He appraised me coolly. “Not many options in this burg.” I must have reacted because he laughed. “Kidding. Like the specials this week.”
“They’re certainly popular. Do a lot of driving around these days?”
“Some.”
“There’s a plumbing supply store in Bernridge. Is it one of your clients?” I asked, all innocence.
He dropped some bills on the counter. “Never been to Bernridge.”
14
At ten p.m. the dining room was empty except for a few stragglers, two couples drinking at the bar…and the garden club. Once Benny had left at six, I handled the bar while Carmen and Gillian waited on tables. There had been a manageable flow of trade since seven thirty. Then the club arrived.
We’d set up a long table against one wall, away from the front door. One of the group claimed to be bothered by kitchen smells whenever the swinging door opened. So we quickly rearranged two tables and sat them on an angle. Then the club president complained that our gluten-free options were minimal, and I persuaded Henry to create dishes to suit her diet while the club weighed the pros and cons of keto versus vegan versus paleo regimens. Penny should have been here to witness the conversation… Then one of the women copped an attitude because she demanded her pasta be replaced because it wasn’t hot enough. I offered to heat it, but apparently that wasn’t good enough.
They’d eaten their way through the main course, had ordered desserts and coffees, and were now chitchatting. I couldn’t wait until they paid their bill.
My cell buzzed. Lola: crazy over here…Walter did circle of light for an hour…
Sheesh. I was familiar with Walter’s “circle of light.” Intended to create trust among company members, the only thing I’d learned from participating was that you couldn’t always trust the rest of the cast. Lola:…then finally started speed-through!
None of the garden club members appeared ready to head out. At ten thirty I needed to call Bill. Club or no club.
“Can I clear the rest of the table?” asked a bored Gillian.
“Give them ten more minutes,” I said.
The stragglers and drinkers had departed, and Henry had shut down the kitchen. I was drawing wedding gowns on a napkin. It was ten twenty-five. My trigger finger was at the ready to place the call.
“Dear, could you re-add this bill?” asked the treasurer of the garden club, handing me the group’s check.
I smiled politely. “Of course.” I dutifully toted the items. Yep. It was accurate.
“Could we get a take-out menu for future reference?” asked another member.
“Sure.”
They slowly made their way to the coat hooks, dawdling over whose outerwear belonged to whom.
It was ten thirty-five. I motioned to Carmen to close down the dining room, retired to my back booth, and tapped Bill’s number in my contacts. His cell rang. I counted five rings. Where was he? Did I have the time wrong? I left a text message asking him to call me. No immediate response. I followed Henry, Gillian, Enrico, and Carmen out the door, locking up as the last person standing. We said good night and took off in various directions. I walked to the theater, in case the rehearsal ran late, and tried the front door. It was locked and there were no lights on in Walter’s office in the lobby.
I walked to my parking space down the road from the restaurant. Main Street was deserted; off in the distance, a dog barked, then howled. I shivered. Ever since Dracula, howling animals and walking alone in the dark gave me the willies. I pressed the remote on my key chain and my lights blinked, unlocking the door. I reached for the handle and grabbed a crumpled piece of paper instead. Someone had left me a message. I wasn’t illegally parked and Lola would have texted me if the speed-through ended early. I could see Walter madly orchestrating the actors, who spewed lines at warp speed. Penny was right. Much of the time, the Etonville Little Theatre was a hot mess. I laughed to myself and climbed into my MC. The streetlight provided dim lighting, so I could barely see the block letters on the piece of paper. Then I read the message. My pulse jumped. I know what you are doing. It ends now. With an exclamation point.
* * * *
“What ends now?” Lola asked, pouring wine in our glasses.
We sat on her brown leather sofa, feet tucked under an array of pillows, sipping and munching chips and dip, careful to avoid dropping crumbs on her Persian rug. Lola was particular about her living room furnishings, the décor spare and stylish.
