“We waited outside at lunchtime and nailed the first person we could who looked bribable, and offered five hundred dollars if she could tell us about the major’s sister. She agreed; then we met up two hours later on her break. She said more than a dozen new clients made deposits during the time period in question. No one with the name Nolan, or Conover, or Windsor is on file. That doesn’t mean the sister used her real name, she could have used an alias, which I would be willing to bet is just what she did. It is certainly what I would have done in her shoes.
“We did learn one more thing, though. The young woman we bribed was a little chatty. She said an egg, as in one egg, could go for as high as $50,000. Sometimes more. The norm is $25,000, at least at her clinic. She said the bigger the clinic, the more prestigious the clinic, the starting price is $100,000 if the owner wants to sell them. She said there is one woman who became a millionaire doing just that. That, to me, is just wrong. I don’t know why, but it just seems . . . wrong for some reason,” Yoko said. It was hard to mistake the anger in her voice.
The Sisters batted that summary around for a few minutes. The end result was they all agreed with Yoko, it felt wrong, but people were people and for many, money was the name of the game. No one was breaking any laws except Sara whatever name she was going by at the time.
“You’re up, Isabelle,” Annie said.
Isabelle grimaced. “You aren’t going to believe this! I found the sister’s social security numbers. That’s as in plural. She has, like, a dozen. Actually, eleven. With different names. I had to . . . um . . . ask Abner’s friend Phil for some help. He went on the dark web, someplace Abner will not allow me to go, and he came up with the information for me. She has a number for the name Nolan, her married name Conover, and the very first one ever issued is in the name of Sara Marie Windsor, so I guess that is the name she was given when she was born.
“She has eight aliases and a social security number to go with each. And there are a dozen more identities that are in process. I have the list on my computer. She was a very busy lady, that’s for sure. So far I have not been able to hack into her brokerage accounts or her bank accounts. I don’t know whether she doesn’t have any or she’s managed to get a super-duper identity I haven’t dug up yet. Plain and simple, the woman is a con artist. None of the addresses attached to the alias social security numbers are residential. Some are stores, one is a church, and one is a baseball field, that kind of thing. She covered her tracks really well. I’m still working on it. Just remember, I’m not Abner or Phil. I’m a hacker in training.”
“We’ll take that into consideration, dear,” Myra said. “What you did manage to get is remarkable and more than we had starting out. Just do your best.”
“I have nothing to report other than my red bag has now been replenished. I feel confident in saying that if anything crops up, I can handle it. I’m free now if you need me to do anything,” Alexis said.
Maggie looked up. “Is it my turn?” Not bothering to wait for a response, she rattled on. “I don’t have much. That chick was really good at covering her tracks, that’s for sure. Right now, I am perusing her high-school yearbook and trying to see if any of her classmates are on Facebook. I have sent dozens of queries, but so far, no one is getting back to me. What I do know is she has not attended a single class reunion. That’s high school. As far as I can tell, the major’s sister did not go to college.”
“Keep at it, dear. Eventually, something will turn up. I guess that leaves Annie and me to report in. Annie, do you want to do the honors?” Myra asked.
“Happy to, Myra. First of all, I want to say Walter Reed is an amazing hospital. It’s also a very sad place. Myra and I spoke to the major’s nurse, his doctors, a few of the volunteers, and several patients who knew Major Nolan. We were both convinced there was no negligence or anything like that with his care. Everything was top-notch. He had the best of the best. It just . . . it just wasn’t meant to be,” Annie said, a catch in her voice. “His nurse, Lieutenant Gibson, said she spent every available moment she could with him. She said they prayed together, and they cried together. Her only regret was that she didn’t press him more on his background. She said when she did, he got agitated, and that was not good for him, so she just kept the conversation neutral. She did say that he only had kind, loving words for his parents. When the conversation turned to his sister, he got agitated. No details. And then the confession about his wife.”
“Confession? That’s a strange way to put it, isn’t it?” Nikki said.
