“Well, it was pretty simple,” he said. “And pretty stupid too,” he added as he brushed some fallen hair out of one eye. “He saw this ad on Facebook for a seminar about investing in time-share condos out in California. The ad made the place sound like a Playboy paradise. Like a place a fellow could go to with his mistress or whatever and never be bothered. Or a fellow could go there, and they had ladies on payroll who’d do pretty much anything you asked them to do. They had a whole setup where if you invested and paid extra, you’d get this whole cover-up package that would make it look like you’d been out in California on some business trip. They gave fake receipts for conferences and seminars and hotel stays. They even gave a fake eight-hundred number for verification so that you could give it to your wife or business partners if they got suspicious.”
“Sneaky,” said Veenie. “I bet they made a lot of money from horned toad men.”
“Well,” mused Bert, “they pretty much cleaned Bromley out. I mean, he bought into the thing hook, line, and sinker.”
Veenie nodded. “Bromley had women out in California too?”
“He thought he was going to, but the whole thing turned out to be a scam. There were no time-share condos. No women. Nothing but a giant sandlot, empty promises, and high monthly charges on our company credit cards for dental conventions and seminars that never happened.”
Veenie clicked her teeth. “This place have a name?” she asked.
Bert nodded. “Oh sure. It was called Sun City.”
Veenie looked at me, her eyes wide. “Ain’t that the name of the scam Sassy’s husband was running?”
“One and the same.” I turned to Bert. “Tell Veenie who Money Boy is.”
“Near as we can tell it’s this fellow Doogie Duval. He was running the ads, targeting them to doctors and professional men, insurance agents, dentists, and engineers in rural Indiana, using Facebook. That’s how they snagged Bromley.”
“Bromley couldn’t see through that sort of thing?” Veenie asked.
“Oh please, he thought with his scrotum when it came to things like that. He was the perfect target. Besides, they did a good job looking legitimate. Once they found a fellow, they invited him to a local investment seminar and lured him to a rented auditorium on the IU campus up in Bloomington with an invite to a free steak dinner. They had some fellow they called a “professor” who gave the investment pitch. I mean, when he first showed me the brochures and all, I thought it might be a legit real estate investment, but I nixed it, because frankly, we were already cash poor at the practice.”
Veenie eyed Bert. “If you’re so poor, how’d Bromley ever get the money to invest in the first place?”
Bert scrunched up his face. He looked pained. “This is the part Mother hasn’t been telling you.”
It seemed to me Avonelle hadn’t been telling us a lot, but I kept my clapper shut and motioned for Bert to keep spilling the beans.
Bert sucked in a deep breath and continued. “Bromley blew all the cash and credit he had trying to buy into Sun City. Once he’d exhausted that, his agreement called for him to lose all his investment if he couldn’t keep up with the monthly payments. Apparently, even though the place was a scam, the contract he signed for installment payments was legit.”
Veenie piped up. “Avonelle gave him the money to keep up payments?”
“No, she flat out refused. Saw through the con.”
“Where’d the money come from?” Veenie asked, her eyes wide.
“Doogie made a deal with Bromley. Told him he’d reduce the direct payments and keep his name out of the whole scheme. Not implicate him to the Feds as a partner and co-owner if he did him this one favor.”
“What favor?” Veenie asked.
“He gave Bromley special software.”
“Software?” Veenie asked.
“Yes, a virus that Bromley put on Mother’s laptop at work.”
“Uh-oh!” cried Veenie. “You mean?”
Bert nodded. “It was Bromley who got the slicing software onto the bank’s computer system by infecting Mother’s laptop. He set up Mother as an embezzler.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
When we arrived home that night it was already dark. Sassy was sitting on the porch swing next to Boots, waiting for us. They’d switched on the porch lights. The bug lights I’d screwed into the outdoor light fixtures bathed them both in a wash of yellow. Sassy’s face was all puckered up, like she’d been sucking a pickle. Boots looked nonchalant, per usual, his sunburnt face shining like a large red zinnia in the yellow bug light. He had his hat off and was balancing it on his right knee. They weren’t facing each other, but staring out toward the street.
