But now I’d come to the section of the book that described more sinister scams. “Long cons,” I discovered, were scams that took months to set up and execute, as opposed to the “short cons” which were perpetrated by fly-by-night con artists, here today, gone tomorrow. And listed among the long cons was a deadly one, the most insidious of the scams aimed at wealthy seniors: marriage, followed by the senior’s untimely demise. Death by marriage.
I sat there, staring at the page, shivers running up and down my spine. Martin Kellerman. Basil Janecek. Letty.
No way. Artistic imagination gone amuck.
Way. Three aberrations in Golden Beach’s smooth seas at the same time were too much of a coincidence.
Boone Talbot would never believe me.
Idiot! Why should he? Martin died of anaphylactic shock, a possible accident. Basil Janecek died of natural causes—Boone had been more than willing to pass that along the night we had pizza. And as for Letty . . .
Mom had suggested an attorney who could also function as a financial advisor for Letty. Unfortunately, it was an attorney I knew. We’d dated a time or two when Mom pushed me into it, but there was nothing there, on either side. In fact, I suspected George Hanlon was a bit suspicious of my ancestry, figuring me for a gypsy or a witch. But Mom assured me that when it came to financial details, he was a tiger. Which was what Letty needed. I’d put off my next confrontation with Letty until after the holidays, but my morning’s reading convinced me I’d better set up a meeting as soon as possible. I had a really bad feeling about all this.
Bad feeling! That’s all I seemed to have lately. And not one problem to do with DreamWear, my business, my source of income. My pride and joy. Think costumes, Gwyn. Costumes!
Fine. Okay. Costumes . . .
I grinned. What would Alexis Lippincott wear with the Lady Godiva wig?
Chapter 13
The next morning—feeling only slightly guilty about abandoning Crystal to the New Years Eve pick-ups—I drove back over the drawbridge by the airport and headed toward the area of modest ranch homes where Basil Janecek had lived. My stomach jittered, protesting my quest. Could I do it? Could I really knock on the doors in the old man’s neighbors and ask questions?
This was insane. Over the top. But I was going to do it because I wanted to know.
Janecek’s street wasn’t difficult to find. The streets in this part of town were in alphabetical order, platted in a grid pattern. Row after straight row of narrow two-lane streets, fronted on each side by one-story homes built on eighty by one hundred-foot lots. But tall pines and live oaks, obviously dating back to the days before development, gave shade to the modest homes, and orange, grapefruit, and avocado trees rose above neatly trimmed lawns and mature landscaping. This vast area of Golden Beach, almost equally divided between year-round retirees, thrifty snowbirds, and native Floridians in the service business—lawncare, construction, handymen, shop-owners, and cops—formed a vital part of our community.
A broad grin lit my face. How much nicer this area was now than the original platting: forty by one hundred-foot lots for a giant trailer park. Frank and Sarah Wallace may not have been my actual grandparents but, to me, they were family. And I was proud they had managed to sway the purchasers of the family orange grove away from a trailer park to single-family homes.
I drove past a county park, which included tennis and basketball courts, bike trails, a children’s playground, and a picnic area overlooking the narrow bay between the mainland and the barrier island that began just south of the airport. All on land that once belonged to the Wallace family. Whenever I came here, I had to quash the inevitable “what if.” What if the Wallace family had held on to their miles of waterfront land as well as acreage to the east to the Tamiami Trail? Ah well, who wanted to be a multi-millionaire anyway?
South Golden Beach is so large that the alphabet streets were only a small part of it, but I’d gotten close enough to my destination to begin the countdown. Marigold. Larkspur. Kiwi. I’d been driving on the former Wallace orange grove for ten minutes now, and if I kept going, it would be another ten minutes before I hit Alligator Creek, the southern end of the land the Wallace family had given up sixty years ago for a life of comparative luxury in the center of town.
Indigo. Hibiscus. Gentian—Basil Janecek’s street. I turned left and craned my neck, peering at house numbers. And there it was, number 56. Beige cinderblock, with tall pines in the backyard towering over the house. I parked, took a deep breath, and headed for the home to the left of Mr. Janecek’s.
