by Teresa Trent
I paused to consider Rocky’s words. Could both members of Karen’s missing family unit be that predatory? It was also amazing that, after all this time, they showed up and knew exactly where to go and what was going on, as if they had never left. It must have felt wonderful for Karen to suddenly have family at Christmas but tragic that they only came out of the shadows because they wanted something from her. It made me treasure my family even if tonight Tyler had disappointed me with his sudden disdain for Danny.
Karen seemed so different from the rest of her family that I had to wonder what had ever attracted her to Sammy in the first place. Was it that they were never alike, or had she changed over the years?
“So?” Rocky asked, still hanging.
“I guess that’s all. She was talking about getting money from her. It was really very sad. Karen was so thrilled to have her daughter here.”
Rocky stood up and rubbed his chin. “I know what you mean. Before Nick walked into my life, I had no idea what it meant to have a son. His mother never told me about him, and that was hard to forgive, but he’s here with me now, and I can’t imagine my life without him. He’s quite a fella.”
Tyler’s tantrum flashed through my mind. It must be nice to have a child come to you fully formed as a man, a contributing member of society, without having to parent him through the bumps of adolescence.
“Did you see Tyler when you walked up?”
“See him? He nearly pushed me down. What’s eating him?”
“He told me he’s embarrassed by Danny. His new girlfriend rejected him because Danny thought they were all on a double date.”
Rocky blew out a sigh. “Man, that’s harsh.”
“I know. I tried talking to him about it—”
“Not Tyler, his girlfriend. Sounds like one of those mean girls to me.”
He was right. I had been putting all the blame on Tyler, but Tiffany had been the one making fun of my cousin. Still, though, Tiffany’s reaction was out of my control. Tyler’s wasn’t.
Karen came back to her booth and began to disassemble it, slamming doors and dropping sides. Rocky stepped over to the flurry of activity.
“Can I help?”
“No,” she responded curtly.
I walked out of the Gazette booth. “Are you okay?”
Karen’s head shot up. “What do you think? My long-lost daughter came back, and all she wants from me is money. That’s all it’s ever about, isn’t it? Money? People don’t care about you unless you have something to sweeten the deal. I thought I would have done anything to get a letter from her.”
“Anything?” Rocky and I echoed her like a Greek chorus. She didn’t seem to notice we were talking in unison. Had she been desperate enough to kill Joe after finding out about the mountain of mail he was hiding in his garage?
“Now I’m beginning to think Joe sitting on the mail was the only kind thing anyone has done for me in years. It might be a federal crime, but maybe he was being kind to everyone in town.” Karen was so full of sadness and spoke of Joe with such great admiration there was no way she had killed him. She sounded more like she loved the man. Whether it was romantic or not was unclear, but she couldn’t have been his killer.
Zach came running up, Danny behind him. He had a piece of blue paper in his hand and waved it about as he spoke. “Hey, Mom, can you loan me sixty bucks? Crazy Eddie has added more merchandise to the Christmas Eve sale.”
“Yeah, Betsy. You have sixty bucks?” Danny echoed.
Danny was clearly as excited as Zach, as demonstrated by the little jig he was doing in his Converse sneakers.
“What happened to Wanda? Aren’t you supposed to be on a date?”
“Oh, her mom came and got her. They have to do their hair for Christmas.”
“I’m sure she’ll be beautiful,” I said. “Did you have fun on your date?”
“Yes. We had fun. Wanda was acting funny, though.”
Zach put an arm around Danny’s shoulder. “That was because of Tyler’s date. She wasn’t being a nice person.”
“She wasn’t? I think she liked my dancing,” Danny said.
Judging how much the truth would have hurt Danny, I changed the subject, although I didn’t want to. “So why do you need sixty dollars on the biggest gift-receiving holiday of the year?”
“Just look.” Zach held up the paper I had seen floating around the town square. It was beginning to look like someone had done a helicopter drop to a needy area there were so many of these flyers on the ground. Crazy Eddie had evidently gotten a new shipment of merchandise ready to sell at rock-bottom prices.
