by Paige Sleuth
Andrew rubbed his chin. “I suppose we could go over to her house and ask her.”
Kat frowned. “Right now?”
“Sure. Maple Street’s not that far. And she gave me her address when I took her statement yesterday.”
“But it’s Thanksgiving.”
Andrew pushed away from the counter. “Then she’s probably home.”
Kat couldn’t think of a good argument for that. She stood up and went to grab her coat.
CHAPTER NINE
Sylvia’s eyes widened when she saw Andrew and Kat standing on the porch. “Detective Milhone.”
Andrew smiled. “Happy Thanksgiving.”
Sylvia didn’t say anything, her gaze skirting toward Kat.
“You’re probably wondering what we’re doing here,” Andrew said. “I had some follow-up questions concerning the mugging.”
“Do you need to ask them now?” She glanced over her shoulder. “We were just getting ready to eat.”
Andrew took a step forward. “It won’t take long.”
Kat didn’t miss how he had positioned his shoe in the doorway. Sylvia wouldn’t be able to close the door on them now even if she wanted to.
And, from the look on her face, she was certainly considering it.
But after another moment passed she moved aside and motioned for them to enter.
Kat inhaled as she stepped inside the modest, single-story house. The air was thick with the smells of turkey and pie and an assortment of other foods. Her stomach grumbled, reminding her that it wouldn’t be long before Imogene’s dinner began.
A man who looked to be about Sylvia’s age and a twenty-something woman were laying out place settings around the dining room table. They paused when Andrew and Kat entered the connected living room.
“This is my husband Juan and my daughter Grimelda,” Sylvia said, gesturing toward them.
“Nice to meet you,” Kat murmured.
Andrew strode over to the man and held out his hand. “Detective Andrew Milhone.”
Juan’s face broke out in a smile as he shook Andrew’s hand. “You’re the policeman who helped Sylvie.”
“That I am,” Andrew confirmed.
Grimelda stepped closer to Kat. “I can’t thank you enough for being so kind to Mom.” She turned to Andrew. “You too.”
“Just doing my job.” Andrew backed into the living room. “I have a few questions for Sylvia, and then we’ll be out of your hair.”
“Stay as long as you’d like,” Juan said. “In fact, we can set two more places for you and your friend.”
Andrew waved the invitation aside. “We have our own plans.”
“Thank you for the offer though,” Kat said.
“Let us know if you change your mind. It would be an honor to have you join us.”
Juan and Grimelda turned their attention back to setting the table, and Andrew and Kat went to join Sylvia. She was sitting on one end of the room’s lone sofa, her back ramrod straight.
“So, Detective Milhone,” Sylvia said, “how may I assist you?”
He took a seat in the wingback chair across from her. “I’d like to clarify some things about your statement.”
“I’m not sure what else I can tell you.”
“We can start by going over why you chose to shop at the Food Mart.”
Kat glanced at him. She hadn’t expected him to jump right into the heart of the matter. Apparently he hadn’t lied when he said he intended to keep their visit short.
Sylvia worked a crease in her pants. “I thought I explained my reasons already.”
“I’d like to hear it again.”
“Their prices are better.”
“I checked their prices,” Andrew replied. “And my research indicates otherwise.”
Kat sat down on the opposite end of Sylvia’s couch, grateful he was leaving her out of this.
Sylvia crossed then uncrossed her legs, her eyes looking everywhere but at them.
“You left the Food Mart receipt at Kat’s,” Andrew continued. “When I took a look at the items purchased, it didn’t appear as if you’d saved any money by shopping there instead of at Hank’s.”
“Perhaps I miscalculated,” Sylvia said.
“Perhaps.” Andrew paused. “Is your car still in the Food Mart parking lot?”
Sylvia’s head jerked up. “What?”
“Your car, the one that broke down yesterday. Is it still at the Food Mart?”
Sylvia shook her head. “Armando recharged the battery.”
