Suddenly she remembered George. His call. She hadn’t called him back. He’d said he noticed something about the mailboxes. She checked the clock on the dashboard again. It was too early to wait for him. She didn’t know his last name to try to reach him at home and decided to call him from home later.
Bertha noticed a light in the front window that was Rhonda Green’s bedroom as she slowly drove through the long, rutted driveway to the back of the house. After she shut off the engine, she wearily gathered the bowl of spaghetti and her white linen jacket and walked up to the back door with her key ready. Balancing the spaghetti she slipped the key into the lock. The whole thing—doorknob, lock and all—came off in her hand.
“Aw, shit!” She cursed softly as her back door creaked and swung open. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled. She looked at the doorknob in her hand and whispered to no one in particular, “This is starting to work on my nerves.”
Chapter Fifteen
Rhonda Green leaned her shoulder against the doorframe with one bare foot on top of the other. Carpeted stairs rose behind her that led to her second-story home.
Bertha said, “Someone broke into my apartment. Have you heard anything?”
Rhonda’s eyes widened. “No. Nothing unusual. You just get home? “
“Yeah. Call the police, will you?”
“Sure.” Rhonda turned and started up the stairs.
“Hey,” Bertha called. “Maybe you should lock your door.”
Rhonda stopped on the third step and turned.
“I’ll wait in the Jeep,” Bertha said softly. “I want to see if anyone comes out.”
“Right.” Rhonda shut the door, and Bertha heard the lock click into place.
Probably whoever broke in had come and gone. Bertha looked at the doorknob in her hand. Someone had taken the time to make things look normal. She crossed the yard in long strides and unlocked the back of the Jeep. There wasn’t much light. She felt around until she found the long iron jack handle, then moved toward the passenger side to see if her flashlight was in the glove compartment. She kicked something on the ground, swore softly, reached down, and picked up a plastic toy.
As Bertha brought the object closer to her face, she saw it was a toy gun. Snub-nosed and close to life-sized. Probably Jerome’s. She wished she had her gun and wondered if the police were going to release it to her. The only way she could buy another was to write a check on the mysterious woman’s money again. Right now it seemed like a good idea. Without thinking, she stuffed the toy gun in her pocket. After the spaghetti dinner, her unforgiving jeans felt tight, and she really had to give the thing a shove.
Bertha checked the glove compartment. The flashlight was there, but the batteries were dead. Great! She shut the Jeep’s door quietly and, trying to stay in the darkest patches of the yard, made her way back to her own door.
It creaked as she pushed it open. The kitchen was dark, but as far as she could tell, everything looked normal. There was a dim glow from the living room. Maybe the computer or the television. She never left either of them on. She couldn’t deny that someone had been here—maybe still was. Bertha raised the tire iron and moved on.
When she was close to the living room, she saw the woman curled up on the sofa, watching TV, her head resting on a couple of pillows. Bertha was glad to see her, whoever she was. Funny, she’d spent the weekend trying to find her, and in the end, the mysterious woman had come to her.
She stepped through the archway to the living room and stood there with the jack handle ready.
The woman looked at her sleepily. “You always stay out this late on a Sunday?”
Bertha frowned and cut her eyes at the woman the way Grandma did when Bertha screwed up really bad.
“I been waiting for two hours,” the woman said.
“Let yourself in, I see.”
The woman shrugged. “I had to pee. I didn’t want to leave and miss you, so I came in.”
Bertha decided not to tell her that the police were on the way. She didn’t want her to try to leave just yet. “Wouldn’t a credit card have worked as well? It would have been quicker.”
“My credit cards were canceled,” the woman said. “I’m currently unemployed.”
“You’re not charging something. You’re breaking in. Now I’ve got to have the whole fixture replaced.”
“Get a deadlock. They’re better.”
“You have a lot of nerve.”
“Well, like you said, with a credit card—”
“If you’re unemployed and your cards are canceled, where did you get the money to hire me? Plus who the hell are you?”
“I’m sorry I had to lie. I had to see you and get you on my side. You needed the money. I needed you. It seemed a fair trade.”
“A fair trade? A man was murdered in my office. His name was Joe Morescki. The same man you told me you were married to.”
“I know. That wasn’t in my plan. I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” Bertha’s already high blood pressure went up a notch. “Sorry!”
“Will you stop holding that thing over me and sit down so we can talk?”
Bertha noticed she was holding the tire iron, ready to strike. She caught the woman glancing at the gun‑shaped bulge in her jeans pocket.
She lowered the tire iron, sighed, and said, “What’s your name?”
“My name is Kim Cornwell. I was a secretary at the architectural firm of Laswell and Morescki.”
“Joe Morescki’s secretary.” Bertha remembered that from somewhere.
“Yes, that’s right.” Kim nodded in exaggerated agreement.
“You said ‘was a secretary.’ Did your employment end before or after Joe Morescki was murdered?”
“Before.”
“Why?”