After I rang the bell, a face peered out the window. I waited. I rang the bell again.
“I don’t open the door to strangers!” a female voice shouted through the front door.
Oh. I slunk off, thoroughly chastened. This wasn’t the way I thought of Golden Beach. We didn’t fear our neighbors. But then the woman didn’t know I was part of the community. And after what happened to her neighbor, how could I blame her for her fear? Perhaps I’d have better luck with the neighbor on the other side. I did.
“A sad business,” the white-haired senior in the house on the right said, shaking his head. “Friend of the family, are you?”
I swallowed a gulp, ordered my stomach to cut out the fluttering. “My parents knew him,” I lied. “My mother’s been worried, afraid the police weren’t doing enough to find that woman, the caregiver. So she asked me to talk to the neighbors.”
The man nodded, evidently satisfied by my off-the-cuff, wholly false explanation. No wonder con artists had such an easy time of it.
“Basil was a good neighbor. Until he had a stroke and that woman got hold of him. ’Course my wife says I ought to remember that woman took care of him, kept him alive all these months, but I never liked her. Oh, she’d smile when she saw me, but I always felt it was like the wolf playing gramma. Something not right about her. I wasn’t surprised when they said she cleaned out all his money and took off. My wife says she was angling to marry him, but poor old Basil up and died before she could get him to the ‘I do’s.’”
Wow. I stared, my mind going around so fast no question could form.
“Wait a sec,” the elderly man said. “I just thought of something.”
When he returned, he held a photo in his hand. “Didn’t think of this when the police were here. Guess I should have told them, but it’s not a great picture. I was trying to get a shot of my wife and Herman—that’s my dog. Just a mutt, you know, but he’s kinda cute. They were coming back from a walk when I snapped the photo. And there”—he pointed to a figure in the background—“and there’s the Mills woman walking into the house with a load of groceries.”
Double wow. Though not a clear close-up, I thought I’d recognize Virginia Mills if I ever saw her again. Strong facial features, sturdy body. A woman who could easily handle the physical aspects of being a caregiver, and the mental demands as well. But if she was a legitimate caregiver, she wouldn’t have run away.
“May I have this for a day?” I asked. “I’ll have it copied and return it to you.”
Gray eyes under shaggy white brows beamed at me. “No need. Went digital a coupla years ago. Got a fancy printer too. You can have this one, I’ll just make another copy.”
I thanked him profusely and left, my spirits soaring. I’d done it. I’d actually gotten someone to talk to me, and I’d learned something. Virginia Mills had tried to manipulate Basil Janecek into marriage. I also had her photo.
I stopped at Mom’s office and made a photocopy on her top-of-the-line machine. Then, not forgetting my civic duty, I drove to the Golden Beach police station and delivered the original to the front desk in an envelope marked “Chief Talbot.” After that, I scooted out the door before Boone found out I was there. I definitely didn’t want to be around when he realized how I acquired the photo. Hopefully, some of his temper would dissipate before he found me.
I breezed through DreamWear with a wave and a smile toward the counter where Crystal was checki
ng out Darth Vader. How anyone could celebrate New Years Eve while encased in that much heavy armor I couldn’t even imagine. I mean, how could the guy talk or take a drink? How could he breathe? I always figured the actor in the Star Wars epics had an oxygen tank hidden somewhere out of camera range. Certainly our Darth Vader, which I’d purchased from a wholesaler, had no such amenity.
None of my business. To each his own brand of fun. And Darth Vader was one of our most expensive rentals. Be happy, Gwyn. You’re thinking too much. Again.
Out the front door and into DeFranco’s Deli, where I picked up two of my favorite sandwiches—thinly sliced turkey and ham with lettuce, tomato, onion, and dill pickle, seasoned with oregano, red pepper flakes, oil and vinegar. When I returned to DreamWear, juggling the sandwiches and two tall iced teas, all was quiet, not a customer in sight. I set out the little handbell we kept for moments like this, along with the sign that said, “Please ring bell for service.” Then Crystal and I settled into the chairs around her rosy crystal ball and enjoyed our lunch while I filled her in on my morning’s adventure to South Golden Beach.
