Angel Sleuth

by Lesley A. Diehl

  Hiram stood at the bottom of the stairs with Toliver hovering behind his broad frame. What worried her most was the ugly object Hiram held in his hand—a pistol.

  She smiled at him with the knowledge that any minute Mac would come pounding through the front door and make mincemeat out of the two of them. Hiram was as dumb as criminals are reputed to be, she thought, to have missed Mac baby sitting in the car out front.

  “So, I suppose you like these odds better. No weapon in my hand. Of course I never did see a florist pin as a weapon. I’m surprised at you. Why make me come downstairs when you could have come up and push me down like you did Leda.” She spoke with confidence. She was about to be rescued.

  “So you figured that one out, did you? Or did Baldo tell you? Oh, yeah, I know you were there today visiting the old curmudgeon. He didn’t exactly see Leda take her fall, but he arrived soon after, and he suspected. But, of course, he wouldn’t tell a soul cuz he was up to his stethoscope in the whole thing.”

  “I guess Leda just knew too much about all the things that were disappearing from ARC to be allowed to live. Then I became a similar problem, finding those letters from the residents.” She wanted to keep him talking long enough for Mac to make his entrance. Where was Mac anyway?

  A smarmy smile appeared on Hiram’s face. She knew it meant he couldn’t resist bragging about his role in the events at ARC. Good for her. More time for the posse to arrive.

  “A pretty smart idea. Having the nurses, attendants, and those interns snatch pills from the old farts up there. Reselling them on the black market to people who wanted a break on the price. Oh, and the side benefits. Some estate jewelry and encouraging the folks too senile to know better to rewrite their wills leaving most of their money to Toliver or Dr. Sardino or even me.” He cocked his hip to one side, waved the gun in a circular motion and continued.

  “And you? You were never more than a small annoyance, a gnat that we needed to swat. A bump on the head to warn you off. Leda’s computer and her files stolen, then planted in your house. How could the authorities believe anything you said about ARC?” She was mildly shocked. She’d never heard Hiram say so many words at one time, but she was happy to keep him talking. Where the hell was her rescuer?

  “Shut up, Blackman. You’re talking too much. Now get the job done, and let’s get out of here. We’ll barely be able to make the plane as it is. Why you found it necessary to do this, I can’t understand. Let’s get going. Just do it. I want out of here,” Toliver said. She clenched her teeth together in frustration. Now would be good, Mac.

  As if in answer to her unspoken concerns, Hiram smiled and shook his head back and forth.

  “Shame on you. Thinking that aging ex-cop will come charging in here. We took care of him earlier.” Again Hiram waved the pistol around in a small, dismissive circle.

  “Just so you know. This job is personal. Just for you. Now, move! I need a little privacy for this.” Hiram gestured toward the kitchen, and Kaitlin backed up through the door until her elbows hit the counter. Without Mac, she needed a plan to get out of this. But Mac was my plan.

  “Open that door, Toliver. If I remember from my high school days, it leads to the basement. Right? A nice quiet basement. By the time they find your body, my plane will be winging me off to tropical breezes, palm trees and sandy beaches. Too bad you can’t join me. I always liked you.”

  “Right. Only because you couldn’t have me. So I guess you hit on more naïve targets, like teenage girls. Or those you could get something out of like Barbara.” It wasn’t her intention to aggravate him, but she needed time to work out something that would get her out of this mess. Getting him to talk more, assuming he had any more words in him, might work to her advantage or at least put off her demise for a while.

  “Barbara? No. That fat cow? She was Sardino’s girl until she got cold feet and threatened to go to the authorities. And Bethany? She was a bit naïve. Thought I would take her with me out of the country. Fat chance. She was fun for a while, then she got to talking about the love thing. And marriage. And meeting her folks. I had to unload her.”

  Say something provocative, keep him talking.

  “It doesn’t matter. The authorities have your gold cross, the one Leda pulled off your neck when you shoved her. It’s enough to charge you with murder.”

  “I’ve got a free ride out of here and plenty of money to go with it. The cops will never find me. Turn on the light, Toliver.” He gestured with his pistol once again for Kaitlin to head toward the door and down into the basement.