“That’s what we thought. And I mentioned just that to Lieutenant Gibson, and she said it was because she asked him who had his power of attorney and he said his sister, but then he said his wife, that he changed it at the last minute and his friend took care of things for him because he was being deployed, and it cut the time too close. That was the first Lieutenant Gibson knew about his being married. The nurse who took care of him when he had first arrived at Walter Reed transferred out three days after Major Nolan’s arrival, and Lieutenant Gibson took over. The original nurse might have known, but Lieutenant Gibson wasn’t sure. If that was the case, then Major Nolan wouldn’t want to repeat it all over again. At least that was what Lieutenant Gibson thought. In the military, I’m told,” Annie said, “if you deploy, you need to designate someone to handle your affairs, hence the POA.”
The girls looked at one another, understanding perfectly. Murphy’s Law. What could go wrong did go wrong. Period. End of story.
Eight cell phones dinged at the same time. A text was coming in to all eight phones. The only person who could make that happen would be Avery Snowden.
Annie read the text out loud as the Sisters followed her every word.
“ ‘Hit a stone wall. Major Nolan’s parents resided in a retirement community, and these people will not look at me or my people, much less talk to us. Annie and Myra, you’re up. You’ll fit right in here, and these people will talk to you. I’m sure of it. Gas up that plane and get here as soon as you can. In the meantime, I am scouring the town for people who still live here who might have known the major or his sister. We are staying at the Commodore Hotel on Evergreen Avenue. Directions to follow. ’ ”
Annie was on her phone. “Like right now, Peter,” she said to the pilot. “Wheels up in sixty minutes. Tulsa, Oklahoma,” she responded, when he asked for a destination so he could file a flight plan.
“Shake it, Myra!”
“Annie! Wait! I have to change my clothes, pack a bag. Hold on here.”
Annie stopped in her tracks and whirled around. “Do you have your pearls on?”
“Of course. What a silly question.”
“Then move your ass, Myra. That’s all you need. We’re burning fuel just standing here.”
Myra spun around to look at the Sisters. Her expression said it all when the girls gave her a thumbs-up and made shooing motions with their hands. Myra galloped after Annie, yelling for her to slow down. Annie ignored her. Myra ran as fast as her arthritic knees would permit.
* * *
“Well, we’re here,” Annie said.
It was late afternoon when the Uber driver came to a stop at the gate leading into Lake-more Estates, the senior living enclave where Major Nolan’s parents had once lived. Avery Snowden said they were to say they were going to the real-estate office on the property. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be permitted to enter. Once inside, he said they were to drive to 74 Winchester Terrace, where Maddie and Henry Olsen lived. The Olsens had been good friends with the Nolans before they died. They did as Avery had instructed, and the guard at the gate waved them through.
“Avery is worth every penny we pay him, doncha agree, Myra? That was a piece of cake.”
Myra simply nodded. Annie was on a roll, she could feel it.
A half mile down the winding brick road, the Uber vehicle slowed and pulled onto a brick-paved driveway that matched the road. A bright red Honda Civic sat in the driveway. The Uber driver handed Myra his b
usiness card and told her to call him when they were ready to leave and said if he wasn’t on another ride, he would come and pick them up. Myra nodded and pocketed the business card.
Both women looked around. “Everything is so . . . so neat. Trimmed, brushed, washed, whatever. The flowers in the mini flower beds look like they’d been placed in the ground with precision. Possibly a ruler to measure the distance between each bloom, and each house appears to have a color scheme. I could never live here, Myra. It’s like . . . almost too perfect. It reminds me of a set on a movie or something,” Annie griped.
A dog barked down the street and an echoing response could be heard coming from another dog. She wondered if they were dog friends. Such a silly thought. Annie shrugged as she followed Myra up the walkway to a front porch with a bright yellow door with a eucalyptus wreath on it.
Myra rang the doorbell and fingered her pearls. Why was she so antsy, so jittery? So they schemed their way inside this enclave. So what? It wasn’t like they were criminals, and they really did have a good reason for being here. They had done worse things than this in the past. Maybe it had something to do with the aging process.
She shook her head to clear her thoughts. Lately, she’d spent way too much time thinking about growing older. She gave herself another mental shake. She just hoped the Olsens were understanding people.