She frowned over the photo of Virginia Mills. “Looks like she could lick her weight in wild cats.”
“Poor old man. Boone says he died of natural causes, but I can’t help wondering if she didn’t help him along a bit.”
“You’re reaching, Gwynie. You’ve got murder on the brain.”
“You don’t get any vibes about this? A bad aura or something?”
Crystal ducked her head, pulling a mouthful of unsweet iced tea through her straw before she answered. “Can’t get a bad aura from a photo, I’m not that adept. And I can’t get a bad aura from a poor old guy I never met. So, no, you’re on your own here. Frankly, I think we should stick to worrying about Letty. She’s the one we might actually be able to help.”
She was right, of course, even if I didn’t want to admit it. Any minute now my phone was going to ring and Boone Talbot was going to start yelling. Maybe if I promised to concentrate on Letty’s problems and not ask another question about Martin or Mr. Janecek, he’d calm down, stay friends . . .
More than friends.
But they haunted me, the two seniors whose ages were close to a generation apart. How could I let them go?
A whoosh of cool air as the front door opened. Leaving Crystal to clean up from lunch, I pushed the beads aside and stepped out, expecting another costume pick-up for New Years Eve.
Not.
I fought the mist that sprang to my eyes when I saw the effort our visitor had made. Still long-haired, still gaunt and a shadow of his former self, Chad was clean-shaven and his clothes looked as if they were just out of the dryer. I swallowed hard, managed a “Hi.”
He flipped his fingers in a silent greeting.
I shouldn’t have teased him, but I couldn’t resist. “Need a costume for New Years Eve?”
Chad gave me the look I deserved for such an inane remark to a man who looked as if partying was the last thing on his mind. “Mom says you’re friends with someone named Letty Van Ryn. That right?”
Okay, absolutely the last thing I expected him to say. “Crystal and I are very fond of Letty. She comes in for readings twice a week.”
“Readings?”
“Crystal reads fortunes,” I chirped, realizing how utterly foolish that must sound to the hard-headed Chad who once worked for “the government” or to the fragile Chad whose main concern was probably his health. But I couldn’t stop my customary spiel. “Light-hearted fortunes only.” I waved my hand toward Crystal’s Cave. “She even has a pink crystal ball.”
Chad studied me carefully, as if the kid he used to know had sprouted two heads. Or maybe horns. “O-kay,” he said with care, as if humoring a madwoman. A real one-eighty from our last meeting when I’d wondered about his sanity.
I tried to explain. “That’s how we knew Miss Letty had a problem. Her aura was off.”
Chad crossed his arms over his chest and looked down his nose at me. “Her aura was off?”
“Shadowed. Troubled.” A bit frantically, I looked for Crystal, but she was playing coy, hiding in her Cave, giving me privacy with Chad. So I rushed into uncharted territory on my own. “And we were right. We had Tea with Letty and discovered she’s been taken by a bunch of scams. We think she may be in the midst of another one now, maybe even something dangerous, because Crystal says her shadows are even worse this week.” I ran out of breath.
Strangely, Chad no longer looked confused. His blue-green eyes were clear, the closest thing I’d yet seen to the Chad of old. “That’s why I’m here, actually. I guess your mom called my mom when she heard about the wild hog problem.” Chad paused, glanced down, his cheeks turning pink.
Chad Yarnell embarrassed?
“Anyway,” he continued, “since they both know Miss Letty, your mom passed along the possibility that con artists might be working the area. And Mom told me.”
I waited, knowing there was more.
“I found a place of my own,” Chad offered. “A houseboat just north of the jetties. A rental cancellation—another thing your mom told mine.”
“Houseboat?”
“Homemade, nothing fancy. Big old wooden thing, but I like it.” He looked down again, his stance uneasy, a man no longer comfortable with the world around him.
