The Stiff and the Dead

by Lori Avocato

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to Sal, Mario, and Greg. Thanks.

  Contents

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-one

  Twenty-two

  Twenty-three

  Twenty-four

  Twenty-five

  Twenty-six

  Excerpt from One Dead Under The Cuckoo’s Nest

  One

  About the Author

  Also by Lori Avocato

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  In order to get in, I had to think like an eighty-year-old man.

  I asked myself, where would my Uncle Walt hide a key—then bent down and lifted the mat below my feet.

  Nothing.

  Well, I really had no intention of breaking a window or door to get inside. My heart sank, thinking I’d gotten this far and wouldn’t get to snoop around.

  I stood up and leaned against the door. “Ack!”

  My world spun in a flash.

  When I felt pain shoot up my back, I realized I’d fallen onto the kitchen floor when the door, which had obviously been left open, gave way. I couldn’t move for several seconds and shut my eyes, waiting for the pain to subside. I sure as hell wasn’t going to call out for help. How could I explain me on the floor of a dead man’s house?

  Then I heard a muffled sound approaching. Footsteps!

  I opened my eyes to see a shadow standing above me.

  A scream flew through my lips.

  Acknowledgments

  To Erin Richnow, my wonderful editor, who actually “edits!”

  To Jay Poynor and Erica Orloff, fabulous agents. Again, thanks.

  To Leslie O’Grady, Sharon Schulze, Nancy Block, and Suzanne Baney—fellow writers who have taught me so much throughout the years.

  And to all my readers—there would be no Pauline if it weren’t for you.

  One

  “Say ah.” I leaned forward with my flashlight aimed into my friend Goldie’s mouth. “Yikes.”

  He opened his heavily mascaraed eyes and shut his coral-colored lips. I wished I looked that good in coral. Frankly, I wished I looked that good in anything similar to what Goldie wore.

  “What does ‘yikes’ mean, Suga?” he asked.

  I touched his hand and had visions of all the times I’d done that with the many patients I’d taken care of in the past thirteen years. That is, used to take care of. I’d sworn off nursing months ago. I didn’t miss my ex-career though. I’d burned out faster than a desert pine hit by lightning during a drought.

  I rubbed his hand beneath the beautiful silver-and-turquoise bracelet that sparkled on his left wrist. As far as transvestites went, Goldie Perlman had class and damn good taste in clothes. I could learn from him where makeup was concerned, and actually had in the past. But, damn, I still couldn’t wear coral with my pale skin and gray eyes. “Yikes means your tonsils look like giant zeppelins.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “What the hell—” A fit of coughing took his words.

  “Remember the Hindenburg?”

  “Before my time.”

  “I know, but your tonsils are about that big, Gold. I could yank them out with my fingers. You need to go to a doctor ASAP.” I took my hand from his and set the flashlight down on his glass-and-chrome desk. Goldie had dynamite taste in furniture too, especially if you liked jungle themes. I flopped onto the zebra chair I’d grown so fond of since working for Scarpello and Tonelli insurance company.

  I’d only been there a few months thanks to the connections of my roommate Miles, Goldie’s boyfriend. Miles’s uncle Fabio owned the place and after a “meltdown” of my previous career, I’d fallen into this new one. Working for Fabio. Ack.

  “I hate doctors, Suga.”

  I smiled. “Don’t we all.” This after the doctor I used to date nearly killed me—and not from an error in treating me medically. Actually, it was more along the line of murder. “I’m guessing you need those tonsils yanked out as soon as the infection clears.”

  He gasped a high-pitched sound. Very flamboyant. Gotta love him. I looked around the office. Giant ficus trees draped in moss gave the feeling of being transported from Connecticut to the old South, specifically Louisiana, Goldie’s home state. As I tried to think of some words of comfort for my ailing friend, our boss walked in.

  Fabio Scarpello. Yuck. Now I felt sick.

  He glared at Goldie. “You look like shit.” Then Fabio handed him a file. “Here’s your next case.”