Both women looked around at the neat, tidy porch with the baskets of colorful fall flowers. They looked lush and healthy, not a yellow leaf to be seen. A mister went off on the far end of the porch with a soft hissing sound just as the dog down the street barked again. An answering rejoinder could be heard. “I sure hope this is not one of those Stepford towns,” Annie hissed, “because that’s how it is starting to feel to me. Something about this place bothers me.”
Myra was about to make a comment, but the door opened to reveal a man and a woman standing side by side. They were holding hands. She deliberately did not look at Annie, who she knew was just itching to pull out her gun and shoot the hand-holding couple. “Mr. and Mrs. Olsen, my name is Myra Rutledge, my friend standing next to me is Anna de Silva. Countess Anna de Silva,” Myra clarified. “We’re here to talk to you about an old neighbor of yours, Andy Nolan. His widow Bella asked that we come here. We need some information on the family, so we can help her. We’re hoping you can help us do that.” She waited expectantly for the couple’s response.
“How did you get in here?” the tall, bearded man barked, ignoring Myra’s plea.
Anticipating that this little talk was going to go south rather quickly by Olsen’s tone of voice, Annie snapped, “How do you think? We lied.” And then a devil perched itself on Annie’s shoulders. “By the way, my friend and myself also have another name we respond to. Try this on for size, the Vigilantes!” She reached behind her and whipped out what she lovingly called her six-shooter. She looked Mrs. Olsen square in the eye as she made her declaration.
The screen door whipped open so quickly that Myra and Annie almost toppled over. “Lord have mercy!” Mrs. Olsen exclaimed. “I’ve been waiting all my life to meet you ladies. You come right on in here and pay no mind to my husband. He loved Andy Nolan like he was his own son. He’s just being protective of that young man. I loved him, too. We, both of us, about laid down and died when we heard what happened to him. Why it had to be Andy and not Sara is a mystery to me. I know, I know that is not nice of me, being a Christian and all, but I can’t help it. And I will not apologize, either. That girl was a bad seed. Still is, I’m sure. You all just follow me into the parlor, and we can talk there. Mercy, I cannot believe this. My bingo partners are simply not going to believe this. No sirree, they are not. Can I get you something to drink before we . . . what’s the term . . . get grilled? Henry, are you getting this? We’re being grilled by the Vigilantes. Such an honor! I am just so beside myself. Does it show?”
Annie laughed. “Just a little. We’re good,” she said. She was still holding the gun and she stroked it as she eyed Henry Olsen, who was looking everywhere but at Annie.
Myra nodded. “First, let me explain why we’re here and about Andy’s young widow. As I said, we’re here at her behest.” Both Olsens nodded and listened intently as Myra shared what she and Annie knew, and what they now needed to find out. “Tell us what you can about Andy’s parents.”
Surprisingly, it was Henry Olsen who took the lead, but first he looked at Annie and apologized for what he called his bad attitude. Annie graciously nodded that she was okay with his apology. However, she did not return her six-shooter to the small of her back. She continued to stroke the shiny metal as she listened to him speak, almost reverently, of the Nolans.
“Maddie and I were friends and neighbors with the Nolans for thirty years. Seems like we knew them all our lives. Dan had just married Sonia when they moved next door to us. We were all young back then. Dan had been married very young to a lovely young lady who was killed by a drunk driver. Sonia was his second wife. The first wife, her name was Melanie, had a two-year-old daughter from a previous marriage. That husband wanted nothing to do with a two-year-old little girl, so Dan took her in. To this day, Maddie does not believe that Dan legally adopted Sara. Speaking for myself, I was never quite sure if he did or didn’t. I think Dan thought if he said he was Sara’s dad, then he was her dad. End of story right there.”
“The Nolans were as poor as we were back then,” Maddie said. “There would not have been any money for lawyers, and Dan was still paying for his first wife’s funeral on time payments,” Maddie volunteered.