“I’m still not sure what the deal is with that battery,” Juan called out from the dining room. “I just replaced it two months ago.”
Sylvia twined her fingers together. “I must have left the headlights on.”
Juan looked up from setting the table, a crease forming on his forehead. “They’re supposed to shut off automatically.”
Sylvia’s eyes narrowed. “Well, they didn’t.”
Juan shrugged. “Could be a sensor’s broken somewhere. I’ll get Igor to take a look. He knows everything there is to know about cars.” He picked up a handful of forks and got back to work.
Sylvia coughed and faced Andrew again. “Anyway, my car is working fine now, thank you.”
“I’m glad,” Andrew said.
Armando emerged from the kitchen carrying a covered casserole dish. He halted when he spotted Kat, his mouth going slack.
“I’ll take that, Uncle Arm,” Grimelda said, circling around the table.
Armando didn’t acknowledge her offer. He merely stood there as she reached for the food. He had to be at least six inches taller than she was, forcing her to lift her hands above her shoulders in order to get a good hold on the dish.
A dozen images flashed through Kat’s mind then, from Janice standing in their apartment building lobby to Sylvia’s scream to the turkey still in her freezer to Tom playing with the Food Mart receipt. It was as if everything were hitting her at once, all the pieces of the puzzle falling into place simultaneously. And when she saw the picture they made, the blood drained from her head.
She gripped the edge of the couch and looked Sylvia straight in the eye. “You were never mugged, were you?”
CHAPTER TEN
Sylvia’s jaw dropped open, and the color drained from her face. “Wh—what do you mean?” she stammered.
“The whole thing was a setup,” Kat said.
Kat stood up and walked closer to the dining room, taking in the bowl of stuffing and the sweet potato casserole that had been brought out already. If anyone asked what each of the ingredients had cost, she could tell them down to the penny.
Kat gestured toward the table. “You bought all that stuff using the homeless shelter’s money.”
Sylvia twisted her hands in her lap. “I was mugged.”
“You weren’t mugged. But you did have a partner.”
Kat searched the dining room until her eyes found Armando’s. He was watching them with eyes so wide that she could see the whites around them.
Kat aimed her finger at him. “You’re the alleged mugger, aren’t you?”
He didn’t speak, but his guilt was written all over his face.
Andrew waved Armando over. “Come talk to us.”
Sylvia jumped off the couch. “Please, leave Armando alone!”
Kat swiveled toward her. “Was he in cahoots with you?”
“Yes!” Tears filled Sylvia’s eyes. “I said it, okay? But Armando didn’t want to go along with it. I forced him.”
“Why?” Kat asked.
Sylvia’s shoulders slumped. “Because we couldn’t afford Thanksgiving dinner otherwise.”
Kat felt a pinch of sympathy, but she quickly brushed it away. “You stole from the homeless shelter, from people less fortunate than you, so you could have a fancy Thanksgiving dinner?”
A flush crept up Sylvia’s neck. “We just wanted to celebrate.”
Kat noticed that not only did they have Armando’s attention, but Sylvia’s h
usband and daughter had also abandoned what they were doing to look at them. Except, judging from the shocked expressions on their faces, Kat didn’t think the other members of Sylvia’s family had been a part of the setup. This was probably the first they were hearing about it.
“With my husband and Armando both out of work right now, we barely have the money to buy rice,” Sylvia said, collapsing back onto the sofa. “And, believe me, we’re all getting tired of that. I just thought it would be nice if we could take a day off from our hardships and enjoy what the holiday is all about.”
Kat wasn’t going to let her off that easily. “By stealing?”
Tears slipped past Sylvia’s eyelids and cascaded down her cheeks. “I planned to pay everything back. Just as soon as we could I was going to give everything back.”
“Everything?” Kat thought about her phone conversation with Howard. “You were stealing from CHATS, even before yesterday, weren’t you? You’ve been taking their donation money.”
Sylvia clamped her mouth shut, seeming to realize she’d said too much.