Sassy waved and hollered when she saw me and Veenie careen around the corner in the Impala and pull into the driveway.
Veenie jumped out of the Chevy and scrambled up onto the porch while I maneuvered around Boots’s cop car and parked in the back of my driveway. I gathered up what was left of the pies and ambled toward the house, eyeing the unhappy pair on the porch swing.
Sassy was on her feet now, one hand to her sternum. She ran to the edge of the porch to greet me as Veenie shot past us and into the house, headed to the bathroom. She’d had her legs crossed since we’d dropped Bert off out at his place in Camelot Court.
“Where in God’s name you two been all day?” Sassy croaked. She didn’t sound happy.
“On a case.” I said. “You two want some pie?” I nodded at the pies in my arms. We had a blueberry crumble and most of my coconut cream leftover after encouraging Bert to take a spare chocolate cream home for himself.
Boots said, “You got any coffee to go with that pie?”
Sassy made another pickle face. “I got to watch my figure.” She patted her midriff. “Besides I’m too upset to eat a dang thing. Boots here is trying to arrest me.”
I eyed Boots. “That true?”
“Yep.”
I rolled my eyes. I was tired and ready to hit the hay, but since Sassy was a paying client, I’d have to perk up enough to cipher out what was going on.
Seeing my hands full, Boots stood and opened the screen door for me. He lumbered after me and the pies into the kitchen while Sassy stayed out on the porch calling out to me, “Talk some sense into your man. I’m paying you and Lavinia good money to clear my name. I’m counting on you, you hear?”
Boots asked if I wanted him to put on the coffee pot while I fussed with the pies.
“I’ll get it,” I said. “I’ve tasted your coffee.”
He snorted a bit.
I asked him why he was on my porch and what had Sassy in such a tailspin as I cut him a generous slice of blueberry pie and warmed it up in the microwave.
“DA isn’t too happy with Sassy.”
“Why not?” I asked as I dug around in the freezer for some vanilla IGA ice cream. I’d known Boots my whole life, so I knew how he liked his pie.
He shrugged. “All the evidence pretty much shows that Sassy was the last to see Fussy walking and talking. The crime forensics came back from the lab, and there’s not a whiff of anyone else on any of the crime scene samples except for Sassy. The gig gun had been wiped clean of all prints but for Fussy’s.”
The microwave beeped, and I scooped out some ice cream and sat the pie and ice cream on the table in front of Boots before running hot water through the coffee maker.
He thanked me for the pie before digging in.
I mulled over what Boots had said as I rinsed out a pair of coffee cups for the two of us. I considered making a cup for Veenie, but I’d heard her bedroom door slam down the hallway, so I figured she was down for the count, which was where I wanted to be.
I slid the coffee cups onto the kitchen table and sat down across from Boots. “You know full well that Sassy is not a killer.”
He stopped shoveling pie and looked up at me, wiping his lips on a napkin. “Do I?”
“She has no motive.”
“Some people say she’s got a temper,
mighty hard to get along with if she don’t get her way.”
“They say the same thing about you.”
His face reddened.
I puffed out a deep sigh. “What about Sassy’s ex-husband, Doogie?”
“What about him?” Having finished the pie, Boots swirled the coffee around and took a hot sip. “That’s good coffee,” he said.
“Doogie Duval is right here in town,” I said. “He’s likely been here since he slipped out of prison over in Terre Haute.”
Boots eyed me. “You seen him?”
“I think so.”
“Think so?”
“Darn it. Boots, why you always have to interrogate me? Most people take me at my word.”
“They haven’t known you as long as I have.” He took another shot of coffee and pulled a toothpick out of the little ceramic mule on the table that held them in his saddle bags. “Did you see Doogie or not?”
“Yes, I saw him. Out at Leisure Hills.”
“Leisure Hills? What was he doing out there? He’s a wanted felon. Seems odd that he’d be hanging out in public with the oldsters, chatting them up.”
“He has a suite out there. Registered under the name John Smith. Smithy, they call him.”
Boots got up and rinsed his pie plate and cup in the sink. He sat them in the drainer. “That makes no sense at all.”
