“Because this is his third personal injury claim with his third employer in as many years.”
“Which means he’s probably good at this.”
“He’s a man, which automatically means he’s a liar.” Octavia took the binoculars and lifted them to her face. “It just remains to be seen if he’s lying about his back. And his dick.”
That lying sentiment had been close to the surface. “No word from Richard, huh?”
“Nope. But I have reason to believe he’s having an affair.”
Linda turned her head, but her sister didn’t move, simply held the binoculars to her face as if she’d just announced that she’d had eggs for breakfast.
“I’m so sorry, sis. Are you sure?”
“Why else would he have taken off, if not for another woman?”
“But to leave his practice, too?”
Octavia shrugged. “Things were closing in on him. I think for some men, it’s just easier to walk away from everything and start over than to stay and fix the things they broke.”
Linda didn’t have any advice...not when she herself had been entertaining thoughts of starting fresh the very day Sullivan had died. Her cheeks burned at the memory of her selfish fantasies.
“Remind me,” Octavia said. “What did Mr. Wendt do for a living?”
Linda picked up the folder. “It says here that he stocked groceries.”
“That doesn’t seem like a particularly dangerous job.”
“Lots of twisting and lifting, I suppose...and he allegedly fell off a step ladder.”
Octavia scoffed. “I’ve fallen off a step ladder.”
Linda squinted. “When?”
“Well, not me, but my maid Carla has...and she bounced right back up. Of course, I’ve come to understand that bouncing might be a talent of hers.”
She cringed—so Richard had slept with the housekeeper. How humiliating for Octavia.
“Does it say how long Sullivan had Wendt under surveillance?”
She flipped through the pages in the file to scan his scrawled notes. Sullivan had not been a scholar—spelling and penmanship were not his strong suit. “Looks like three weeks.” Her heart pinched. He must’ve been desperate for that money-shot payoff. Had she nagged him about money? Had the stress over money triggered his heart attack?
She kept reading, deciphering. “In his notes, Sullivan wrote that he observed several women going in and out of the house, women who appeared to be prostitutes. He questioned the women, but none of them would admit to having sex with Wendt, they all claimed to be taking care of him or his house.”
“So he is lying about his dick.”
Linda bit her lip. She was aware Sullivan came into contact with some unsavory characters in his line of work, but knowing he’d questioned hookers left her feeling a little...frumpy. And embarrassed that he’d had to come home to her in her mom jeans and Hamburger Helper.
Had he hated his life?
Octavia lapsed into silence and Linda maintained it, marinating in regret. They both had a lot on their minds, it seemed.
Minutes ticked off the clock in the dashboard that predated digital displays. After some time, Octavia lowered the binoculars with a labored sigh. “This is excruciating.”
Linda had to agree. They’d been sitting parked in a line of cars across the street from Mr. Wendt’s house for almost two hours without a sighting. She was hungry and she needed to pee. She shifted her legs that were sweating against the seat. “Welcome to the world of private investigating.”
“Ugh—where’s the ah-ha moment, the car chase?”
“I think we’ve had enough car chases,” Linda reminded her. Oakley’s concern came back to her...he also would not approve of her taking over Sullivan’s cases.
In fact, Octavia was the only person who thought she was capable of it.
But did that make them both crazy?
“Wait—someone’s coming out.”
Linda picked up the zoom-lens camera and focused on the front door. It opened and a man emerged in a motorized scooter.
“That’s him,” Octavia said. “I thought he was in a wheelchair.”
“He must’ve upgraded.” Linda took a couple of photos for practice—and to establish a timeline. Mr. Wendt was a regular looking man, neat and attractive—nothing about him screamed criminal. He held an envelope and buzzed toward the mailbox at the end of the driveway.
He tried to position himself close enough to open the hinged door, but couldn’t quite reach. Linda snapped more photos.
“Go ahead, get up and do a jig,” Octavia muttered.