“When Sara started school, she used the name Nolan. But somewhere over the years I heard, and it wasn’t from the Nolans that I heard it, that Sara started using the name Windsor. It was none of our business, so we never asked them about it,” Henry said.
“A year after they moved in next door to us, Sonia, Andy’s mother, got pregnant, and so did I. We became even closer then. I had a baby girl, and Sonia gave birth to Andy. The children were born just a month apart. We all hoped the two of them would grow up to become a couple. That never happened,” Maddie said wistfully.
“Next spring, Maddie and I are going to take a road trip to Washington, D.C., and we plan to go to Arlington Cemetery. We’ll take some flowers for Andy’s grave, if it’s allowed. If not, we’ll go, kneel, and say some prayers. I think Sonia and Dan would like us to do that. I know they’d do it for us if the situation were reversed,” Henry said.
“We need to know about the daughter, Sara. What we’ve heard so far is not good,” Myra said.
“A bad seed, that one. I know I keep saying that, but there’s no other way to describe that girl. Well, she wasn’t a girl anymore, a young lady I guess,” Henry said ominously. “She hated young Andy with a passion, always trying to get him in trouble. She’d lie, cheat, steal. Like I said, a bad seed. Sonia was at her wits’ end. Dan . . . he just couldn’t control her, so she ran amuck and pretty much did what she wanted to do. She was never held accountable for anything. Wild and uncontrollable. Even knowing all that, young Andy adored her. He often told me she was the prettiest girl in school. He told me when he came back here before deploying the first time that he had given her his power of attorney. We wanted to tell him that was a mistake, but we didn’t. Now I regret not doing that every day,” Henry said.
“Who died first, Mr. or Mrs. Nolan?” Annie asked.
“They both died in a tragic bus accident at the same time. The root cause was a tornado that sprang up out of nowhere that day. Maddie and I were supposed to go on the senior bus trip with them, but we both came down with the flu. The trip was to Las Vegas. A big truck, one of those eighteen-wheelers, lost control, crossed the lane, and smacked headfirst into the bus. Everyone on board died, and so did the bus driver. It was just awful,” Henry said. “They found the bus and the bodies strewn everywhere along that highway after it was all over. It was in all the papers and on television for weeks. Maddie and I, sick as we were, had time to get to our shelter in the basement. Mo
nths later, we saw on the news that the truck driver had suffered a heart attack at the wheel at the same time. Maddie cried for weeks, and I cried right along with her. Sara now, I never saw her shed even one tear. That’s not to say she didn’t. We just never saw a tear, I guess, is what I’m trying to say.” His tone of voice was as sour as lemon juice.
“I called the army to let them know so Andy could come home to the funeral. It took a whole bunch of time because he was over there in Iraq.” He pronounced it, I-RAK. “By the time he got here, his parents had been buried. Sara saw to that. She wanted them in the ground lickety-split, and there was no one to oppose her. That boy cried his heart out to us. He was here less than thirty-six hours, and he had to leave again. He said he left everything in Sara’s hands,” Henry said.
“Quicker than lightning, Sara put the house up for sale, and it sold quickly. She got a pretty penny for it, too. In other words, she got the inflated asking price because Dan kept the house updated and in good shape. Sonia had just gotten a new kitchen, too. All beautiful cherrywood. That helped raise the price Sara got for the property.”
“How much did the house sell for?” Annie asked.
“It was $389,000. And she didn’t use a broker, just put a sign in the yard. That was all clear money, and there was no mortgage on the house. Andy should have gotten half of that, but he told Maddie in an e-mail all the way from I-RAK that Sara said she made some bad investments and lost it all. By rights, if she was never legally adopted, and we think she knew that for years, she was not entitled to anything from the Nolan estate. As far as we know, neither Sonia nor Dan left a will. Since Andy is the only biological son, he should have gotten everything. Sara sold both their cars, too, and kept the money. We think she got close to maybe $17,000 or $18,000 total for both cars. Like everything else, Dan was the one who kept them maintained. Whoever bought them got a good deal. Andy didn’t get any of that money, either. He excused it all by saying Sara was a novice at investing and she was just trying to double the money so they would have more to divide.”
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