by Dana Dratch
“It’s not like she’s going to yell at us for getting it dirty,” I said softly. “And there could be something hidden in this. You want to give me a hand?”
But it took us only a few minutes of working together to determine that Leslie’s duvet was just a duvet.
“What about between the mattress and the bedspring, sugar? That’s a popular spot, too.”
“OK, if we can tilt the mattress, I can hold it up while you look underneath.”
Easier said than done. We struggled and, between the two of us, barely got the mattress at a forty-five-degree angle.
I was beginning to wish I’d taken Trip up on his offer. We could use a little more muscle right now.
“See anything?” I grunted, as I strained to keep it from falling on Gabby.
“Oh yeah, sugar,” she whispered, waving two DVD cases in front of my face. “I think we hit the motherlode.”
CHAPTER 71
“Well?” Trip demanded as we came through the door.
“Pop the popcorn and pass out the candy, because we’ve got movies to watch,” I crowed.
“I can’t believe you found anything,” he said.
“Actually, I didn’t. Gabby did.”
Gabby beamed. “There are certain places people hide stuff,” she explained. “And under the mattress is a classic.”
“It worked for me as a teenager,” Nick said, ducking into the kitchen to grab a treat for Lucy, who was circling his legs.
“So where’s Annie?” I asked. “And does anyone know how to work her DVD player? Or if she has a DVD player?”
“I do, and she does,” Nick said. “But Annie’s gone. The cops took her away.”
“What!” I exclaimed.
“Relax, Red,” Trip said, patting me on the back. “It was one detective, and he brought flowers. They just went down the street for coffee.”
“Let me guess. Logan Alvarez?”
Nick nodded, grinning. “So what’s tonight’s feature?”
“More like a double feature,” I said. “And I’m hoping it’s called Who Killed Leslie McQueen and Who Killed Leslie McQueen, Part Two.”
“The sequel is never as good as the original,” Trip said.
“Word,” Nick responded, as they slapped palms.
“So who’s on it?” Nick asked. “Or do we have to guess?”
“No idea,” I said. “We were kind of in a hurry to get out of there.”
“Yeah, sugar, that place was creepy,” Gabby agreed.
I pried open the case. The DVD was unmarked. Definitely a home-burn job. I flipped it over and saw #3517 written on the back in heavy black pen.
Oh geez.
“This one is Geoffrey,” I said, handing it off to Nick, who slipped it into the machine. “Of him or about him—I’m not sure. That’s Leslie’s system. She uses the unit numbers instead of names.”
“Don’t have to look too far for the psychology behind that one,” Trip said.
“Behold, the master of technology!” Nick announced, hitting a button on the remote as Lucy planted herself in front of the screen.
Nothing happened.
“The master should have gotten a doctorate,” I said. “The screen is blank. OK, now you’re getting an error message.”
“That’s weird,” he said. “Hang on, let me see what’s wrong.”
“Snack break!” I called. “Seriously, I wonder if Annie has any popcorn in that kitchen of hers.”
“Movie popcorn with melted butter? Sugar, I could go for some of that.”
Baba nodded as she appeared from the hallway, and the three of us headed out to the kitchen to see what we could scavenge.
That’s when I heard a key, and Annie came bouncing through the door.
In a cool blue sundress and flats, with her long blond hair loose, she looked about eighteen. And she was smiling from ear to ear.
“Nick said you were hauled away by the cops,” I said.
“Coffee with Logan. It was nice.”
“Are you gonna see him again, sugar?” Gabby asked.
“He mentioned maybe catching a movie. But we might have to wait until he wraps up the whole Leslie McQueen thing. So, what have you guys been up to tonight?” she asked, alighting on a stool at the breakfast bar as we foraged through her kitchen for snack food.
“Alex broke into another condo and found more blackmail stuff,” Nick called from the living room. “We were getting ready to watch the DVD, but this old-timey machine of yours isn’t cooperating.”