Kim hesitated and then laughed nervously. “Boy, you get to the bottom of things fast.”
“I was trained to. I’m an attorney, remember?”
Kim sighed. “In the course of my duties, I came across a large file. It wasn’t in with our regular clients and vendors. It was in Mr. Morescki’s desk. I thought he’d pulled it out and forgot to re-file it.”
“So you filed it?”
“Well, yes. After I opened it to see whose file it was. The tab wasn’t marked.”
“And whose was it?”
“It was a mix of things.” Kim plucked at a loose thread on the arm of the couch, stalling. “There were some papers on the purchase of property over on the east side of town. Six addresses from our firm and another three from Morescki and Son Concrete.”
“The shopping-mall project?”
“You’ve heard of it?”
“Just recently. Was that all?”
“There was a property right in the middle of everything. The owner wouldn’t sell. That’s common enough in these kinds of deals. The owner smells money and holds out for an astronomical price. Since Joe’s on the city council, he’s been known to get the property condemned and seize it anyway. But he usually tries other methods first. He’s not really a bad guy. Wasn’t a bad guy, I mean.”
Bertha was worried the police were going to interrupt them when she finally thought she was learning something important. “So this good guy fired you?”
Kim nodded “There was more. Joe had done a lot of research on this one owner. And there was a family connection.”
Bertha couldn’t imagine how anyone in that neighborhood would be connected to the Moresckis. She waited.
“It was a relative of his wife’s.”
“Sally Morescki?”
“That’s right.”
Bertha was full of questions. She tried to remember how many white families there were. Mrs. Latch, for sure. Down the street were the Andersons, a family with seven kids, five dogs, and no grass in their yard. There were two Latino families in the next block. She said, “That’s primarily a black neighborhood. What address is this hold‑out owner at?”
Kim enunciated the words carefully. “Nineteen‑
twenty‑one East Grand.”
Bertha knew the address well. She grew up there. “How is Sally Morescki connected to my grandma?”
“I’m not sure. She’s a relative or something. Mr. Morescki caught me reading the file—”
“Look at me. I’m black. My family’s black. Generally that’s passed down generation to generation. Sally Morescki isn’t a relative of mine.”
Kim shrugged.
Bertha went on. “I met Sally Morescki today. She doesn’t look like anyone in my family.”
“I was fired for reading that file,” Kim reminded her.
Bertha wondered if Rhonda Green had dialed 9‑1‑1 or the non‑emergency number. She wanted to know more. She hoped the police took a while. “That was the only reason you lost your job? Are you sure?”
“I was employed at Laswell and Morescki for five and a half years. I always got good performance reviews. I was stunned.”
Bertha slumped into her well-worn swivel rocker. She leaned toward Kim Cornwell, her elbows on her knees, her chin resting on her fists. Jerome’s toy gun poked at her groin.
Kim said, “That day after Joe called me in and fired me, I went to gather my personal things from my desk. I discovered that when he took the file away, he’d left the page I’d been reading. Actually, I’d stuffed it in my drawer when I saw Joe coming toward me. By that time I was pretty sure I wasn’t supposed to see the file.”
“So you took it with you?”
Kim nodded. “That’s how I tracked you down. I started with Mrs. Brannon, your grandmother. Joe found out I was snooping around, but he still hadn’t missed that page. He threatened me. Told me to stay out of this. He said he’d decided to forego the purchase of the property. He said the old lady was at death’s door anyway. Those are the words he used. Death’s door. I asked, what about the granddaughter? And he said he had you in his pocket.”
“Me? In his pocket?” Bertha repeated dumbly.
“That’s what he said. I thought you knew him, that you’d recognize the name when I came in.”
“Why did you tell such a lie? You could have told me the truth.”
“Someone followed me to your office that day. I thought it might have been one of Joe’s thugs, or Joe himself. I was afraid they were in the outer office, and I got scared that you really were in with him.”
Bertha cocked her head. “I thought Joe was such a nice guy.”
Kim flushed. “He was. We had a little thing going a few years ago. I broke it off when I met someone, you know, available. I thought he’d probably fire me then, but Joe was a sweetheart.”
“You told me that you’d seen Madame Soccoro, and she advised you to get a lawyer.”
“I did. Three months ago.”
“When you were fired?”
“Yes. When Joe called me to tell me he wasn’t going to push on that Brannon property, I told him I was going to see a lawyer about my dismissal. I mean it’s a blot on my record. Joe offered me a very generous settlement. I took it.”
“How much?”
“Eighteen months’ salary. Fifty thousand dollars.”
Bertha whistled. It was good pay for a secretary. Even one you were sleeping with. “What was all that crap about murdering your husband?”
Kim flushed again and looked at the floor. “I never was a very good liar. I wanted to tell you the whole thing. I was expecting you to look like Sally. You can imagine my surprise when I saw you. Then I was scared someone was listening to us. Some of the stuff I wanted to tell you was prohibited by my settlement contract. If one of the Moresckis heard me do that, I’d be toast.”