But he kept straining and stretching from his seating position until he finally opened the mailbox, put the envelope inside, and raised the flag.
Both of the women groaned in defeat.
Then something in the street caught Mr. Wendt’s attention. For a few seconds, Linda was afraid he was going to look their way. But whatever it was, it was lying on the ground.
“It’s a bill,” Octavia said. “I can’t tell what denomination.”
“Let’s hope it’s a hundred,” Linda said.
He looked both ways in the street, then buzzed over to the money and leaned down. No matter how far he stretched, though, the bill was just beyond the grasp of his fingers.
“Come on, stand up,” Octavia muttered. “Linda, are you getting this?”
“Yes.”
Suddenly the man’s head swung around and his eyes widened. A car was barreling straight for him. He yelled and waved his arms, then put his scooter in reverse, but he wasn’t moving fast enough. The women both held their breath until the car screeched to a stop in front of him. Then Wendt turned around and puttered back to the sidewalk.
They exhaled.
“Well, that’s it,” Linda said. “If the man didn’t stand up and run to get out of the way of a moving car, he can’t stand up.”
Octavia pursed her mouth. “Unless he knows someone is watching and he staged the whole thing.”
“That’s pretty elaborate, don’t you think?”
“Klo said some of these people are professionals. What’s a few dollars to hire a buddy to nearly run you down if it helps you collect a million bucks in a personal injury case?”
Linda shook her head. “I just can’t believe people would be so...”
“Bad?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, believe it. Not everyone is like you, Linda.”
She said it as if that was a good thing. Linda let the remark slide because she knew her sister was hurting over her husband’s betrayal, despite her gruff exterior.
They were deflated, expecting Wendt to head back inside, but instead he turned the scooter around and motored off in the opposite direction.
“Where do you think he’s headed?” Octavia asked.
“I don’t know, but I’ll have to follow him at a good distance, or he’ll spot us for sure.”
Thirty minutes later, they were still following him, driving at less than ten miles an hour as he traveled from road to road via sidewalks and crosswalks. When he turned onto Nicholasville Road, a major road with serious traffic, Linda stuck out her arm and waved yet another car around them.
“You got your car chase,” she remarked dryly.
“This is ridiculous. Who knows where he’s going.”
“Probably to the Fayette Mall. It’s only another half mile or so.”
Sure enough, eventually the man puttered into the mall parking lot and headed for the main entrance.
Linda hung back, then found a parking place. Octavia tucked the camera into her designer bag and straightened her clothing—a silky coral-colored button-up blouse and a slim black skirt with sandals. Next to her, Linda felt like Suburban Mom, minus the cape.
Inside, they located Mr. Wendt quickly—he was hard to miss in his scooter. They maintained a discreet distance, pretending to shop. Octavia wandered into a jewelry store and tried on a diamond Rolex watch with a price tag that took Linda’s b
reath away. The look in her sister’s eyes reminded her of when their father had brought home the pony.
And the look in her eyes when she had to take if off reminded Linda of when the pony had been spirited away.
Wendt visited a bookstore where he waited for ten minutes to request assistance to see a book on a top shelf. Then he went into an electronics store to buy a battery for his scooter—he obviously planned to be in it for a while. Next he went to Macy’s department store where he touched every pair of socks in the men’s hosiery department while she and Octavia loitered nearby, trying to look casual.
Linda glanced at her watch. “I have to go in twenty minutes to be home when the kids get there.”
Octavia scowled after their target, who had finished fondling accessories and was zooming back out into the center of the mall. “I have an idea.” She handed her purse to Linda. “Get the camera ready, and whatever happens, go with it.”
A phrase that never failed to strike fear in her heart when they were kids...and still had the same effect.
Linda had no choice but to scamper after Octavia, who strode after Wendt and when she caught up with him, bumped his scooter—hard. So hard that it tipped over and spilled him out into the smooth, slick floor.
Linda watched in horror as the man flailed on his back, reaching futilely for his toppled scooter.