  Goldie reached out with a perfectly manicured hand, then fell back against the chair.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” Fabio asked in his usual I-don’t-give-a-shit tone. I think he reached down to adjust his crotch through his brown polyester pants, but I yanked my head to the side so I didn’t have to watch.

  Ouch.

  I spun too fast, but the pain was worth not having to see Fabio. I hesitated, then without looking back said, “He’s got tonsillitis, Fabio. He needs medial treatment.” I felt about ready to pop the guy, but figured my fist would slide off the grease on his chin, so instead I rubbed my now sore neck.

  Normally I loved Italians. Miles was one, even though he had been adopted into the Scarpello family, but this Fabio guy got under my skin. He was the consummate Hollywood version of Italian right down to the “wifebeater” tee shirts I’m certain he wore under his polyester suit jackets. Plus, he always wore brown. That more than likely wasn’t an Italian thing, but it was a Fabio thing.

  He looked from Goldie to me, then yanked back the file. He turned to go, but not before he shoved it at me. “Here, newbie, get your feet christened with your second case. Prescription fraud. Two jokers to tail. Pauline Sokol, medical insurance fraud investigator extraordinaire, gets to prove herself yet again. Even though this case is way past your abilities, I don’t have a fucking choice.” He shook his head. “Christ. This time, don’t nearly get yourself killed.”

  Then he was gone and all was right with the world.

  Except that now I was facing my next assignment—alone. I’d only worked for Fabio once, and that case was a piece of cake. Workers’ Comp. Tail a suspect. Take pictures. Yadda. Yadda. Yadda. Okay, I won’t go into detail about how the first set of pictures I took was of the suspect’s butt. Suffice it to say, the camera was camouflaged as a beeper, and it hadn’t occurred to me to take it off my belt.

  I learned my lesson though, and was ready—to work alone.

  Perfect, since that first case had been “hindered” by none other than the mysterious Jagger. Be still my heart. Jagger was an enigma in the investigation field, even if no one knew who the hell he was, what his last name was—or his first for that matter—or whom he actually worked for.

  Me, I really didn’t care.

  There went my heart again—and something else. Okay, so the guy revved my engine, but, being the consummate professional, I never made a pass at him—nor he at me. Shit. Wait, there was that one kiss under the mistletoe at my mother’s house, but she’d egged him on, so it didn’t count.

  Goldie started to cough. I looked at him. “You have a fever.”

  He rolled his eyes upward. “How can you tell?”

  “Your eyes are all glassy, and a ruddy hue the likes of my
mother’s Christmas tablecloth is showing beneath your pancake makeup.”

  “I’m dying,” he muttered.

  I gave a soft laugh and a cluck of my tongue so as to convince him that he wasn’t nearly deceased and opened the file. “Oh.”

  Goldie looked at me. “Oh? That’s your most professional assessment of your second case?”

  I looked up. “Well . . . shoot, Goldie.”

  He sat bolt upright. “What is it, Suga?”

  I leaned closer to look at the file. I flipped several pages, leaned farther down to look at a photo and the name. “I think one of my suspects is already dead.”

  “That’ll mean less work.”

  I looked up into his watery, feverish eyes. “True. But it’s Mr. Wisnowski.”

  “Wis what?”

  “Wisnowski. One of my Uncle Walt’s cronies from the senior citizens center.”

  “So, old people die.”

  “Uncle Walt’s been, well, for the last few days, he’s been insisting that Mr. Wisnowski . . . he was . . . killed.”

  After consoling Goldie and his tonsils until he fell asleep on his zebra couch, I walked out of his office. Slowly I turned to shut the door without waking him. I’d promised to come back in a few hours and take him to the Hope Valley walk-in clinic. Mondays were usually busy, so he’d chosen to nap first and avoid the morning rush. Mondays were also senior citizens days. Well, truthfully, every day was senior day at the clinic.

  Being a recently hired employee at Scarpello and Tonelli Insurance Company, I didn’t have my own office. Fabio had said I had to work through my probationary period, which was probably a year, before he’d cough up the furniture and space. Goldie had been sweet enough to let me use his office and equipment when necessary, but it didn’t make me feel as if I really belonged. As if I was truly a medical fraud insurance investigator.