I studied the note. It was written on plain white paper—the inexpensive kind I used for my printer—that could be bought in bulk at any Staples. The lettering was black, penned with a thin marker. I couldn’t foresee any fingerprints left behind. “Well…my snooping around Carlos Villarias’s bedroom. Digging into his recent past in Lennox. Finding out about his alias. Walking into his house, though in all fairness, the screen door was unlocked. Following him to work this morning.” Not to mention Pauli’s Internet deep diving, my visit to the cemetery, calling on the costume shop…I’d been busier than I realized.
“You what?” Lola asked, surprised.
“I woke up early, couldn’t get back to sleep, and decided to see if I could find out where he worked and maybe that would clue us in about him.” I was a little shaky from encountering the message on my car door.
“And did you find out?”
“A run-down building in Bernridge’s industrial area. Not very promising.” It occurred to me I was so obsessed with Carlos and his driver that I neglected to take note of any signage on the building.
“What does he do there?”
“No idea. He carried a briefcase and wasn’t wearing a tie.”
For some reason, I hesitated to introduce Mr. Chicago into the discussion. Maybe my subconscious was afraid of what his presence would imply. After all, a Chicago hitman had died in Etonville. I didn’t want to think what possible connection the two men might have.
“I don’t understand.” Lola’s brow furrowed. “Who would know what you’ve been doing? Carlos? Bella? Wouldn’t they just confront you? Anyway, nothing you discovered is particularly incriminating. It’s not illegal to change your name or your address.”
“What about Halloween night? Carlos having a conversation with a mob guy who turns up dead?” I asked.
“There is that,” Lola said. “I don’t know. It’s all too confusing. Oh, I forgot to mention…Carlos and Gabriel got into a…” Lola formed air quotes. “…heated discussion this evening.”
“About the show?” I remembered another “heated discussion” I’d witnessed at rehearsal last week.
“Not sure. Walter did his warm-ups for over an hour. Everyone was burned out by the time he was finished. I’ve got to talk to him about his pre-rehearsal exercises. Actors are too—”
“Lola?” I gently interrupted her.
“So they all took a break in the green room. When Penny called them out to start the line-through ten minutes later, everyone responded but Carlos and Gabriel. Penny had to go after them, and she said, quote ‘Gabriel went postal. Carlos yelling back at him. Almost had a fistfight on our hands.’ I guess they were really angry.”
Whoa.
“When they got onstage, they both acted as if nothing had happened.”
“And the rehearsal?”
“The usual. Abby and Edna competing for fastest time, Romeo and Vernon goofing around, Walter—eyes closed—into his character so deep, he couldn’t see what was going on. Janice was a gem, trying to keep up. Carlos and Gabriel took the work seriously. Amazing, considering minutes before they were at each other’s throats.”
“What were they fighting about?”
“Penny didn’t say. I think the shouting was so distracting, the content of the conversation got lost.”
My cell buzzed. Bill: ok to talk now?
I’d forgotten about our phone call. I texted
back: where have you been? My cell rang.
“What do you mean, where have I been?” Bill asked, tired and a bit annoyed.
Lola mouthed Bill? and I nodded. She tiptoed out of the room to give us some privacy.
“You were supposed to call at ten thirty.”
“I know. Got caught up in a meeting. I’m only ten minutes late.” He sounded defensive.
“Ten? It’s twenty to midnight here.”
There was a pause on the line. “It’s ten forty here. Different time zone.”
My fault. “Sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry. Things have been nuts here. Meeting with the Chicago PD, talking to the organized crime unit, interviewing some administrators about their mentoring program. Squeezing everything in has been a challenge. I expected to leave tomorrow morning. Now it might be a little later in the day.”
I did my best to hide my disappointment. Not only did I miss Bill, I had to come clean with him about my nosing into Carlos’s past. And present. What would Bill have to say about Mr. Chicago? He’d tell me I was allowing my overreaching imagination too much authority. “Are you making progress?”