“Step back,” Octavia shouted when people approached to help him. “This man is a con artist, he’s as able to walk as you or I.” Then she smiled down at Wendt. “Get up, you big phony.”
Linda closed her eyes. Octavia had gone way too far. She’d be lucky if she wasn’t arrested for assault.
Wendt lay there and shook his head. “You’re crazy! I’m paralyzed—I can’t get up.”
Her sister crouched over him. “Really? Can you get it up?” She began unbuttoning her blouse, revealing a black bra underneath.
Linda stood riveted with the rest of the crowd as Octavia removed her blouse, then stepped out of her skirt. She stood over Wendt in lacy bra and panties and high heels as catcalls sounded in the background and mothers covered the eyes of their children.
Wendt was transfixed.
“Ladies and Gentlemen,” Octavia said triumphantly, pointing to his crotch. “We have lift-off.”
Linda stepped forward to snap a picture of Wendt and his painfully obvious erection just as mall security came running up.
Octavia held them off with an upraised hand, and apparently, they were too disoriented by her state of undress to disobey. “Are you going to get up now?” she asked Wendt.
His mouth opened and closed as he took in Octavia’s barely concealed curves.
Linda felt sorry for the man—the photo of his obvious arousal would be enough to dispute part of his claim...they didn’t need to mock his inability to walk.
“Octavia,” Linda hissed. “We have what we need. Let’s go.”
Then Wendt rolled over and pushed to his feet. “Okay, you got me. Can I at least have your number?”
Chapter Seventeen
“WHEN WILL MOMMY be home?” Maggie whined.
“If she’s like me, when she runs out of room in the car for shopping bags,” Octavia said. She was trying to figure out how to work the ancient vacuum cleaner. There was a reason she had a housekeeper.
“Mom’s nothing like you,” Jarrod blurted from the couch where he sat watching something loud on TV that looked inappropriate.
She walked over and turned the channel to Saturday morning cartoons, then put the remote out of reach. He flounced, but she only offered a tight smile, then went back to the vacuum.
“When are you and your stuff leaving?” he asked, jerking his thumb toward the bags of clothes and shoes stacked all over the room.
“As soon as we possibly can. You don’t think I want to be here, do you?”
“Can I have these shoes?” Maggie asked. She stood posed, with her chunky little feet inside a pair of cotton candy pink stilettos, looking hopeful.
“Someday. For now, stay out of my shoes—you’ll break the shank.”
“What’s a shank?”
“The thing you’ll break if you don’t take them off!”
“It’s on the side,” Jarrod said.
She sighed. “What?”
“The button to turn on the vacuum. It’s on the side.” Then he got up and reached for it. “Here, I’ll do it.”
“Good,” she said, happily relinquishing the monster.
“It’s not going to make a difference,” he mumbled, eyeing the general disarray of the house.
“I know...I have eyeballs.”
The doorbell rang and Max began barking at the top of his lungs.
“I heard it!” she shouted to the dog, then walked to the door thinking her head might explode. How did Linda deal with this unrelenting chaos day in and day out?
She opened the door to find a brown-suited delivery man. “Package for Mrs. Smith.”
“What is it?”
He checked the manifest. “A case of battery-operated candles.” He grinned. “She gets the most interesting things.”
She squinted, begging to differ. But she signed for it as he dragged the box inside and somehow found a place to set it. She thanked him and when he left, she walked out into the front yard to fetch the newspapers that had piled up near the stoop.
It was a too-hot morning, with gnats buzzing around her head. On the broken sidewalk in front of the house a couple dressed in ill-fitting clothes were walking a yappy little dog. They smiled and waved. She stared at them because they seemed so happy...who could be happy living in this shabby little community?
Didn’t they know they were supposed to be depressed?
“Looks like your yard is getting away from you,” the man called good-naturedly.
Linda’s sloping yard was indeed overgrown, as many weeds as grass, and nearly consumed by clover. And apparently its appearance was bringing down the entire neighborhood.