  I still felt like a burned-out ex-nurse working on a temporary job. Because, and this part wasn’t in my plans, as much as I wanted to get out of nursing, my last case had dumped me right back into my old scrubs, working undercover at a clinic. That, of course, was because of the overpowering persuasion of none other than Jagger. With my help, he had cracked a multimillion-dollar medical insurance fraud case.

  But two people had died in the process. Thankfully, I wasn’t one of them.

  I had made a sacred oath to myself that no one was going to get me back into nursing.

  I headed down the hallway and into the receptionist’s little cubicle. I imagined Fabio had promised her a bigger space years ago, but here she sat in a tiny eight-by-four room. “Hey, Adele.”

  She swung around, her earphone catching on the knob of the desk, yanking her back toward the wall. “Oops!”

  I jumped up, but before I could untangle her, she’d reached up a gloved hand to do the job. Adele always wore white silken gloves. At first I’d thought it odd, but soon came to love the eccentricities of the displaced Canadian woman, who had become like a second mother to me.

  Well, looking at her streetwalker-tight pink suit and bright pink lips that matched her nails, I knew my real mother would die at the comparison. You can’t judge a book by its cover was a cliché proven every day around here. From flamboyant Goldie with a heart of gold to greasy Fabio with the Godfather complex, to darling Adele Girard, who often spoke of herself in the third person, to Nick Caruso, with his leading-man good looks, the cast of characters often made me feel as if I were working on some movie set.

  “You all right, Adele?” I plopped down on the nearby gray desk chair.

  She smiled and spun around until she twirled back with a coffee in hand. She held it out toward me. I still had a hard time believing this woman was an ex-con. But she’d had a good reason for doing what she did. I can still hear her explaining, although I hadn’t asked. “My old lady was sick. The big C. Ate her up to nothing. And, to boot, no medical insurance. I needed that money. The jury was right to convict me. Don’t matter the need, you can’t steal.” She’d held up her gloved hands for me to study. “Burned in the joint.”

  I looked over to see her watching me.

  “Adele is always fine,” she said.

  I took the mug. She’d given me the one she’d bought that said INVESTIGATOR SOKOL in bold black letters. “Thanks. Goldie looks like crap today.”

  “Mmmm.” She took several sips of her own drink. I assumed it was coffee, but often thought Adele added a bit of “flavor” to it. Rum flavor to be exact. Nevertheless she was a darling and a wiz of a secretary. She’d helped me out so much with addresses and private info, I often wondered if she wouldn’t make a better investigator than I.

  But there was the ex-con thing.

  “Yeah, he’s got tonsillitis, I’m sure. Needs them yanked, but I bet it will be a challenge to get him to go under the knife.”

  She laughed. “Have his boyfriend help.”

  “Miles?” Now I laughed. “He’d be more of a wreck than Goldie, facing that prospect.”

  “And he’s a nurse?”

  “A great one, but when it comes to those he loves, he’s a basket case.” I set down my mug and picked up my file. “Fabio gave me Goldie’s case.”

  Adele’s eyes grew dark. She gingerly set her mug down as if it would splinter into millions of pieces. “I see.”

  Suddenly my coffee floated up my throat. No, maybe that was bile brought on by fear. Adele had me scared. Maybe it was her tone, maybe the look in her eyes, or maybe the way she pulled on the third finger of her glove. Up and down. Up and down until I reached out and shoved my hand over hers.

  Startled, she pulled back.

  I did the same, with an apology fresh on my lips. “Oh my God. I’m sorry. I have no idea why I—”

  “Adele understands.” With that she got up, scurried to the door, and before I could get her to explain, Fabio shouted for her.

  Damn.

  I leaned back in my chair. It wasn’t often that I got bad premonitions about things. I left that sort of thing up to my mother, who still worried because I was single, had given up the career I’d been schooled in, worked in a field that almost got me killed and didn’t eat right. Don’t get me started on not having kids yet.

