Oh, boy. Nutcase on my hands, delusional husband can’t accept wife’s tragic death, probably blames himself…. All these thoughts raced through my head as I looked at him and tried to figure out my next move. Where was Jake, anyway?
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I thought there had been a positive identification…”
“No, it couldn’t be!” he snapped. “This is a small town. The coroner is inexperienced. That’s why I had them bring the remains back to Washington. I wanted forensic experts to conduct the autopsy, but what do they know? Little shreds of bone and cloth. That doesn’t mean it was my Bits! But she could be hurt. Don’t you see?” he said, leaning forward, pleading. “I’ve got to find her.”
Double nutcase, and I felt very sorry for him. He must’ve loved Bitsy terribly.
“Mr. Margolies, I’m sorry, but I don’t see what I can—”
“I know she called you the afternoon she was passing through town. I also know she went to visit her grandmother. I’ve spoken with the people at the nursing home, and they tell me that Bitsy’s grandmother was missing something or had something stolen on or about the time Bitsy came to visit her and that she was upset. I thought perhaps that’s why she called you. I just have to know. We have to find her.”
David looked desperate and not a little bit crazed so I decided not to waste time stalling.
“She said she needed to see me professionally,” I said. “But that was before she went to visit her grandmother. Jake and I were involved on another case and so I was unable to see her until later in the afternoon. By that time it was too late. The accident had happened and she…never made it in.”
David frowned, as if trying to comprehend the words. “Then why have you been working for Baby?”
This part was easy. “Because when Marygrace Llewellen called and said Baby was upset and something was missing, I felt I owed it to Bitsy. I guess I felt badly that I couldn’t be here when she needed me, so I decided to do what I could for her grandmother.”
David’s scowl deepened. “Then who’s paying you?”
“Nobody.”
“What was missing from her grandmother’s room?”
“I don’t know.”
“Let me see if I understand,” Margolies began. “You’re looking for God knows what and you’re doing it for free because you couldn’t help Bits? That doesn’t make sense, Ms. Valocchi. I want to know what’s really going on and what you’re looking for and I want to know right now!”
David Margolies stood up and leaned over the desk, his knuckles white against the golden-oak surface.
“I don’t think you understand how very serious I am,” he said. His voice had become menacing and harsh. His eyes were bloodshot and he smelled of body odor and alcohol.
“Sit down, Mr. Margolies,” I said, dropping the chill factor in my voice by a good twenty degrees and bringing out just enough of the cop to ensure there was no misunderstanding I meant business. “I understand you’re upset but I don’t talk to people who threaten me.”
Margolies seemed to deflate. He sank down into the chair and dropped his head into his huge hands. “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice muffled by his fingers. “I’m just so damned upset. No one is listening to me! I know she’s not dead. Why won’t anyone help me find her?”
“David, have your people in D.C. confirmed that it was Bitsy in that car?”
“Yes.” The word uttered in one long, despairing syllable.
“You said yourself they’re the experts. Why don’t you believe them?”
His head came up and the wild-eyed look was back. “Do you always believe what the government says?”
“Why would they lie to you?” I asked softly.
“I don’t know! That’s what I want to find out. I thought maybe if she was in trouble, or running away and perhaps left something with her grandmother, something that would explain all of this, it would help me find her.”
Okay, so maybe he wasn’t a complete nutcase. I nodded and looked at him sympathetically. “I see. I wish I could tell you something that would help, but I’m afraid Bitsy didn’t know anything was missing when she went to see her grandmother. When I talked to Baby, all she’d say was that she lost something but she can’t remember what.”
I thought about the aide who’d escaped after searching Baby’s room and about the two men who had purported to be state Medicaid auditors but were now dead, and wondered.
“Suppose Bitsy did give her grandmother something to keep for her. What would she have that could make others so desperate to get it that Bitsy would be in danger? And why aren’t the federal authorities looking into this, if that’s the case? Why isn’t anyone helping you?”
I watched David’s face as he answered me, saw the closed, dead-end shroud that replaced the pleading, puppy dog expression and knew that whatever came next would be a lie.
“They say I can’t accept the truth about Bits. That’s what they all say.” He stood up, looked across the desk at me and shook his head. “I suppose they’re probably right. I don’t know what Bitsy could’ve gotten into that would’ve gotten her killed. They tell me it must’ve been a case of mistaken identity. I guess we’ll never know. That secret died with my wife.” He looked up at me. “I’m sorry. I guess I hoped you’d tell me something that I could hold on to. I hoped Bitsy had told you something, but apparently she didn’t.”
He stretched his hand into his suitcoat pocket, drew out a billfold and started pulling bills from it.
“Put that away,” I said. “I told you, I was helping a friend.”
David Margolies pulled out six one-hundred-dollar bills and attempted to give them to me. “It would make me feel better if you’d take this,” he said. “As a thank-you from the family. Bitsy’s mother will be taking Baby out of that Godforsaken rathole. We’ll keep her at home or place her in a better facility where she won’t have to worry about thieving staff stealing her trinkets.”
“Mr. Margolies, really, I wish you wouldn’t blame the facility. They really seem to love Baby.”