Zach pointed to a PlayStation. “Now it says they have PlayStation 4’s.”
“Didn’t you know that already?”
“No. They had PlayStation 3’s. Now they have the newest model. Do you know how hard it is to find one of these at this time of year? And it’s only $69.99.”
“I thought you said you needed sixty dollars.”
“Danny told me he’d give me ten dollars from his piggy bank.”
I scowled at Zach. I didn’t know what made me angrier, his wanting to buy something for himself on Christmas Eve or taking money from a man who didn’t always understand the value of it.
“Seriously? You’re taking money from Danny now?”
“Mom.” He drug out my name as if it had two syllables instead of one.
“Mom nothing. It’s Christmas Eve. I am not giving you money to buy yourself a gift.” We had so many brightly colored packages in our den, the pile of goodies was threatening to raise the tree off the ground. He did not need one more thing.
“But, Mom, you have to understand what this thing costs normally. We’d be saving over four hundred dollars.”
I squinted down at the paper one more time. “Four hundred dollars? You mean it sells for three hundred forty dollars more than that?”
“Yes! Now you understand. So, please, can you loan me the money? If you really think about it, I’m saving you dollars that you could … put in my college fund.” Zach gave me a look that could win a beauty contest. I grabbed the paper out of his hand and walked over to Rocky, who was disassembling the Gazette stand.
“Did you know that these things are worth hundreds of dollars more than what Crazy Eddie is selling them for?”
“So?” he asked, picking up a stack of papers and hoisting them onto a red dolly.
“So, don’t you think that’s kind of weird? Crazy Eddie comes to Pecan Bayou and sells items underpriced by hundreds of dollars?”
“Maybe it’s some sort of a cheap knockoff?”
“It can’t be,” Zach inserted. “The company name is right there on the box in the picture. It’s legit. Maybe they’re reconditioned?”
Rocky looked confused. “Reconditioned?”
“You know. They took a used one and put in fresh parts to make it work like new again,” Zach said, acting like Rocky was the last man on earth to find out about the reconditioning process.
“And this stuff works once it’s reconditioned?” I asked, trying not to let on that I too was just finding out about it.
“Yeah. It works great. My friend Mike had a reconditioned PS3, and it worked fine. Well, until his little sister stepped on it and caved in the top.”
“You know, son. I hate to tell you this, but Crazy Eddie’s sale is starting to sound too good to be true. Does your grandpa know about this?” Rocky asked.
“Not yet, but he will,” I answered before Zach could.
His eyes grew wide. “Mom! Don’t tell Grandpa. He could ruin it for everyone.” On one level, I could see Zach’s logic. But on another, the fact that Dad would intervene pointed to the possible criminality of the big sale.
“Yeah,” Danny echoed.
Aunt Maggie rushed over, holding up her phone. “Betsy? I think Ruby’s in trouble. She just called me from a holding cell at the police department.”
Chapter 18
After dropping Danny and Zach off at the house wit
h Leo and Coco, we rushed to Ruby, whose Christmas-bedazzled butt had landed at the Pecan Bayou jail. When we entered, she was sitting at Detective Boyle’s desk, her red and green fingernails framing her face as she held her hands up to her cheeks.
“Let me get this straight. Are you saying you had no idea you were passing counterfeit bills at the Christmas festival? None whatsoever?” Boyle asked, the familiar smirk on his face. It was clear he was still the outsider in Pecan Bayou and didn’t have much trust in our town’s most popular beautician. He had taken off his customary drab raincoat, revealing a white shirt and skinny tie reminiscent of a G-man from the seventies. Boyle was old school, and it was evident he thought he had just tapped into the biggest counterfeiting ring in Texas.
“You have to believe me,” Ruby pleaded. “I had no idea that money was counterfeit.”
