen face toward Ali again. “Why do you think I was so frantic when the insurance company was stalling? Why do you think I went all the way to Nicaragua to see what I could find out? Because Bob left me holding the bag, that’s why.”

  While Vinny was talking, Logan’s mind was working at top speed. Whenever he got hung up with a plot, couldn’t figure out where a book should go next, he tried to consider any and all possible directions. And it sounded like Vinny had a direction worth considering.

  “Bob left you holding what bag?” he asked.

  “That’s none of your business,” Vinny snapped.

  “Well, I’m not so sure it isn’t. At the moment, my business is trying to help Ali find Robbie. And if we can figure out who did know Bob was really alive, who helped him with the kidnapping, it could be the key. So why don’t you tell us about the trouble he was in before he disappeared? There might be something that would give us a clue.”

  “No, nothing I know would help.”

  “Vinny,” Ali murmured, “Robbie’s gone. How can you not at least try to help me?”

  Vinny started to rub his jaw, then winced and lowered his hand. “What about the insurance company?” he asked her after a minute. “Are you going to tell them Bob’s not really dead?”

  “I...I don’t know. I mean, I know that legally I have to, but if I give the two million to Bob...”

  “Then you won’t be able to pay them back. You’ll be up the same creek as me. So you see why I’m asking? We’re in the same boat, only I’m in for five million, not two. So, if I try to help you, are you going to help me?”

  “You mean not tell them Bob’s alive.”

  “Yeah, that’s exactly what I mean.”

  “Vinny, I just haven’t been able to think that far ahead. All I can think about right now is Robbie.”

  “Yeah...yeah, of course. And I feel real bad for you. You know I do. But if that insurance company comes asking for its money back, I’ll have serious problems. Hell, at the very least they’ll bankrupt me. And if they decide to try convincing some judge that I was in on Bob’s scheme, I could end up in jail. But if you don’t say anything, we’ll both be home free.”

  When Ali glanced anxiously at Logan, he knew exactly what she was thinking. Earlier, on their way to pick up her car, they’d discussed the big picture. She knew that both she and Vinny were going to have to pay back the money—regardless of what she said or didn’t say.

  Sooner or later, if nobody else spoke up, Kent Schiraldi was bound to. He knew the insurance company had paid Ali the two million because Bob was supposed to be dead. But Kent had been right there in Nancy’s office the first time Bob had called. And, as Ali had told Vinny, dead men didn’t phone their wives and snatch their sons.

  So, with Kent knowing that the insurance company had been defrauded, he was skating on thin professional ice by keeping quiet about it for even a few days. If Ali hadn’t begged him and Nancy not to say anything until Robbie was safe, he’d probably have blown the whistle already.

  “Well?” Vinny pressed. “Have we got a deal, Ali?”

  “Look,” Logan said before she could answer. “We just can’t know how everything’s going to play out. But I’ll promise you this much, and I think Ali will, too. You cooperate with us now, tell us about that trouble Bob was in before he disappeared, and if the insurance company does hit you with fraud charges we’ll back you up—testify we’re certain you didn’t intentionally defraud them, that you honestly believed Bob was dead, the same as Ali did.”

  Vinny stared at the carpet for a long minute. “That’s something, I guess,” he finally muttered. “But I can’t tell you much. If you end up getting asked any questions, the less you know the better.”

  Logan wasn’t sure whether Vinny was worried about them being questioned by the insurance company, the police or Nick Sinclair. It also wasn’t clear who would be better off if they didn’t know too much. But he just nodded for Vinny to go on.

  “Well, this morning wasn’t the first time I’d met Sinclair,” he began. “He was the guy Bob owed, the one leaning on me for the money. Not long after the finger came in the mail..
.” He paused and glanced at Ali.

  “I told Logan about that,” she said.

  “Okay, so I’d gotten the finger—with the note saying double-dealers don’t live long in Nicaragua. Then the police had identified the finger as Bob’s and...well, once they’d done that it seemed obvious to everyone that he was dead. To everyone except the insurance investigator, that is. Then, a couple of weeks later, Sinclair and his muscle showed up.”

  “And that was the first time you met them?” Logan asked.

  “Yeah. Sinclair had heard Bob was dead, so he came to explain to me that Custom Cargoes owed him money. Mega-money. Suddenly, with Bob out of the picture, he’d decided it was the company that owed him, not Bob, personally. And—”

  “Wait a sec,” Logan interrupted. “You said he came to explain. So you didn’t even know Bob owed anybody money until then?”

  “I didn’t know anything about anything until then. Nothing. Not that Bob had been playing games. Not that he’d been in trouble before he went to Nicaragua. Nothing. But it turned out he’d been handling shipments for Sinclair—off the books, of course, or I’d have been clued in. And as I said, with Bob out of the picture, Sinclair decided I should pay what he figured was owed him.”

  “Which was this mega-money.”

  Vinny nodded. “See, Custom Cargoes is always trucking stuff across the border. That’s what import-export is all about, eh? And according to Sinclair, Bob had a lot of the bigger rigs hauling...well, stuff that wasn’t exactly what their paperwork specified.”

  “Stuff?” Logan said.

  “Ah...this gets into the part where the less you know the better.”

  When Logan simply waited, Vinny shrugged, saying, “Sinclair’s got his hand in the underground market. Booze, tobacco, stuff. You know. But that’s something I’ll deny saying if this conversation ever comes back to haunt me.”

  Logan glanced at Ali. She’d mentioned suspecting Bob of running illegal booze, but even if she hadn’t he’d buy Vinny’s story—the main facts, at least.

  He doubted it was entirely accurate, especially the bit about Vinny knowing nothing. There was only so much Bob could have done, even off the books, before Vinny would have gotten wise. But the basics weren’t hard to believe. Smuggling illegal liquor into the country was big business. And if you were smuggling one thing, why not a whole variety?