The Claudia Hershey Mysteries - Box Set: Three Claudia Hershey Mysteries

by Laura Belgrave

  “I got it.” She turned away so he couldn’t see the smile, then went to retrieve the others.

  * * *

  Moody had the best stuff, so after he got his files carefully settled on the window ledge he went first. “Everybody else already knows most of this, Chief, but here’s my personal favorite and it’s one you’ll love, too.” He paused dramatically, then said, “Barbara ‘Babs’ Kensington? That’s her real name, all right, but here’s the one she used as an exotic dancer—Topaz.”

  Suggs guffawed, his belly sending a ripple of movement under the sheets. “An exotic dancer? Oh, that’s good.”

  “Yeah, she’s a beaut, this ‘Babs’ of ours,” Moody said. He checked his notes. “Up until four years ago she danced all over the place, up and down poles in Dallas, Vegas, and Los Angeles. Looks like L.A. must have been some kind of siren call for her, because she turned her attention to acting and actually landed some movie roles. They were bit parts, and evidently not enough to keep a roof over her head because she supplemented them with exercise infomercials and part-time work as an aerobics instructor. Man, the grass never grew under her feet, that’s for sure.”

  Carella looked at Booey. “That true, Boo? You saw her feet. No grass, huh?”

  The tips of his ears colored. “I didn’t pay any attention to her feet.”

  The room exploded in laughter.

  Claudia smiled, heartened to see Suggs laugh like he meant it. It had been a while.

  When they settled down, Moody sobered and said, “That was the easy stuff. What I don’t know yet is how she went from dancing and acting to playing nursemaid. But she did. Becker’s not the first old man she tended. He’s the fourth.”

  Suggs whistled. “Sugar daddies, huh?”

  “Something like that,” Moody replied. He flipped through his notes. “The first guy, a Trevor Halloran, he apparently made her acquaintance on one of those infomercials. He was in his late sixties—a rich widower, lived alone—and Kensington had been all over him like a fly on honey. He liked it. He liked her. Then one day on the set he had a stroke. It wasn’t all that bad, but then two weeks later he had another. She moved in with him. When he died four months later she got a chunk of his will, some twenty-thousand bucks. He was worth three million, and his two grown children didn’t fight it. It probably didn’t seem big enough to make a legal fuss over.”

  “So what’re you sayin’?” Suggs asked. “She parlayed the experience into a new career?”

  “Yeah, something like that. I think she played for bigger and bigger stakes, learning how to finesse things, learning how to pick her victims.”

  “They all dead, these old guys?”

  “Yep. The second, Arthur MacArthur—and no, I’m not making that up—he was in L.A., too, in his eighties when she met him. He was another widower, a retired biochemist who’d made his money on some patents, but how she met him, that I don’t know. He didn’t run with the movie people.”

  “How long was she with him?”

  “Seven months. He had a bunch of medical problems, so no one was surprised when he died of a massive coronary. Thing is, he didn’t die before he added a provision to his will that left Kensington thirty grand of the four million bucks he had.”

  “Kids?”

  Moody shook his head. “Not this time.”

  “So who got the rest of his money?”

  “It was split between six nieces and nephews, plus a cool million to charities.”

  “And these nieces and nephews, they didn’t fight Kensington’s take?”

  “No. They squabbled among themselves and they got downright vicious in trying to get the million designated for charities, but the thirty grand? Not enough to fool with Kensington.”

  Moody took them through Kensington’s third old man, this one a semi-retired investment broker who shuttled between L.A. and Chicago. “His name was Roger Engle and he did have a wife. She was a patient at the same nursing home where—surprise, surprise—Barbara Becker eventually met Kensington. Anyway, I gather Engle’s wife was pretty much out of it. Over a six-month period old Roger freely began taking Kensington with him when he made duty visits to her.”

  “Man, that’s . . . scummy,” said Carella.

  “Yeah, but he got his due,” said Moody. “He was at her bedside one day when he had a stroke himself. He died before the night was out, at the age of seventy-one.”

  “How much did Kensington get this time?”