“Oh geez, what did you find?” Annie said, looking at me.
“No idea. The one DVD has Geoffrey’s unit number on it. The other one, we haven’t even opened yet.”
“What if that had been playing when Logan brought me home? What if I’d let him come in?”
“Did he ask to come in?” Nick asked.
“They always ask to come in,” I said. “Even if they tell you they just need to use the bathroom. Trust me, they don’t need to use the bathroom.”
I looked over at Baba. I was afraid she might be shocked. Instead, she nodded.
“But what if that thing had been playing?” Annie asked. “Whatever it is?”
“That, as Geoffrey says, would be bad,” I said. “Very bad.”
“OK, I think I’ve figured out what our problem is,” Nick shouted. “This is probably some kind of computer program. We need to put it into a computer.”
“I have a DVD drive in my laptop,” I hollered back.
“We have no way of knowing what’s on there, Red,” Trip warned. “What if it’s a virus or some other little nasty?”
I looked over at Baba. She crossed herself.
“Gabby and I knocked ourselves out finding this thing. OK, Gabby found it, but I nearly gave myself a hernia holding up that mattress. I want to see what’s on it.”
I snatched two large bags of potato chips from the pantry and headed back to the living room. Gabby followed me with a jug of orange juice and a box of paper cups. Baba, with a stack of napkins, brought up the rear.
“You sure?” Nick asked.
I nodded.
He grabbed my laptop off the table, slipped the disc into the drive and hit a button.
This time, the screen jumped to life.
“Shtow eta?” Baba asked, leaning forward to get a better view of the screen.
“Two files,” I said. “One is in a format I don’t recognize. The other looks like an app. Something called FunMoney.”
Trip leaned over the screen and tilted his head. “I recognize this file extension. It’s something programmers use.”
“Translation for the rest of us mere mortals?” Annie asked.
“Think fashion sketch and finished garment,” I said. “Only for an app.”
“Nice,” Annie said.
“Never heard of FunMoney,” Nick said. “I wonder if your friend Geoffrey created it?”
“He’s an accountant,” Annie said. “Could it be an accounting app?”
“Only one way to find out,” I said, pressing a few buttons. “Here goes nothing.”
After about thirty seconds, a new icon popped up on my screen. I clicked on it.
A display in shades of blue, green, and turquoise filled the screen.
“Oh, sugar, that’s pretty,” Gabby said.
“The man does have a nice eye for design,” Trip remarked.
I paged through a few screens. It had sections for checking, savings, credit cards, and budgeting. All in shades of blue and green, with little pops of pink, orange, and yellow. The colors of South Beach.
The way Geoffrey had it laid out, even I could navigate it. It really did look like fun.
“This is really cool,” Nick said. “I wonder if he’s going to market it.”
“I wonder what the heck Leslie McQueen was doing with it?” I asked.
“The same thing she was doing with everything else,” Annie said grimly. “She stole it.”
“She put a keylogger in his comp
uter,” I said. “I remember the notation in her book.”
“If that’s the case, Red, she branched out from blackmail to industrial espionage,” Trip said. “Would he kill to get it back?”
“It’s possible he didn’t even know she had it,” I said. “If she swiped it and realized what she had, she might have decided to sell it. This was in her special, super-secret stash, after all.”
“If it was a copy, he wouldn’t have even known it was gone,” Annie said.
“But if he discovered it, that might be a motive,” Trip countered.
“Man, that board president of yours was some piece of work,” Nick said. “So can we look at the other one?”
“Knock yourself out,” I said, opening the case. “And the winner is . . . number 9002. Annie, that’s your friend Quinn Whitmore.”
“Computer or DVD player?” Nick asked.
“No idea. Try the DVD player first. Somehow, I don’t see Quinn designing an app.”
He popped the disc in the player.
Leslie and Quinn appeared on the screen, relaxing in deck chairs on a balcony. Leslie’s. I recognized it—and the view—from the night of the party.