When Maggie drew nearer to the desk, Ruby jumped up from her chair to Maggie’s embrace. “Thank God you’re here. I just couldn’t call my brother. It’s Christmas Eve. The last thing he needs to do is to bust his sister out of jail.” Being the minister of the most highly attended church in town on Christmas Eve meant he would be extremely busy with his flock. I was also sure he would have dropped everything to come to her rescue. This was rich reindeer droppings for the town gossips.
“Don’t you worry a thing about it,” Maggie said.
“Excuse me,” Boyle interrupted. “I’ll need you to sit over there until I’ve finished my questioning of the suspect.”
“It’s just that we know Ruby, and she would never—” I began to assure him.
He lifted a large hand as if to stop me on a crosswalk and pointed to a couple of beaten up plastic chairs on the equally beaten up city building paneling. Maggie let go of Ruby, and we sat down away from the interview but close enough that we could hear everything.
“So, you say the twenty you passed was part of a large group of bills? Is that correct?”
“Yes. That’s what I said, although I would have thought you picked up on that the first time,” Ruby answered.
Detective Boyle pinched his lips together, not happy with Ruby’s added editorial comment. “Fine. And where did you acquire this larger group of bills?”
“From my first reverse mortgage payment. A man came to the door and paid it to me in cash. He said it was safer than using the U.S. postal system, especially after what just happened with Joe.”
“And instead of putting that money in the bank, you chose to carry that much cash around with you?” His judgment of her actions was clear: normal people put money in the bank.
Ruby shrugged and then clenched her fists. “It’s Christmas. I needed that money to buy gifts.”
Gifts like those new boots and that furry coat, I thought. Ruby had been spending money like a lottery winner the day after the check cashed.
Boyle continued, his voice filling the room with droll tones. “I see. And can you tell me the name of the man who gave you this currency?”
“No. He didn’t give me his name. He just told me he was from the reverse mortgage company. Senior Savings.”
“I’m going to need your contact information for this reverse mortgage company. How long have you been getting payments from them, and were they all in cash?”
Ruby rifled through her purse. “This was my first one. I was going to use the money to pay off credit card debt. I know this may surprise you, but I’m not as young as I used to be, and I’ll never outlive the payments the reverse mortgage gives me. It’s like having a second income.”
Ruby’s description was starting to sound like a sales pitch. They had really done a job on her. She produced a trifold flier and set it on Boyle’s desk. He leaned over and picked it up, unfolding the two side flaps.
“Hmmm,” he said, reading and nodding at the same time. “Looks legitimate.”
A rush of footsteps sounded behind us, and my father entered. Upon seeing Ruby in the hot seat, he gave Boyle a smile, trying to look calm.
“What’s going on here? Did Ruby roll somebody’s hair up too tight?” he asked with a somewhat forced twinkle in his eye.
“Counterfeit money. This lady had a wad of it at the Christmas festival.”
He clucked his tongue. “Ruby? I hardly think so. This is one of Pecan Bayou’s oldest …”
Ruby shot him a glance.
“Uh, most beloved citizens. I’d trust her with my life savings. There must be some kind of a mistake.”
“That’s what I was trying to tell him,” Maggie said, rising from her chair. Boyle put two fingers together and made a downward motion, instructed her to sit back down. Maggie sat.
“Come on now, Boyle. If my sister is here fighting for Ruby, you should know you might have met your match.”
“Fine. Before you interrupted my questioning, Miss Green was telling me she acquired the bills from a reverse mortgage company that paid her in cash. She was carrying the entire payment around the festival in her purse.”
My dad pulled up a chair next to Ruby upon hearing this information. “Well, now we’re getting somewhere.”
Ruby pulled the flier off Boyle’s desk and handed it to Dad. “Senior Savings. They were the ones who gave me the money.”
“Well, I’ll be. I think we might have a con going on right here in Pecan Bayou.” He turned to Boyle. “Let’s give these fellas a call and see what we come up with.” He then turned back to Ruby. “Thank you so much for bringing this to our attention, Ruby. We’re going to need all the cash these people gave you.”
Ruby gasped. “All of it?”