  “This time, nothing. I don’t think she was done running her game on him when he died. The wife got the whole estate—six million and change—and then she died six weeks later. Everything defaulted to their two adult children. Kensington wasn’t even a factor.”

  “But she had her hooks in Chicago and managed to get her claws into Becker,” said the chief.

  “That’s how it seems to me.”

  Suggs’s nurse froze them into silence when she marched in unannounced and made a show out of taking the chief’s pulse and blood pressure. When she finished, she set a Jell-O cup on his tray, looked pointedly at her watch and departed.

  “Nurse Ratched,” Carella muttered.

  “Here’s what I don’t get,” said the chief. “If she’s runnin’ a game, then she sure puts a lot of time in it for a rotten return. Not counting Becker, what’re we talkin’ so far? Three old geezers over some seventeen months for a take of fifty thousand dollars? And spread over a four-year period?” He shook his head. “Even if she gets Becker’s hundred grand, that still only brings her to a hundred and fifty, which comes to an annual income of under thirty-six thousand dollars. Take out taxes and there’s not a lot left. What’re we missin’?”

  They all looked toward Claudia.

  “I think there might be a couple of possibilities,” she said. “For instance, Kensington might be an opportunist, but not a murderer. Presumably, she got gifts from these old guys—jewelry, clothes, electronics, maybe a car or two. It’s possible she turned some of those presents into cash. She might also have had other jobs on the side and probably off the books. The bottom line on her income could’ve been a great deal more than what she turned from wills. Look, even with as much information as Mitch managed to get, we still have gaps.”

  Voices and the squeal of wheels filtered into the room from the hallway. Someone new was being moved on a gurney to another room. Claudia waited until the commotion died down.

  “What’s interesting about this is how the stakes for Kensington got bigger each time. Her first take was twenty grand. The second was thirty. The third was a bust, but she stood to get a hundred thousand on Becker. That’s a lot more. I’m with Mitch. It’s almost like she’s been refining her technique, figuring out what she could do, learning from her mistakes.”

  “So how does Barbara Becker fits into this?” Carella asked.

  “Good question. She might not fit into it at all. Maybe she genuinely likes Kensington and wanted to share some of the wealth with her. Maybe she thought she deserved it. With her husband dead, she has plenty of money, more than the other old men in Kensington’s life. A hundred grand out of Mrs. Becker’s eight million would be as inconsequential to her as the twenty grand out of Halloran’s three million was. But we need to find out who orchestrated that codicil, and why. It could be—could be—that Mrs. Becker didn’t want to wait around for Henry to die, either.”

  “You think they double-teamed the old guy?” Suggs said.

  Claudia saw him sneak a yawn and fought back her own. “I don’t know. They could’ve done that, yeah, and for all we know they could’ve had a third party involved, too.” She told them about Aaron at the pool. “We need to get a background on that guy because something about him doesn’t fit. I lifted some empty beer bottles from the pool and got an officer to run them over to Flagg for fingerprints. If this Aaron is on file, maybe we’ll get another piece of the puzzle.”

  Carella stood and stretched. “Here’s another tidbit. It’s almost anti-climatic, but whichever one did Be
cker? She did it in the pool.” He looked apologetically at Claudia. “I didn’t get a chance to tell you this earlier—all right, I forgot—but I fielded a follow-up call from the M.E.’s office while you were out. They picked up on a trace of chlorine in the old man. Actually, they had to send a tissue sample to an outside lab for that, but it reinforces what they already thought, what we already thought.”

  “Thicker and thicker,” said Moody. “It just gets thicker.”

  Suggs cleared his throat. “Not that anyone’s asked, but I haven’t been altogether unproductive myself,” he said. “First, that Jag in the Beckers’ driveway? Registered to Barbara Becker. She’s got a BMW too, should anyone care to know. Second, phone calls? If Becker stayed with friends when she went to Chicago, she didn’t call them from her house to make the arrangements. What she did do on six separate occasions was spend time at the Regency Hotel. Fact is, there’s nothin’ in phone records that hints at personal calls to Chicago. She’s been in touch with lawyers, a realtor, couple of other businesses, but no regular people.” He inched up on the bed. “How about them apples?”