  “I can’t find it. Where’s the switch?” Toliver fumbled around with his hand on the wall just inside the door, but Kaitlin knew there was no light switch. There was only a cord that hung down from the bare bulb at the top of the stairs, and she wasn’t likely to volunteer that information to him.

  Suddenly a loud squeal came through the back door followed by a thump.

  “What the hell?” Hiram grabbed her arm and pulled her to the door.

  “Get the door and don’t let anyone in here.” He twisted Kaitlin’s arm and held the pistol to her forehead. Kaitlin hoped they had only knocked Mac unconscious and he was at the back door attempting an entrance.

  She cracked the door to see who was there. No one appeared, but the door swung open as the prodigal Desdemona forced her substantial form through the opening and ran for her dishes across the kitchen. Kaitlin fell backward against Hiram, knocking the gun from his hand.

  Desdemona’s headlong rush to the food took her on a collision course with Toliver. His feet went out from underneath him as Desdemona’s chubby frame met his and threw him down the darkened stairs. Kaitlin heard him make contact with what lay at the bottom of the stairs, a few discarded bird cages, the abandoned fish aquarium and an ant farm from her own childhood.

  Still struggling to find her feet after careening into Hiram, Kaitlin’s hand reached back to grab the counter and made contact with the pool cue she had leaned there earlier. Hiram caught his balance a split second before she did, and he came for her, head down, ever the football star rushing for the touchdown. She whirled on him, bringing the stick up to meet with his unprotected, uhm, you know, his unprotected midsection. She lined up the shot and let ’er rip. It wasn’t quite a regulation shot, more of a shove with the tip of the cue toward the target.

  “…in the side pocket,” she called. To make sure of her shot, she followed up by flipping the cue around and whacking him over the head with the butt end of the stick.

  Hiram stepped backward, teetering on the edge of the basement steps, then plunged down the stairs to join his buddy. The beauty of it all. She pulled the cord on the light and saw the two of them lying in a heap of animal cages, arms and legs akimbo. No one was moving. She had no illusions they were dead. Their heads were too hard for that. She did hope for a few broken bones and an extensive stay in a prison hospital.

  Chapter 29

  A warm body leaned against her leg.

  “Great work, huh, Desdemona? And by the way, where have you been, aside from cavorting with that suave guy in the carnival? I’m telling you, he’s no good for you. He’ll get you in a family way, then leave you.”

  Desdemona glanced up with her sad and intelligent pig’s eyes, long white eyelashes framing a look that said Kaitlin was right. Kaitlin was certain she was right. Desdemona looked a little plumper than when she left.

  “Kaitlin?”

  She turned toward the open door to see Mac swaying there.

  “Mac! You’re alive. Hiram said he took care of you.” She ran over to Mac, supporting his weight on her shoulder and pointing to where the pistol lay under the table.

  Mac grabbed one of the stools at the counter and pulled it under him.

  “He did. Hit me on the head a good one. No way was he going to chance the sound of a shot being heard. Where are the bad boys?”

  “Down there.” She pointed toward the basement. “They’re not feeling up to conversation just yet.” Sh
e took a look down the stairs to make certain she was right, then opened the freezer for a frozen bag of peas and handed it to Mac.

  Meanwhile, she placed that long overdue call to Jim.

  “Hi, there. I’ve got something for you. At my house. In the basement.” Maybe delivering a few suspects to Jim would make up for her tardiness in contacting him. She hoped.

  “He’ll be right over,” Kaitlin said. Mac groaned acknowledgement and held the Birdseye bag on his head. She picked up the pistol from the floor and placed it on the counter. Then, while they waited for Jim, she pulled a few carrots and some cabbage out of the fridge and placed them in Desdemona’s bowl.

  “I see the little porker is back. I’m real glad.” Mac dropped the frozen peas on the counter. “Got any bourbon? It’s better for a banged head than solid vegetables. Give them to Desdemona, would you?”

  “Oh, damn. No booze.” She explained to him about her trip to Larry’s and her discovery tying in Leda’s last words and Hiram’s role in her death. She also told him about Baldo.