Both he and she cradled drinks in their hands—what looked like tumblers of scotch. Quinn was smoking a cigar.
“Wow, an action flick in living black and white,” Nick said.
“That almost looks like infrared film,” Trip said, squinting at the screen.
“Shhhh! I can’t hear it!” I complained.
“Turn it up,” Annie said, reaching for the remote.
“So how much did you take them for this time?” Leslie asked.
Quinn chuckled. “A little over fifteen grand. Chump change.”
“They wouldn’t think that if they knew how you did it,” she teased.
“You ran the table,” he said lightly.
“Good thing I didn’t win. And you’re so skilled, I had no idea what you were doing until tonight. That takes brains. And talent.”
“Eh, you pick up a few tricks over the years,” he said modestly.
“I could never keep it all straight,” Leslie said.
“It’s all I can do to concentrate on the cards in my hand.”
“Takes practice,” Quinn said, puffing on the stogie. “You add one element at a time, until you master it. Then you add something else. First you pick up how to count cards. Then you learn to deal the right way. Throw the right cards to the right people. Now you’re actually controlling the game. Then you add a little UV ink, and you’re off to the races.”
“Well, I think it’s brilliant,” she gushed.
“Most important part is picking the right players.
Smart enough that they’ve got some cash to burn.
Not smart enough to question why they don’t win more.”
“See? That’s why you’re so good at this.”
“Have to lose once in a while, too,” he said.
“They’re not the brightest bulbs on the tree, but even this bunch would get suspicious if I won all the time. You play the game, but you can’t get greedy. That’s the real secret. Poker is all about knowing your opponent. Reading people.”
The clip cut off. We all sat there in stunned silence.
“Looks like there’s at least one person old Quinn didn’t read as well as he thought,” I said. “Leslie bugged her own balcony and got him on tape admitting to cheating at cards.”
“Yeah, but would he really kill over that?” Nick asked.
“Depends on who he took at that table,” I countered.
“That one is bad,” Baba said, crossing her arms over her chest. “Bad man.”
“I don’t remember Quinn’s name on our electrical experts list,” Trip said.
“It wasn’t,” I said. “And he’s one of the few. He actually owned a very successful advertising firm. From what I gather, they sold everything from ketchup to political candidates.”
“The man’s got the morals of an alley cat,” Annie fumed. “But I can’t see him getting his hands dirty rewiring an elevator.”
“Yeah, unfortunately I’m with you on that one,” I said.
“He’s a puppet master,” Nick said, miming dancing marionette strings.
“Exactly!” I agreed.
“OK, kids, so what do we do now?” Trip asked, stretching and stifling a yawn. “Two more good candidates. And we can’t exactly take this lead to the police. Considering how we got it.”
“I say we follow Nick’s advice and sleep on it,” I said.
“That, Red, is the best idea I’ve heard all day.”
CHAPTER 72
The next morning, I woke up at three a.m.. Try as I might, I couldn’t go back to sleep.
Not even with Annie snoring softly beside me.
Yes, even supermodels snore. At least, they do if they’re Vlodnacheks.
The three-sided puzzle of Leslie, Geoffrey, and Quinn was nagging at the back of my brain. And I knew the only way to solve it was to usher it to the front of my brain. And serve it plenty of coffee.
I padded out to Annie’s kitchen. Luckily, I’d watched my sister use her complicated. coffee contraption often enough that I’d actually learned how to work it. Sort of.
Take that, Nick.
As I sat there, waiting for my caffeine infusion, I pondered the facts. But the only conclusion I reached was that I needed chocolate in my coffee.
A quick search of Annie’s cupboards revealed a box of Ghirardelli cocoa. I ripped open one of the little envelopes and poured the contents into my mug. Followed by a second one. I added steaming hot coffee, a little cold milk, and took a long, happy sip.