“That’s why CHATS has to hold another fundraiser before Christmas, because they never received some of the other donations that should have been enough to support them through the end of the year,” Kat said, her mind churning.
She played back through her conversation with Marissa, remembering how strangely she had behaved when Kat had brought up Jessie Polanski’s contribution to the shelter last month. Marissa must have been under the impression that Jessie had never made a donation. She probably thought the restaurant owner was all talk when it came to giving cash rather than food.
“You’ve been intercepting the donations, haven’t you?” Kat asked Sylvia, her hands clenching into fists. “You’ve been taking the money for yourself.”
Sylvia pulled her knees up to her chin, as if to shield herself from Kat’s words. “You can’t prove that.”
“Maybe I can’t, but somebody else can. Someone at the shelter saw you stealing.” Kat didn’t mention Howard’s name, not wanting to drag him into this.
But apparently Sylvia didn’t need a name. She blanched, the possibility of anyone witnessing what she’d done enough of a threat to send the color draining from her face.
Juan set down the utensils clutched in his hands and took a step into the living room. “Sylvie, is this true?”
Sylvia’s eyes flicked toward him before she lowered her forehead to her knees.
Juan perched on the couch next to her. Using a single index finger, he gently lifted her face up. “You must tell me. If you have been taking money from CHATS, it isn’t right.”
Sylvia’s lower lip trembled. His soft tone seemed to be getting to her.
“Please, Sylvie,” Juan said. He picked up one of her hands and cradled it between his own. “If you did these terrible things, you must confess. You must set things right.”
She closed her eyes. “I never meant for it to get this far. I only meant to take a little, to get us out of a rough patch. But it was so easy—surprisingly easy. So next time I took a little more.”
“Mom,” Grimelda said, listing against the wall. “How could you?”
“I had to,” Sylvia told her, her eyes moist when she opened them again. “How else would we have paid all the bills that were piling up around here?”
Grimelda didn’t reply, but the taut set of her jaw betrayed her disapproval of her mother’s actions.
“You don’t know,” Sylvia said, pulling her hand away from Juan’s to wipe the tears from her cheeks. “You’re too young to understand. But you’ll see someday. Sometimes in life you don’t have any good choices. You just have to do what you can to get through each day.”
“That’s no excuse,” Grimelda spat. She whipped toward Armando, piercing him with her eyes. “And you, Uncle Arm. I can’t believe you went along with this. A fake mugging?”
Armando hung his head. “We were only trying to make this day memorable for you, Little Bear.”
Grimelda scoffed. “Well, you’ve certainly succeeded.”
Andrew cleared his throat, causing all of them to jump. Sylvia gasped, and Kat gathered that she had forgotten all about the police detective listening to her every word.
“I need to know exactly what happened yesterday,” he said.
Sylvia bit the edge of her lip, obviously not wanting to implicate herself any more than she already had.
“CHATS sent Sylvia to buy food,” Armando said, evidently not sharing his sister’s concerns. Either that or he felt he owed it to his niece to explain what they’d done. He was looking at Grimelda as he spoke. “She called me, since she knew I was at home. She told me to meet her close to the Food Mart, that she would buy some things there then hand them off to me in a place where nobody would see us.”
“You waited for her outside my apartment building,” Kat said.
Armando nodded. “I met her in the back, by the garbage bins. I was to take the food and leave, then Sylvia would get help as if she had been mugged.”
“And you left that one bag with the turkey to authenticate your story,” Kat said.
“It tore by accident,” Sylvia said.
Juan reached over and took her hand again. She sat up a little straighter, seeming bolstered by his support.
“Rather than delay by repacking things, we decided I would leave that one bag,” Armando said. “There was plenty of food without it anyway.”
“Then you came back around to the front of my building where you were parked, got into your white sedan, and drove off,” Kat filled in.
Armando’s jaw slipped open. “How do you know what my car looks like? You couldn’t have seen it outside just now. It’s parked in the garage.”