  “You spent a whole lot of time sneaking out of the house tonight, and after Jim and I warned you how dangerous it could be. It’s just not like you to be so, so, so, well, just so unlike you.”

  She decided not to tell him Mary Jane was her role model in all this.

  Desdemona finished her meal and came over to sit on Kaitlin’s feet as she slumped in a chair at the kitchen table.

  The doorbell rang, and Jim’s voice called out from the front doorway. “It’s Jim.”

  She started, suddenly not so eager to see Jim after the shenanigans she’d pulled this afternoon and evening which ran counter to his cautions for her to stay put. And then she didn’t call him until everything was over.

  “Tell you what, Mac, since you’re up to speed on what’s been happening around here, you talk to Jim and let him in on what you know. I’ll run out and get that bourbon for you.”

  Before he could object, she grabbed Desdemona’s leash from the hook by the kitchen door.

  “C’mon, Dessie, let’s go for a walk. I’ll buy you a chocolate bar at the corner market.”

  There’s no stopping a potbellied pig on the track of chocolate. She pulled Kaitlin out of the door, and they headed across the yard. Kaitlin looked back into the lighted house to see Jim join Mac in the kitchen. Mac was pointing toward the basement stairs.

  “That was pretty mean and cowardly of me, wasn’t it, Dessie? But I just couldn’t face Jim. I screwed up, and I don’t know what got into me.”

  Desdemona made appropriate grunts as they sped along the sidewalk. Other people, taking in the cool evening air, called friendly greetings—”Good to see you, Kaitlin.” “Glad you got Desdemona home.” “Nice evening for a stroll.” Everything seemed just as before. Except it wasn’t. Something was missing, and Dessie knew it, too.

  Kaitlin hurried to get their chocolate—Dessie convinced her they should have an entire box of candy bars—and gave Larry a lame explanation of why she had run out of his store earlier. Desdemona and Kaitlin stopped a block short of home where she plunked herself down on the curb, removed the wrapper from a candy bar, and offered it to Desdemona.

  “Want a pickle with that?” The pig looked up at Kaitlin. That might have been anticipation on her face, but maybe it was only the melted chocolate on her snout that gave her that expression. Kaitlin unscrewed the top of the bourbon bottle she’d almost forgotten to buy again.

  “I could use a drink. Correction. I could have used a drink about two hours ago.” She took a swig, coughed, and remembered she preferred her booze very watered down, like with ten ice cubes, a gallon of water and a shot of whiskey. So instead she joined Desdemona in a chocolate bar. Then in another.

  By the time they reached home, Kaitlin felt they were both in better spirits. There was a sway to Desdemona’s hindquarters when she walked, and Kaitlin was swinging the bourbon bottle in cadence to the tune of Cheeseburger in Paradise, which was racing through her head. It was a chocolate-induced high, but it was better than nothing.

  The two of them slammed through the front door to find Jim sitting on the living room couch. He gave Desdemona and Kaitlin a close examination from his position across the room.

  “What’s that on your faces? And what’s that smell?” She was about to explain when he added, “You’re drunk. You got the pig drunk, too.”

  “I took one sip from this bottle. Check it if you want. Desdemona and I have been drowning our sorrows in chocolate, so if we seem a little high, it’s the caffeine and cocoa that’s doing it. And what are you doing in my house?”

  “Well…”

  She interrupted again. “Where’s Mac? This is for him.” She held out the bottle and looked around the room as if Jim had hidden Mac somewhere in the place.

  “As I was saying, if you had been here a mere ten minutes ago and not on your chocolate spree, you would have witnessed my arresting the two guys at the bottom of your stairs. You called me about them, remember? Then I sent Mac off to the emergency room to have that knot on his head attended to. He told me where you went, so I decided to wait for you.”

  “Oh, God. I feel like hell. Did Mac tell you about Baldo?”

  “I was at his house when you called me, when you finally called me. I had a warrant for his arrest also and Toliver’s. They both slipped by us at ARC.”

  “Well, you guys sure are sloppy and more than a little slow, you know!” She screamed this at Jim, then thought better of hysteria and backed off. “I’m sorry. I’m kind of tired. Must be coming down from the sugar rush. I thought this stuff would last longer.”