Standing there, looking out at the cloudless moonlit sky and the ocean beyond, I had an idea. I considered the personalities involved, drained my cup, and fixed a second one. As I drank it, I could feel the chocolate and caffeine kick in. I reviewed the details again, turning it over in my brain, looking at the question—and my solution—from different angles.
Bottom line: I’d need a little more information.
And a lot of help.
CHAPTER 73
When Nick stumbled out to the kitchen a few hours later—with Lucy bouncing at his heels—I was dressed, brushed, combed, and ready to go. I was even wearing makeup.
“Is this one of the signs of the Apocalypse?” he asked, looking first at me, then at the pot of coffee.
“I’ll take Lucy for her walk this morning,” I said. “I figured I’d make a doughnut run, too.”
“Knock yourself out,” he said, scratching his head. “I’d go back to bed, but I think I must still be dreaming. In case I’m not, I’d like a couple of those chocolate crullers.”
* * *
After a caffeine-fueled walk, and a stop at the doughnut shop, I had one more errand to run: a visit to the pool deck.
When Lucy and I strolled in, I spotted Ernie and Stan by the pool.
“Hey, how’s the little pup this morning?” Stan asked.
“She loves this place,” I said, as Lucy busily sniffed Stan’s knees, and allowed him to scratch behind her ear.
“How’s Ethel doing?” I asked, putting one of the boxes of doughnuts on the table and popping the lid. “Fresh out of the oven.”
“Nice,” Ernie said, reaching to take one. “She’s actually doing pretty good. I think she’s shared more a’ the details with Marilyn. But it seems like the cops believe her.”
Stan nodded, smiling as Lucy licked his hand. “And they can’t pin anything on Mrs. Pickles. So she won’t have a record, either.”
That, I was very glad to hear. Especially since both Lucy and I knew who the real culprit was.
“Cops don’t seem to be any closer to solving it, though,” Ernie said.
I felt a stab of guilt. They probably would have, if I hadn’t been running around shredding evidence. But maybe I could make it up to them. Karmically speaking.
I finally asked the question I’d come to ask.
Ernie’s
bushy eyebrows went up. “Why d’ya wanna know that?” he challenged, scooping a second doughnut out of the box.
“Just curious. Trip asked me the other day. I had no idea, but I told him I knew who would.”
“Yeah, right,” Ernie said, smiling. “I look like a mushroom to you?”
“Even trade. You tell me now. And I give you a front row seat in a couple hours when this whole thing comes together.”
“I’d kinda like to see that,” Stan said. “Can I bring a date?”
“The more the merrier.”
Ernie looked skeptical. But he answered my question. And the next two that followed it.
“OK, gentlemen, that’s everything I need,” I said, grabbing Lucy’s leash and giving them a little salute. “Let’s meet back here at noon.”
I prayed I hadn’t just shot myself in the foot.
CHAPTER 74
I presented my plan—in all its gory detail—to the rest of the crew over doughnuts and coffee that morning.
“It sounds good now,” Nick said. “But what do you do if you’re wrong?”
“Same thing I always do. Punt.”
“That would give your face time to heal,” he said. “Although it looks a lot better this morning. Almost human.”
Thanks to some home-brewed concoction of Annie’s, I’d gone from bright red to pleasantly pink. And the peeling was easing up, too.
I looked over at Baba. She nodded. “Da, I come,” she said simply.
I was already seeing signs that she might be missing Baltimore. To compensate for the air-conditioning, she’d topped off today’s South Beach ensemble with a heavy black cardigan and added calf-high sweat socks under her pastel blue clam-diggers.
Classic Baba.
Trip nodded, dropping a doughnut onto his plate and licking the icing from his fingers. “I think it’s a rather elegant solution. Let the punishment fit the crime.”
“Annie, it’s your home and you have to live here after we leave. What do you think?”
She paused to swallow a mouthful of cinnamon doughnut. “Definitely,” she said. “Somehow, it just feels right.”