“I’ll get the gardener right on that,” Octavia called, then gave him the finger.
The couple’s jaws dropped, then they hurried on their way.
A blue sedan pulled up next to the sidewalk and a stocky blond man emerged from the passenger side dressed in a suit. Everything about him was out of place, but in the back of her mind she wondered if he were a cop, maybe a former colleague of Sullivan’s. But he made a beeline for her, as if he knew who she was. Before she realized what was happening, he grabbed her upper arm.
“Where’s Richard?”
Fear catapulted through her at his ominous expression.
He shook her. “Where is he?”
“I...I don’t know,” she managed.
Another shake, this one rattling her teeth. “I think you do.”
From the corner of her eye she saw a reddish-brown streak fly past her. Max was on the man’s leg, his teeth buried in the fabric of his pants.
“Leave my Aunt Tavey alone!” Maggie shouted from the stoop.
“Hey, you,” Jarrod yelled.
The man looked up just as a basketball hit him square in the nose. He grimaced and released Octavia to hold his gushing nose. While he groaned and cursed, Maggie ran up and threw a cup of glitter on him.
“You’re a bad man!”
The bad man clawed at the air to rid himself of the sparkly bits, to no avail. But apparently he’d had enough because he turned and ran back to the car, holding his nose. Max pursued part of the way, barking a noisy sendoff. The man rolled inside, then the car sped off. Octavia saw a few letters and numbers on the license plate and committed them to memory.
She turned to look at the kids, who were staring at her, wide-eyed. “Are you okay?” she asked, hugging them close. She would never forgive herself if something happened to them on her watch.
“We’re fine,” Jarrod said. “Did that man hurt you?”
“No,” she said, although her arm still stung from his bruising grip. “Thanks to you—you guys are my heroes!”
&n
bsp; “And Max, too,” Maggie said.
“And Max, too,” Octavia agreed, giving the dog a tentative pat on the head.
“Why did that man come here?” Jarrod asked. He looked wary, as if he were afraid the guy might come back.
“He was looking for someone,” she said evasively. “But he had the wrong house.” She made a shooing motion, forcing cheer into her voice. “Let’s all go back inside.”
But when she closed the door, she turned the deadbolt. Adrenaline still coursed through her body. The man was obviously trying to find Richard, and from his demeanor, she gathered it wasn’t to give him money. The handgun purchase listed on Richard’s background check was starting to make sense.
Who had her husband gotten himself mixed up with?
“Kids,” she said when she turned around, “let’s not tell your mom what happened.”
“Why not?” Jarrod asked.
“Because it might upset her needlessly. And she has enough on her mind, don’t you think?”
He nodded and looked at Maggie. “We won’t tell.”
“It’ll be our secret,” Maggie agreed in a hushed voice, then crossed her heart.
“Good,” Octavia said, relieved. “Now...who wants pancakes?”
*****
Linda reached down to lift a spider chrysanthemum from the mound of dying flowers covering Sullivan’s grave. The white bloom, amazingly, was still alive after ten days.
Her eyes filled with tears and overflowed again, still unable to get her head around the idea that her husband was in the ground, feeling nothing. She’d come here to talk to him, to feel close to him, but she didn’t know what to say. His life had been so brief, and she wasn’t even sure he’d been happy.
From the box of Kleenex she’d brought with her, Linda pulled yet another tissue and wiped her face. In a tragically short amount of time, the boxes she’d won were dwindling. All of her pockets and purses were full of crumpled balls and moist wads.
“The kids are okay,” she started. “As good as they can be. They miss you so much.”
The echoing silence that answered her permeated bone deep.
She swallowed. “Octavia is staying with us for a while.” She gave a little laugh. “I know—can you imagine? She’s not acclimating well...and she and Maggie are so much alike, it’s unending drama as to which one of them is queen bee. But I think it’s just what we all need right now.”
Two Guys Detective Agency (humorous mystery series--book 1) Page 13