  “It’s not the chocolate. It’s finding Baldo and confronting Hiram and Toliver in your own home. You’re in shock.”

  “No, you’re wrong. It’s not all those guys. I’m like Desdemona. She’s feeling as bereft as me. She lost her home and Jeremy and her lover. And I’ve lost them too. And all because I had lousy taste in men when I was a teenager.”

  “You’re speaking of Hiram and his threats, right? And may I point out to you how contorted your logic is.”

  “Point it out some other time. Right now I need a good cry.”

  “Again?” he asked.

  She didn’t want him to think tears were some kind of a ploy to get his sympathy or attention. She couldn’t control their washing down her cheeks. He crossed the room and took her arm, led her to the couch and pushed her down onto it.

  “I’ll be back in a minute,” he said and headed toward the kitchen.

  “I don’t want a drink of water!”

  “Bourbon?”

  “No!”

  “What then?”

  “I want someone to hold me.”

  * * *

  “How much information did you get out of Hiram before you jabbed him in the…uhm, jabbed him?” Jim asked. He and Kaitlin sat at the counter in her kitchen, each drinking a bourbon and water.

  “Well, I know part of what was going on at ARC was that Toliver, Hiram, most of the staff and some of the interns were stealing drugs from the residents with Alzheimer’s and dementia. They sold the drugs and other material they stole…to whom exactly? And I certainly can’t believe that Hiram and Toliver were the brains of this scheme. I suspect Dr. Sardino was the head honcho.”

  “There’s quite a market for painkillers like OxyContin, Vicodin, and even statins.”

  She nodded, recalling an article she’d read recently about some elderly citizens who sold their prescription medications to pay for food or fuel bills. The buyers were usually drug addicts.

  Jim filled her in on the rest.

  “In this case, Sardino took over the role of seller and expanded his clientele to include people who didn’t want to pay the freight for full-priced prescriptions. People with money, like your mother.”

  “My mother! She and hubby have more money than God. Why would she need cut-rate pills?”

  Then again, Kaitlin remembered, her mother was queen of the yard sale circuit when she
was a kid. “I guess Mother has always been frugal,” she said. “That probably hasn’t changed despite her new found money with hubby Harold. I remember once she bought a used Audi convertible that ran well for five years before it kissed a truck in a parking lot. No one was hurt, and she collected on the insurance.”

  Kaitlin thought back on the scene in the bedroom. Could her mother have been swayed by the attentions of that oily Sardino? “Or maybe it was more than the discount. It could have been the attention she was getting from Sardino.” Flattery for the aging beauty queen. It sounded like Mother. Kaitlin shared Sardino’s come-on with Jim.

  Jim’s next words shocked her. “Even so, she saw through him. That exchange of information was a set up. She was working for the good guys, the Feds and us.”

  “You mean the authorities convinced her to rat out her crime buddies?”

  “More like Harold and she began to wonder about Sardino and went to the authorities when it seemed clear to them that he was engaging in some illegal practices.”

  “My mother, the federal agent. So she was just stringing Sardino along?”

  “That’s right. She’s quite a woman. We wanted the prospectus he was passing to potential clients about a drug manufacturing enterprise. We suspected he had no intention of setting up any such concern, but that he was only interested in taking the money and skipping the country. He was pulling a Madoff but without any returns.

  “ARC was only a temporary business for him, a fact he did not share with those who worked for him there. He used the locals to do the work, an easy task, since he blackmailed most of them. Everyone has a secret they’d rather not have revealed.”

  “Right.” Kaitlin thought about Bethany and Baldo.

  “Toliver lifted money from another retirement center he managed, got caught and couldn’t find a legitimate job any place else. Sardino provided him with phony papers so he could work here. And Barbara Bartlett worked with Dr. Sardino years ago. He helped her feed her cocaine habit.”

  “It’s just endless. People’s vulnerabilities used by a ruthless doctor.” Kaitlin clinked the ice cubes around in her empty glass and shook her head when Jim held up the bottle to pour more.