“It sounds wonderful.” And it did. The peace, the privacy, being rocked by gently lapping water . . .
He looked up, his face once again in shuttered mode. “I was driving home last night, pretty late. When I passed Miss Letty’s condo, I saw a guy walking to his car. At four a.m. It was that Marshall Johnson guy.”
“Marshall!” Easy, easy, Gwyn. Don’t leap to conclusions. “How on earth do you know Marshall Johnson?” I demanded.
“After Mom told me about Miss Letty, I let her drag me to church. That’s how she knows Letty. Got a real good look at both Johnsons—poster boys for scam artists, and you’d better believe it.”
“Crystal!” I called. She came dashing out of her Cave, eyes wide. “You heard all that, right?”
She shrugged, cast Chad an apologetic look. “Couldn’t help it.”
I turned back to Chad, scowling. “What were you drinking last night, straight shots? Letty and Marshall, at her age? And, besides, he has to be fifteen years younger.”
“So?” Chad and Crystal chorused.
“You’ve got to be kidding. No way.”
Crystal heaved a sigh. “You’ve got your rosy glasses on again, Gwyn. You’re back in La-la Land. See No Evil, Hear No Evil. Those days have gone bye-bye, kiddo. You can’t hide any more. Reality has caught up, and you’re just going to have to bite the bullet and accept it.”
I knuckled my fist under my chin and thought about it. Finally, in a very small voice I looked up at Chad and said, “It really was Marshall Johnson coming from Letty’s condo at four in the morning?”
“Coming from her building. I can’t guarantee he doesn’t have another honey on the string, but that doesn’t seem to make much sense. Why risk the golden cash cow for a short romp in the hay?”
“Guys do it all the time,” Crystal said. “Think with their you-know-whats instead of their heads.”
“Not a good con artist,” Chad countered. “They don’t make the big bucks by being stupid.”
“What now?” I groaned.
“We go back to see Letty,” Crystal said. “After all, we still haven’t talked her into letting George handle her finances.”
I shook my head, attempting to clear the images. “I still can’t believe—”
“You calling me a liar?” Chad drawled. “Or maybe crazy?”
“No, no, no!” He flinched when I touched his bony shoulder. I jerked my hand back. “I’m sorry,” I murmured. “It’s me, not you. I’m having a hard time with this. Sort of like picturing my mom having sex.”
Crystal hid a grin behind her hand. Chad’s throat rumbled with what almost sounded like a laugh.
“Well, th
at’s it,” he mumbled, suddenly reverting to the dull-eyed, droop-shouldered, shambling man who had yelled at me about Scott shooting Yarnell pigs. “That’s what I came to tell you, I thought you ought to know. Bye.” He was out the door before either Crystal or I could come up with a decent thank-you. That Chad had noticed Marshall coming out of Letty’s condo was surprising enough. That he made the connection to Letty and came to tell me about it showed a spark of the old Chad. Or maybe a spark of the man Chad had become after leaving Golden Beach.
Easy enough to figure how he got involved. Margaret Yarnell must have leaped at a chance to spark her son’s interest. Any hint of intrigue that might pry him out of the funk he was in. Had Chad really been passing by Letty’s condo, or had he staked it out? Now there was a thought that curled my toes.
Gwyn, my girl, you’re channeling Pollyanna again. The man’s a wreck, probably made the whole thing up.
But why?
The front door opened to admit customers for three different pick-ups, relegating thoughts of anything but costumes to a far corner of my mind. My heart, however, didn’t cooperate. While I tended to business, my pulse continued to pound. Letty, Chad, Letty, Chad. Letty . . . Chad, Chad, Chad.
My problems had just multiplied. Exponentially.
The last costume wasn’t picked up until five minutes before closing time. At six, I dead-bolted the front door, flipped the sign to Closed, and turned to stare into Crystal’s stricken amber gaze. “What’re we going to do?” she asked, her generally cheery voice reduced to a whisper.
“We can’t go barging over there now. It’s New Years Eve.” I bit my lip. “And, besides, she probably has company.”
Death by Marriage Page 13