“All of it,” my father answered. “Then we’re going to need to know where you spent the money. We need to track down as many bills as possible. We’ll need to call the Feds in on this one.”
Pecan Bayou was turning into a hotbed of federal crime, between the mail hoarding and now counterfeiting. Mayor Obermeyer would have a real battle on his hands keeping that kind of information off the travel reviews.
“Once we have all that, you’re free to go,” Dad said.
“But, I was …” Boyle sputtered.
“Ruby is no counterfeiter. I’ll vouch for her.”
“Me too,” Maggie said, rising again defiantly.
I stood up too. “The local media is behind her.”
Boyle shook his head in disgust. “Fine. You’re free to go.”
“Does this mean I’ve lost my house? What is going to happen to me? All I have is The Best Little Hairhouse, and I rent the building.” Ruby’s midnight-black mascara ran down her face as she began to sob. We had exited the police station as quickly as we could before Boyle slapped the cuffs on Ruby one more time. Now we stood in the chilly December air next to my car, our arms folded across our chests for warmth.
“If you are the victim of a con, and it sounds like you are, there is no way they can take your house,” I reassured her, noticing she was starting to shiver.
“She’s right. They can’t keep your house,” Maggie added.
“But I signed papers. I signed it over to them willingly. There isn’t a judge in Texas who isn’t going to say I knew what I was doing. I’m old, but I never thought I was stupid.” Ruby let out another gaggle of sobs.
“Can you tell us a little bit about the man who came to the door. Was he tall? Was he short? Heavy? Thin? What did he look like?”
“I don’t know. He was just a man. I don’t know. I guess my focus was more on the money than the man.”
“Okay, Ruby,” my father sighed. “Let’s start with race. What color was he?”
“White. Definitely white.”
“How tall was he?”
“I don’t know. This is just so bad.” Ruby started to cry.
“Did he have a Texas accent?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t sound like he was from anywhere else, but I wasn’t listening. What would you do if someone showed up at your door with a handful of cash?”
I would probably focus on the cash, but I’m sure there’s a saying
somewhere that says watch out for the guy with a wad of money.
Maggie spoke up, “So he didn’t have an accent? And he was white. You don’t know how tall he was. Is there anything you can remember about him?”
Ruby took a breath and then said, “He was messy.”
“Like how? His clothes were messy?” I asked.
“No. He left trash on my lawn.”
“What kind of trash?”
“Gum wrappers.”
I knew who it was that had perpetrated the counterfeit money for the reverse mortgage scam on Ruby. Rushing back inside, I bombarded the office, panting in the doorway. “I know who gave Ruby counterfeit bills.”
Boyle leaned up against the wall, arms folded, trying to look like he had an open mind, but we both knew that wasn’t the case. “Pray tell who?”
“Sammy Baldwin.”
“Come on, Betsy. I know he’s not our favorite Christmas visitor, but we can’t blame everything on him,” said my father, who had followed me inside.
“It all checks out. Think about the times you’ve been around Sammy Baldwin. He’s always chewing gum. What did she say he left in her yard? Gum wrappers.”
“That’s assuming that Sammy Baldwin is the only one chewing gum in Pecan Bayou. Am I right on that?” Boyle laughed.
“Another thing,” I said, refusing to be condescended to. “He told us he came back to Pecan Bayou because he’d had business opportunities open up that had been stymied by some force for a long time. Think about it: What if he was doing a reverse mortgage scam and putting mailers in senior citizens’ mailboxes but Joe Nelson was taking them out? Sammy would never get anywhere. What is it they say? You have to knock on ten doors to get one to open? He couldn’t even get that one to open, but now all of a sudden Ruby jumped at it. Ruby got mail she never would’ve gotten when Joe was alive. She hands over the title to her house, and he gives her a pile of counterfeit money. Sammy Baldwin told us that he had come into acquiring some new property in Pecan Bayou. As long as he kept himself and his name under the radar, he could get away with it. It all makes sense.”