  “Interesting,” said Claudia.

  Suggs seemed disappointed. “Seems a little more than just ‘interesting’, if you ask me.”

  “Well, let me rephrase then, because actually it’s very interesting. Aaron drives the Jag like he owns it, so apparently he’s even cozier with Mrs. Becker than I thought.”

  “He’s cozy with both of those women,” Booey said. He looked surprised to hear himself speak. “I . . . .”

  “Go ahead, son,” said Suggs.

  “Well, it’s just that at the pool with Ms. Kensington, he . . . well, they . . . uh, you know.”

  A slow grin started on the Carella’s face.

  “Thing is, she said she’d only just met him. It, uh . . . well, it sure didn’t look that way.” He glanced at Claudia. “Did it?”

  “Not to me.” She shot a warning look at Carella before the inevitable joke made its way out of his mouth. “Your point is dead on, Booey.”

  They talked about who would do what next and were rising to leave when the nurse returned. “It’s ten after eight,” she informed them stiffly. She pointed at the door. “Everybody out.”

  Carella whispered something to Moody. The nurse glowered at them, and they laughed, then told the chief goodnight, and followed Booey into the hallway. She watched them, taking a head count, then whirled around to face Claudia. “Everybody means everybody,” she said.

  “Give us a second,” said Suggs.

  She frowned at him, then retreated, muttering. When Suggs was satisfied she was out of earshot, he beckoned Claudia closer.

  “Everything’s set for tomorrow,” he said. “Just before you blackmailed me into comin’ here I firmed things up with a few more calls. Raynor’s on the hook.”

  “You don’t need to be there,” Claudia said.

  “Oh, I’ll be there, all right. I won’t be in the office tomorrow, but I’ll be ready for the meet. Count on it.”

  She gestured around the hospital room. “You’re . . . up to that, so quick?”

  “Hey, Hershey. You got one free pass on tryin’ to tell me how to live my life. Don’t push it.”

  “Just asking. I’ll see you tomorrow.” She gave him a half salute and left, the eyes of the nurse on her the whole way down the hallway.

  Chapter 18

  “You woke me up.”

  “I’m sorry, honey.” But Robin was grousing, really, not quite complaining yet, and Claudia gripped the cell phone harder, as if she could eclipse the distance between them by applying more pressure to the tiny unit that connected their voices. “It’s almost nine o’clock,” she said. “The sun’s out. The birds have been up for hours.”

  “If I had to grub for worms, I would be too,” Robin muttered.

  Now she was waking up. Claudia smiled, her eyes on the moving van a half-block down the street. Two men were struggling up a ramp with a hutch.

  “How’s the kitten, Mom?”

  “Good. He’s good. He eats like a horse and he entertains himself by shredding the arm of the couch. I take that as a sign he’s happy.”

  “We should get a scratching post for him. Maybe two. When I get back . . .” Robin’s voice trailed off.

  For a minute, Claudia thought she’d lost her. She thumped the phone on the steering wheel, then listened again.

  “Mother, what are you doing?”

  “Ah, there you are. I’m on the cell phone and—”

  “Wait. You bought a cell phone? You?”

  “Hey, kiddo, I’m hip.”

  Robin groaned. “If you were really ‘hip,’ Mom, you wouldn’t use the word ‘hip’”

  Claudia’s training never ended. “I know. I was just testing you.”

  They bantered for a while and swapped a few stories. Already, Brian had taken Robin on tours to the Washington Monument, the White House, the Supreme Court. They’d dined in some of the Capitol’s most fabled restaurants. Today, they had plans for the zoo. No wonder she was tired.

  “Where are you, anyway, Mom? You sound like you’re sitting in traffic.”

  “Just killing time,” Claudia said lightly. She rolled up her car window to block the sound of passing vehicles. Not that there were many. Before long, neighbors would start cutting lawns and washing cars. But Dennis’s street never got unruly, and it was a Saturday. Except for the moving van, not much stirred yet.

  “What are you killing time for?”

  “I’m working today. Just a couple of things I need to get done.”

  “Oh.”