“I didn’t say it made sense. I said it was God’s truth.”
“You just found him there and walked up to him and said howdy, are you the guy who busted out of prison over in Terre Haute awhile back?”
I blushed a little. “No. I saw him scooting down the hallway there, but when Veenie and I went to his suite, he wouldn’t answer our knocks. But gosh darn I know it was him.” I then told Boots how Pooter had seen a man who answered to Doogie’s description out at the Moon Glo Motor Lodge with Bromley right before his death, and how Bert had told me and Veenie that Bromley had been deeply invested in the Sun City real estate scam with Doogie.
Boots rubbed his upper lip and looked around the kitchen like he might be perturbed. “And this is the first you thought to report any of this to me, law enforcement?”
“For Pete’s sake, we just learned most of this today. Veenie and I were busy doing our jobs. This is the first I’ve seen of you since this morning when you brushed us off about getting shot at out at the barn.”
Boots stood up, scraping his kitchen chair back with more noise than necessary. “I didn’t brush you off. You went all mum-lipped about why you were out at that barn, and then I spent the rest of the day chasing down clues, cause dang it, I care about you, Ruby Jane.”
The tips of his ears had gone red, his cheeks too. I felt a little sheepish. I mumbled a “Sorry.”
“No matter,” he said. “You were out at that barn meeting someone who’s trying to blackmail Avonelle. That right?”
I narrowed my eyes. “How’d you know that?”
He pulled his cell phone out of the leather snap case on his holster belt and flicked it on. “Whole town knows that.” He showed me the screen, which was open to the front screen of the Hoosier Squealer website. Under “Breaking News,” I read:
Shades Agency Caught in Lead Shower at Hoosier Barn Shootout
If you were down near Hound Holler lately and thought you heard firecrackers or gunfire, you’d be quite right. It was gunfire, folks. This all happened in the exact same place prominent town dentist Bromley Apple was found dead as a rutabaga dressed like a hobo scarecrow on Ms. Barbara Skaggs’s front porch last week.
The shots were coming from the barn on Ms. Skaggs’s property. Sounded like a shotgun, not a rifle, to those who heard it. No one knows who fired said shotgun, but everybody knows who it was that had to outrun the buckshot. Per usual, it was professional snoops Mrs. Lavinia Goens and her longtime friend and business acquaintance, Mrs. Ruby Jane Waskom.
The two senior sleuths were on a case for the Shades Detective Agency. They had been hired by Mrs. William Apple to snoop and determine who might have killed her son, Bromley. Our lovely coroner, Ms. April Trueblood, has since ruled Bromley’s death one of natural causes—seems he was born with a bum ticker and just didn’t know it—but it’s still a big secret why he was perched on Ms. Skaggs’s porch in odd attire. Some believe it was a sexual thing (the odd attire, not the death per se.)
Ms. Skaggs says she remains in the dark about the dead dentist and why he decided to expire at her front door. “I’ve had a run of bad luck lately,” she said. “I figure this is just more of the same.”
The real mystery: why were the two lady PIs out at that barn after dark? The local rumor mill says blackmail may be involved. Who’s being blackmailed and why? Nobody knows for sure, but Mrs. William Apple, president of our esteemed First National Bank, may be involved. There have been several reports of bank statements with pennies missing here and there. Sounds to us like the world’s smallest bank robbery may be afoot, but you never know, so stay tuned to the Squealer for updates.
In any case, Mrs. Lavinia Goens says she does not take being shot at lightly and wishes the offending party to know that when he is caught, she fully intends to, “Kick his sorry butt from here to next Christmas.” Those who know Mrs. Goens assure us that she is quite capable of making good on that threat.
Doc Scarborough is sponsoring tonight’s special news bulletin and wishes to remind everybody that an annual checkup is a wise investment if you’re over fifty and not feeling all that nifty. Head on over and let the doc check your tick-tock. Mention the Hoosier Squealer and get a free oatmeal raisin cookie baked by Mrs. Wilma Scarborough, herself, Pawpaw County’s own Cookie Queen.