“One of my neighbors saw you getting into it outside our complex yesterday morning.”
He grimaced. “Ah, yes. I remember. The girl with the loud dog. I didn’t know if she would tell anybody about me.”
“She probably wouldn’t have mentioned it, but when she heard about the mugging she thought you might be involved.” Kat turned to address Sylvia. “So what was your plan after Armando left? You were just going to scream until somebody heard you?”
She nodded, her eyes darting toward Andrew. “But I did not expect a police detective to show up.”
“Because you didn’t want to file an official report,” Kat surmised. “You just wanted somebody to be able to corroborate your story when you told CHATS that their food had been stolen.”
Shame distorted Sylvia’s features. “Yes.”
Juan pulled his hand away from Sylvia’s and buried his face in his palms. “I had no idea my being out of a job had led you to this.”
Sylvia scooted closer to him, setting one hand on his knee. “It’s not your fault.”
Watching the Garcias as they comforted each other, Kat felt a little pang of envy. What would it have been like to grow up in a family that was so invested in one another’s happiness? Would it have made things easier, or did being so close-knit only increase the burden each person felt by obligating them to take on everyone else’s problems in addition to their own?
Juan looked at Andrew. “What is going to happen to Sylvie and Armando now? Are you going to arrest them?”
“I have plenty of reasons to,” Andrew said. “Falsifying a police report, theft, embezzlement.”
Sylvia looked as if she might be sick. In the dining room, Armando stood as still as a statue. The list of things he could be charged with appeared to have immobilized him.
“But I’d prefer to talk the situation over with the CHATS staff before I do anything,” Andrew went on. “They might want to handle this quietly, so as to avoid any negative publicity that would result from word getting out about one of their employees stealing.”
Sylvia bobbed her head. “Yes. I will talk to Marissa. I will explain everything. I will make things right with her.”
Juan rubbed Sylvia’s shoulder. “We’ll pay the money back,” he said to Andrew. �
��All of it. Plus interest.”
“I’m going to start volunteering there too,” Grimelda chimed in. “I’ve been meaning to get more involved anyway.”
Kat watched the family rallying around each other, and her heart warmed. Although she couldn’t condone what Sylvia and Armando had done, it was clear they had acted with their loved ones’ best interests in mind.
Kat’s gaze drifted toward the table. Sylvia and Armando’s desire to provide Grimelda with a traditional Thanksgiving supper seemed to have blinded them to what was right in front of their eyes. But that didn’t stop Kat from seeing it with crystal clarity.
The Garcias already had everything anyone could ever want for Thanksgiving. They had each other.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“I’m tickled so many people have come!” Imogene Little said, rubbing her palms together as she surveyed the crowd gathered inside her house.
Andrew grinned. “Who would have thought a vegan Thanksgiving would be this popular?”
“Why wouldn’t it be? There’s no need to sacrifice taste in order to live a compassionate life.” Imogene beamed at Kat. “Your pie looks delicious, by the way.”
“My pie?” Kat said, unsure if she’d heard right.
“The tofu pumpkin pie you made.”
Kat looked down at the pathetic excuse for a pie in her hands, trying to deduce whether Imogene had meant her comment as a joke. She had somehow managed to throw this together after returning home from the Garcias’, but she secretly feared it wasn’t edible. With a ridge of browned tofu lumps poking out of a rust-colored bed of overcooked pumpkin, it certainly didn’t look appetizing.
But if Imogene was poking fun at Kat’s failed cooking attempt, Kat couldn’t tell from the look on her face.
Imogene gestured toward the other side of the living room. “I put it over there with the rest of the desserts.”
Kat’s gaze veered toward a table set up along the far wall, coming to land on a familiar pie box. There was no mistaking where that box had come from. It was exactly like the ones Kat had seen on an almost daily basis ever since she’d started waitressing at Jessie’s Diner four months ago.