Bill exhaled. “Yes and no. The Chicago PD is being helpful. The organized crime guys less so. It’s like they’ve got information they’re not eager to share. I don’t think they trust a cop from a small town in New Jersey.”
“Hey,” I said, “you’re not just any small-town cop. You’re a police chief. And a former decorated deputy chief from Philly. And you sit on a state commission.”
“I guess I’m done in.”
“Have you waved your NFL career in front of their faces?” It usually garnered a fair amount of respect from manly man types.
He chuckled. “I should try that next.”
“What about that famous Chicago deep-dish pizza? Or those Chicago-style hot dogs I’ve read about? Yummy.”
“I had one of those Italian beef sandwiches. Everybody raves about them here. Not bad. But I prefer Henry’s version of a Philly cheesesteak. Or a Taylor Ham and cheese sandwich.” His voice oozed into his husky zone. “Served by my favorite restaurant manager.”
Yowza! “Then you’d better beat it back here, buddy,” I said.
“As soon as I finish with the organized crime unit. Daryl Wolf was known to them.”
“Yeah?”
“Keep this on the down low. Apparently, he’s been on their radar recently. Turns out he was a high-level enforcer for a mob boss. They’re not one hundred percent on why he was in Jersey, but they think it had something to do with his having a contract on a former Chicago native now on the run.”
I felt a ball of tension in the pit of my stomach. “Why the contract? What’s the runner done?”
“It’s not what the runner’s done. They think it’s what the runner has. Evidence.”
“So…this person knows something incriminating about some mob figure?” I asked.
“Apparently big-time.”
“And where do they think Etonville fits into all this?” My pulse inched upward.
“Not sure. Hope to find out tomorrow morning. I’ll text from the airport,” Bill said.
“Can’t wait to see you.”
“Me too. Sleep tight.”
“Love you,” I said.
“Back at ya. By the way, you’ll never guess Daryl Wolf’s nickname.”
“What?”
“The Grim Reaper.”
* * * *
I spent a couple of restless hours at home, double-checking the locks on doors and windows. In bed, I did Walter’s breathing exercises, I counted backward from one hundred by threes—my version of sheep—I tightened and released body parts, toes to head, to relax. Nothing worked. I couldn’t settle down after the message left on my MC and the phone call with Bill. Daryl Wolf was known as the Grim Reaper. He was found with a Grim Reaper costume. He was in New Jersey, and most probably Etonville, tracking down a potential target who had evidence that was lethal for a mob boss in Chicago. I had prevented myself from admitting what was now jostling its way to the forefront of my mind: Could Carlos be the runner, and was Daryl Wolf after him because Carlos had valuable intel on a mob figure? And who was threatening me? Who would want me to back off?
I hopped out of bed, thrust my arms in my chenille bathrobe—a gift from my great-aunt Maureen many years ago. It was threadbare but comforting; I kept it at my place for late nights like this one. Definitely unsexy. I padded to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator door. Ordinarily, I might go for peanut butter, or cheese and crackers, or any leftovers I’d liberated from the Windjammer stock. Tonight called for the nuclear option. Sweet stuff. I found half a quart of cherry vanilla ice cream, the tail end of a jar of hot fudge sauce, some maraschino cherries, and an old can of whipped cream on its last legs. The combination was perfect. I took my sundae back to bed and scrunched down under the covers. After all, “desserts” was “stressed” spelled backward. The sugar might keep me awake; I didn’t care. I needed a soothing end to this night, which was quickly turning into morning.
As I dipped a spoon into the ice cream, wedding dress be damned, I mulled over my next moves. If Carlos’s life had been in danger from Daryl Wolf, was he safe now that the Grim Reaper was dead? Or would he and Bella feel compelled to run again? Did he have valuable information on the crime boss? In sorting out Carlos’s behavior in recent days, I faced facts: He was guilty of being arrogant on occasion, arguing in the parking lot on Halloween night, looking like a modern-day vampire, and fighting with Gabriel Quincey. Whatever that was about. Mental note: Penny being Penny, she most likely had picked up odds and ends of the quarrel even though she might have been sidetracked by the yelling. I needed to ask her what she’d heard…
None of this added up to anything earth-shattering. Even if he had assumed another identity and his name was Mark Johnson, not Carlos Villarias.