  But, looking down at the folder in my hand, while I read the name “Sophie Banko” and “possible prescription fraud,” a heat spread up my arms, and a rocklike thud sounded in the pit of my stomach.

  And, for some reason, all I could think was, Mr. Wisnowski had been murdered.

  Of course I had no proof that Mr. Wisnowski had been murdered, but as I got into my Venetian red Volvo and drove toward my parents’ house, I just knew my Uncle Walt was onto something.

  Call it female intuition—which, by the way, had served me well throughout my nursing career—or call it a hunch, but I had to find out, and talking to Uncle Walt was first on my list. He’d mentioned Mr. W several times in the past. I’d even met him at some social functions and had heard Uncle Walt talk about the real “catch” that Mr. W had dated.

  Uncle Walt, my favorite uncle, had lived with us all my life. When my oldest sister, Mary, left the convent to wed—and yes, my mother spent the next few years doing penance in Mary’s name—Uncle Walt had been the super glue that had kept our family together.

  I actually applauded Mary, since her wedding took the pressure off of me for a few years, but my parents and my mother’s other brother, Uncle Stash, had nearly come to blows. Stash was the rebel sibling who thought Mary was very “modern” by leaving the convent, and the fact that the Sisters had paid for Mary’s college education was an added bonus. He lived in Florida but came to Connecticut in late winter for his annual ski trip. That was the extent of his skiing.

  Come to think of it, he had to be due any day now. Imagine a seventy-nine-year-old skiing. I became a ski-school dropout after giving it a shot with Uncle Stash back in the late 1980s. Everything hurt. It wasn’t fun. I often thought about heading south with him each time he went back. He was a trip, and staying with him cou
ld be fun.

  I pulled into my parents’ driveway and looked up. Stella Mary Maciejko Sokol, aka Mother, and Michael Joseph Sokol, aka Daddy, had lived in this house for forty-three years—and had never upgraded. When I watched reruns of Donna Reed and Lucy, I knew where my mother had gotten her “decorating” taste.

  The white structure, aluminum sided with classic black shutters, stood there, welcoming me back. When I got out of my car and walked into the foyer, I sniffed. The aroma of kielbasa and sauerkraut hung in the air. But I knew that couldn’t be possible. Today was Monday. Mother had to be fixing meatloaf.

  You could plan your calendar on my mother’s menus. She made the same meal for each day of the week. Kielbasa and kraut were Saturday’s delicacy and the aroma hung around nearly a week. Not even my mother’s Renuzit air freshener (fresh mountain pine) fetish could get the Polish scent out of the air.

  Truthfully, the air freshener had grown to be a comforting scent, much like a fake Christmas tree. Several times a year it soothed me—much like Linus’s blanket.

  “That you, Pauline?” my mother called out from the kitchen. She spent hours in the kitchen each day. Didn’t even have a dishwasher since she said she could do a better job. Each year we kids offered to buy her one for Christmas, but she always declined—and we got stuck washing and drying on Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s and any other holidays. With five kids—most with families—doing dishes was no short-term chore.

  “Yes, Mom. It’s me. Who else would just walk in?” I turned down the royal blue shag carpeted hallway and headed toward the kitchen. Who still had shag carpeting in their houses? Thing was, my mother kept it impeccably clean, and with the fibers standing at attention, it looked much like I remembered it over twenty years ago. Not even a spot on it.

  I nodded toward my father, who was sitting in his favorite chair near the bay window. “Hi, Daddy.”

  He looked up from his newspaper, the sports section, and gave me his loving smile. “Hey, Pączki.”

  I kissed him on the forehead where his brown hair sprinkled with gray had thinned to reveal too much skin. I couldn’t picture Daddy bald and wondered if he’d keep thinning until it was all gone. Then I gave my usual internal groan at his pet name for me. Pączki. A big, fat, round, often prune-filled Polish donut pronounced more like “paunchki.” That was my father’s endearing name for me since I was born a whopping ten pounds five ounces. But in my defense, I had heard my mother once say the nurses claimed I looked much thinner.