  For once, Claudia was grateful that Robin rarely expressed interest in her work. She didn’t care to explain what she was doing later. She certainly didn’t care to explain why she was lurking on Dennis’s street as if she had him under surveillance, because she hardly knew why she was there herself. What was she doing? She shook her head and focused on Robin’s voice.

  “Dad’s really something on the piano, Mom. And people seem to know him here, like he’s really a hot ticket. I’m thinking of taking lessons. I bet I’d be good.”

  Claudia felt the familiar ping of jealousy. Why not the oboe? “That’s terrific, honey,” she said. “We can talk about it when you get home. There must be someone here who gives lessons.”

  “Mom?”

  Something hesitant in Robin’s voice made Claudia sit up straighter in the car. “What’s up?” she asked.

  “Well, nothing, but . . . you think I could maybe come home sooner than we planned? Like maybe right after the Fourth of July?”

  Claudia went on full alert. “What’s the matter, baby? I thought you were having a good time. Don’t you feel well? Is it because of the kitten?”

  “No, no . . . nothing like that. I just miss home.”

  There was more here. Claudia made herself take it slowly, trying for a tone that wouldn’t signal alarm. “Is it just that you miss home? Or does this maybe have a little to do with . . . your dad?” The silence on the other end lasted so long that she had to resist banging the phone again.

  Finally: “Thing is, I am having a good time,” Robin said. She had lowered her voice, as if worried that she might be overheard. “Dad’s great. Everything here is . . . great. But Dad . . . I don’t know him that well, you know? I always have to be, I don’t know . . . on, somehow. It’s hard. Weird. Know what I mean?”

  Claudia knew. Robin hadn’t spent enough time with Brian to be herself. She did mental cartwheels, then immediately felt guilty for her reaction. Still . . .

  “Robin, you don’t have to stay any longer than you want to, but are you sure about this? Have you talked to your dad about it?”

  “I was hoping maybe you could.”

  Dennis walked out of his house, rolled canvases beneath his arm. Claudia watched. If she was going to say something, if she was going to stop him—was she?—now was the time to make her move. She watched him open his car door and ease the canvases onto the back seat.<
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  “He’s in the kitchen, probably having coffee,” Robin was saying. “So could you, you know, talk to him?”

  Claudia watched Dennis talk to one of the movers. They shook hands. The man began shoving the ramp back into the van. Shit. She should at least start her car, drive by, see what she would do when she was at his driveway.

  “Mom?”

  “Yeah, hon.”

  “So would you? Now?”

  She willed him to look up, to look over, to see her. He was watching the mover get into the van. A second later he slapped the side of the truck with his hand, and it slowly began rolling away from the house. Moments now. Just moments.

  Look over.

  “Are you there?”

  “I, uh . . . honey? Right now?”

  “Well, he’s here now. That’s the thing. Please? I want to come home. I don’t know how to tell him.”

  Claudia saw Dennis move toward his car. He paused, and stared at the house, his hands in his pockets. Still time.

  “I’ll owe you, Mom. Okay?”

  “What? Oh, kiddo, you don’t owe me for anything, not ever.” She put a finger beneath her glasses and mashed at an eye, feeling the start of a miserable, undeserving tear. She sighed into the phone. “Put your dad on the phone. I’ll take care of it.”

  “You won’t make him hate me?”

  “No, no . . . he’d never hate you, no matter what.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure, baby.”

  “You’re the greatest!”

  “Yeah,” she said softly. She heard Robin’s phone clunk against a hard surface, then heard her daughter’s voice faintly in the background: “Dad, Mom wants to talk to you.”

  Claudia waited for Brian to pick up and watched the man who loved her drive away.

  Chapter 19

  They saw the headlights through their field glasses before they heard the rumble of the pickups. A few minutes later, the vehicles were clearly visible below the full moon, moving parade-like over a narrow gravel road and then through a gap in dense trees that concealed the old farm property. All that remained was a weathered barn that listed dangerously to one side. Boards had been pried from its entrance door and side windows, which now spilled light like a Halloween pumpkin illuminated by a candle. The pickups bounced toward it across ground studded with weeds and thorny shrubs, stopping finally in haphazard rows a dozen paces from the structure.