Despite my massive intake of sugar, my eyes were heavy. My alarm read three a.m. Time to shut down if I was going to get any rest before morning. I flicked off the light on my nightstand.
* * * *
My cell pinged. A text coming in. Buttery yellow light streamed through my windows forcing my eyes open. Should I get out of bed and retrieve my phone? It could wait, I decided, and rolled over, clasping the pillow and dragging it over my head. Another ping. Either I was popular this morning or someone was not giving up. I threw back the comforter and glanced at the clock. Eight a.m. I had to get moving anyway.
I checked the text. Lola: you okay?
I assured her that I was all right and would see her later to discuss a bona fide wedding venue she’d found. I showered, slipped into chinos and a beige sweater. I had about two hours to complete my morning’s mission. Or rather missions. I grabbed a piece of toast and my car keys—my Cindy Collins heroine never investigated on an empty stomach.
I thought twice about my first stop. I was still agitated about the note on my car door. At the same time, I resisted admitting to anyone other than Lola that I had been prying into Carlos Villarias’s life. I was too far into the Carlos-Daryl mystery to stop now. But common sense, and a healthy respect for my safety, prevailed, and I drove to the Municipal Building. Leaving the note—securely tucked into a plastic Baggie—with Deputy Chief Suki Shung to have it analyzed for fingerprints was my only rational option. I knew she’d quiz me about the meaning of the warning. Yet, I would have far more luck dancing around its message with Suki than I would with Bill. Besides, I didn’t have to pick a wedding date with Suki, and by the time Bill found out what I had been up to, the Daryl Wolf-Etonville connection might be solved. I had to bite the investigative bullet.
I swung my MC into a parking space and hurried down the hallway of the Municipal Building toward the Etonville police station. Fortunately, Edna was not at dispatch. I was saved from having to explain my presence. I walked into the outer office of
the department and tapped on Suki’s door.
“Enter.”
She sounded more like Bill every day.
I poked my head inside the office. “Hope I’m not interrupting anything too important.”
Suki lifted her head from paperwork on her desk and capped a pen. “Have a seat.”
Suki and I had a curious relationship. We’d bonded over our common experience of having once been assault victims of jewel thieves. And both of us were Bill’s cheerleaders—loyal, devoted, steadfast. Unlike me, Suki was an enigma, rarely letting her emotions show, usually cool and unruffled. “Thanks.”
She regarded me expectantly. I pulled out the plastic bag. “I found this on my car last night.” No point in beating around the bush. I set the Baggie between us on her desk blotter.
Suki looked from the note to me. “What is it?”
“I think it’s a warning of some kind.” I assumed my most innocent expression.
She wasn’t fooled, picking it up, turning it over. She read the message. “Where did you find this?”
“Stuffed into the door handle of my car.”
“I assume you touched it?”
“I assumed it was from someone at the theater and then I read it…”
Suki frowned. When she looked at me again, she had her owl-like face on. I knew it meant she was putting two and two together and getting way more than four. “What do you think it means?”
I shrugged. “Someone wants me to stop something.” That was as close to the truth as I dared to tread.
“What might that something be?”
“Not sure.” Also pretty much the truth.
Suki crossed her hands and rested them on her desk. “I’ll send it to the state lab and see what comes up.” She sat back. “Meanwhile, I suggest you don’t do anything that might put yourself or others in danger.”
In other words, lay off investigating. “Thanks,” I said cheerfully. I rose to leave.
“Dodie?”
“Yes?”
“I know you operate on your instincts. Which have proven to be pretty useful to you in the past,” Suki said, a smidge of a smile forming.
Killing Time Page 17