“Who murdered Joe Morescki?”
“I don’t know.”
Bertha thought about that. Finally she asked, “If you had all that money, then why pursue the business about the Brannon property? What’s it to you?”
Kim seemed to be staring at the wall above Bertha’s head.
Bertha looked behind her and saw the reflection of the flashing red light in Aunt Lucy’s shadow box.
“You called the police?”
“Of course I called the police. How was I to know it was you?”
Kim nodded, then reached for her purse and stood. “It’s been nice, but I need to get going.”
“How can I reach you?”
“I’ll be in touch.”
“They’ll have a guy at the back door. Why don’t you give yourself up?”
Kim Cornwell smiled, walked to the front door, released the night lock, and opened it. She turned and waved at Bertha, and then walked toward the approaching police officer.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” she said to the man as Bertha watched from behind the screen door. “Miss Brannon there has had a break-in.”
“Who are you?” the officer asked.
“I’m her secretary, Luan Smith. I promised I’d stay with her until you arrived. She’s very frightened.” Kim looked at her watch and added, “I really need to get going. My husband works the midnight shift and my kids will be alone soon.”
The police officer actually tipped his hat and said, “Thank you, Mrs. Smith. I’ll take over now.”
A lone policeman took a report. Bertha told him that the only thing she’d lost was the doorknob.
“Probably just kids then,” said the officer, looking at the damage. “But be careful. The perpetrator might be back.”
Bertha signed the report, and the guy was gone within twenty minutes. She called Rhonda Green and told her she was all right. She thought she might have awakened her, but Rhonda seemed glad to know that she was safe.
Bertha sat down at the computer and typed in some notes about Kim Cornwell’s visit. Finally she shoved a kitchen chair against the back door and discovered that, without a doorknob, it wouldn’t hold very well. Bertha was nailing the back door shut when the phone rang. A quick glance at the clock told her it was 12:30, Monday morning. She picked up the kitchen wall phone in the kitchen and said, “Hello.”
“Hi, Bertha,” a woman said. “Did I wake you?”
“I was up.”
“This is Toni Matulis.”
Bertha’s mood quickly rose, then crashed as Toni added, “I’m at the Lambert Building. There’s a dead man here.”
“What? Who?”
“His name is George Pickrell,” Toni said, “employed here as a maintenance man.”
“How?”
“Looks like he fell down two flights of stairs.”
“Or was pushed.”
“Or was pushed.” Toni repeated.
“Damn it. I was supposed to call him back last night. I got distracted with the fire at Grandma’s and forgot until tonight.”
“We think he died last night. Of course, there’ll be an autopsy, but the homicide boys call it at sometime between one and four in the morning.”
“He lay there all that time?”
“Looks like it. His wife called him in missing late this afternoon. A few hours later, she called the manager of the maintenance company and made him let her in down here. She’s the one who found him.”
“Aw, what a mess.” Bertha took a deep breath. “You want me to come down there?”
“No. No one even told me to call you. But this is my beat, and I know there may be a connection to Joe Morescki. Pop doesn’t want to hear about that, but I have this feeling.”
“George was a nice old guy. I hate that he got caught up in this mess.”
“Look. The ambulance is here. I got to go. I’ll call you in the morning, and we can have a cup of coffee.”
“Come by my place when you get off. I’ll make some coffee.” She quickly gave Toni the address and they hung up.
Bertha walked around the apartment for several minutes straightening up the clutter and putting her clean laundry from the day before away. She stepped out of her jeans and heard Jerome’s toy gun clunk on the floor as she dropped them. She got an old music-festival T‑shirt from her bottom drawer and tugged it over her head. In the kitchen, she pulled one
of the six boxes of Little Debbie Snack Cakes out of the small cabinet over the refrigerator and set a new carton of milk on the table.
Bertha unwrapped the first snack cake and thought about George. She should have called him back. This whole thing had something to do with her, and he’d died for it. Guilt gnawed at her. The day’s events spun in her mind. Rhonda Green, Sally Morescki, Toni Matulis, Kim Cornwell, and finally George.
She was unwrapping her third snack cake when she looked toward the living room and saw the edge of the crow bar lying on the floor near her swivel rocker. She got up, switched off the kitchen light, picked up the jack handle, and padded barefoot into her bedroom. She laid it carefully under the edge of her bed and threw herself across the covers.
Morning came before she remembered she’d left the milk out.
Chapter Sixteen
Someone was pounding on the back door. Bertha squinted to bring the numbers on her alarm clock into focus. Seven thirty. What day is it, she wondered—is it still the weekend?
A woman called, “Bertha. Bertha, are you up?”
Bertha had a horrible taste in her mouth and a burning sensation in her esophagus that heralded the onset of indigestion. Slowly it came back to her, the spaghetti and the Little Debbie Snack Cakes.
Nine Nights on the Windy Tree Page 13