I wasn’t happy to read that report. Veenie had to have been the primary source of the news, and she knew full well we weren’t supposed to talk to the press about cases. I was pretty much boiling mad. I reckoned I knew now why she had scurried off to her bedroom and hit the hay early.
“Well?” asked Boots as he clicked off his phone. “That part about blackmail being why you were out at the barn, that right?”
“Maybe. Some of it,” I grumbled.
He crossed his arms against his chest. “Which part of it?” He had his heels dug in. He clearly wasn’t going anywhere until I told him the whole story, or at least as much of it as I knew and understood.
I sighed and sank down in the kitchen chair.
Boots folded his arms against his chest and let his eyes drill into me.
I told him all about Avonelle and the bank and what Bert had told Veenie and me about Bromley and how he had put the virus on his mom’s computer to pay Doogie off and keep him quiet about his investment in the Sun City real estate scam.
“Well,” mused Boots as he stroked his closely cropped white beard. “So Doogie probably is in town? And he’s the embezzler behind this whole missing pennies scheme?”
“Near as we can tell.”
“And Avonelle has reported all this to the bank authorities?”
“Yep, a Mr. Peesley from Chicago. Veenie and I met him.”
“Doggone it!” He shook his head as he stood up. “You ought to tell me these things, woman. I’m the law around her.” He poked at his own chest. “I ought to know this kind of stuff.”
“I just told you,” I said in my defense. I stood up and looked him square in the eye. “You going to leave Sassy alone now?”
“Nope,” he said as he headed toward the door, one hand on his ring of handcuffs, the other on his pistol.
“No?” I cried, my voice hoarse. “You’re taking her back to jail?”
“Course I am. The DA wants her behind bars. Got no other suspects. All the evidence points to her. I can’t just up and ignore a court order. I’m sworn to uphold the law. They’ve set a trial date. She’ll get a chance to plead her case in court, same as everybody.”
We were out on the porch now, and Sassy had heard that last part. She looked white as a ghost, save for her lips, which were fire engine red, per usual. “You’re taking me in?”
“Sorry. Got no choice,” said Boots as he pulled the warrant out of his pocket. “You’re going to trial. You can call a lawyer soon as we get to the jail. We’ll make you as comfortable as we can.”
“But what about Doogie?” she screamed loud enough to wake up the whole neighborhood. In fact, across the street I saw the lights go on in Thelma Nierman’s living room. Thelma was in her nineties and stayed alive pretty much just to spy on me and Veenie. She loved listing out our sins and indiscretions. She was certainly getting an eyeful and an earful that night.
“What about Doogie?” Sassy cried as Boots cuffed her and led her down the porch stairs. “He must have killed Fussy. He’s the jealous type. Real jealous. Once, he hit a guy in the nose just for looking at me for too long.”
Boy, I thought, a day ago Sassy was all, “Doogie is a gentleman. Doogie isn’t violent. Doogie wouldn’t hurt a fly. Doogie’s a good Hoosier boy.” But now, with Sassy’s neck in a noose, the story had changed. By the time Boots had Sassy escorted to his patrol car and had her head lowered to help her into the backseat, she was screaming accusations, like Doogie might be the long-lost Night Stalker.
The one saving grace: Boots didn’t flip on his cherry or his siren. He pulled quietly away from the curb. As he passed under the streetlight at the intersection, I saw Sassy with her pasty-white face plastered to the window lipping out a plea for help.
Our only hope now was to find Doogie and bring him to justice.
Chapter Thirty-Five
The next morning, when I went to check on Veenie in her room, she’d vanished. She must have run off to hide from me. Probably figured I’d read the Squealer by now and figured out that she’d tattled stuff that she ought to have held in confidence. And gosh darn, I could have used her help. Sassy wasn’t getting sprung from jail all on her own.
When I arrived at the office, Harry was sitting behind his computer, his sleeves rolled up. His ashtray was brimming in cigarette butts, and his eyes were a little bloodshot, like he’d been working for a while. Before he could bellyache about the whereabouts of his coffee and donuts, I flung a white bakery bag of day-olds from the Roadkill Café onto his desk and headed to the coffee machine to start the morning perk.
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