Margolies shrugged. “I think we realize the importance of keeping our family close to us now,” he said, the mournful tone back in his voice. “Perhaps that’s one lesson Bitsy’s death has taught us.”
When I wouldn’t take the money from his outstretched hand, he dropped it onto the desk. “Thank you for trying to help Bitsy and her grandmother. I’m sorry for any personal inconvenience it may’ve caused.”
He left and I sank back down into my chair and closed my eyes. Crazy people are exhausting. I tried to review what had happened and make sense out of it, but Margolies had been such a whirlwind of contradictions. First, Bitsy was missing and in danger. Then, suddenly, and without much seeming justification, Bitsy was dead and he was going to accept it. It didn’t make sense, unless David Margolies was lying or really crazy.
I picked up the phone and punched in Marygrace’s cell phone number. It was time for me to turn to a head-case professional.
“He didn’t act like that when I saw him,” she said, sounding puzzled. “He came in here with Baby’s daughter, Brenda, acting like he was the lord of the manor and we were all less-thans. Told us they were taking Baby out of the place and that she was to be ready right after the funeral! Now, how are they going to take care of Baby? She can’t be left alone. She needs constant supervision.”
“Did he mention Bitsy?”
Marygrace didn’t hesitate. “Well, of course, it was the first thing we talked about when they arrived. We offered our condolences, and while Brenda got choked up, that son-in-law of hers just ignored us. I mean, sure, he could’ve been in denial—that is one of the normal stages of grieving. But it didn’t feel like that to me. It felt like he couldn’t be bothered. All he wanted to do was get down to Baby’s room and help Brenda start taking some of Baby’s things away. Of course, Baby thought she was being robbed again!”
“Wait, Marygrace, the man just lost his wife. What’s he doing helping Brenda pack up Baby’s room
?”
“Good question. Not like I had time to think about it then. Cops have been absolutely crawling all over this place, and on top of that, the real feds showed up. There are more people investigating us than there are patients staying here!”
Before I could ask another question, she was gone, called off to another emergency while I sat in my office trying to piece together little bits of conflicting information. The hell of it was, it didn’t matter what I figured out. Bitsy’s death was in the hands of local and federal authorities. Baby was leaving her nursing home and returning home to the bosom of her family. At least David Margolies was right about one thing: Baby wouldn’t be robbed by strangers in Brenda Blankenship’s snooty household. But would Baby be safe there?
I got up and busied myself by making coffee. I tried to think things through logically, but in the midst of thinking about Baby and Bitsy, all sorts of other thoughts began to crowd into my head, distracting me. Where the hell was Jake? Why had he cruised by the nursing home but not so much as called me back after I paged him? Was David Margolies right, was Bitsy alive? Who was lying, then, the feds or Bitsy’s ex-husband? Who were the dead guys in the nursing home parking lot? And had Jake spent the night with Shelia Martin or had something else happened to call him away?
I pulled a thick, brown mug down from the shelf above the coffeepot and stared at the clay sign attached to the front of it. Bite Me, it read. My sentiments exactly. What was wrong with me? Why did I keep picking guys who were apparently unsatisfied with just one woman? I’d left a career in law enforcement because of one failed romance. It was the reason I’d returned home to Pennsylvania. What was I going to do now, if Jake and I didn’t work out? Run away again? Start over again?
“I think not,” I muttered. “Not this time.”
“Taken up talking to yourself, huh? Not a good sign, Valocchi.”
Jake stood, framed in the doorway of the reception room behind me. I hadn’t even heard him come up the stairs, let alone into the office suite. I glanced over my shoulder, long enough to see he wasn’t wearing the same clothes he’d left in, long enough to know he’d shaved but his eyes were bloodshot.
“They say talking to yourself is only a bad thing when you answer yourself, too.” I had to work hard to sound unaffected by his recent absence, as if I hadn’t even really noticed and certainly didn’t care.
“You want to catch me up on what’s been happening around here?” he asked. His tone was wary, as if he knew there had to be a trap somewhere and he was just moving slowly to avoid springing it.
“Sure.” I picked up my mug, crossed the room and sat down at my desk. “Where do you want me to start? You know about the double homicide because you told me. Did you find them?”
Jake nodded. “Yeah, I did a little recon right before daylight and realized they’d been hit.”
I nodded, as if this were not at all unusual. “Were you also the one who called it in?”
“No. I was hoping to get Spike out before the cops sealed the place. I didn’t get to her in time.”
I wasn’t giving him a thing to go on. I nodded without saying I’d seen him drive by the crime scene.
“What did Margolies want?”
So, Jake knew about his visit, too. Had he seen me enter the office? Had the car’s plates tipped him off? Had he then sat outside and waited for the man to leave? What was this, cat and mouse? The anger I’d been working to swallow welled up inside me and exploded with a soft burst of energy that only began to tap the keg of dynamite I was sitting on.
“Before we go any further with that, why don’t you tell me what Shelia Martin wanted that made you forget we work together.” Let alone that we sleep together. No, I wasn’t going to lose that piece of my pride. Forget that!
“Excuse me?” Jake’s jaw tightened until I saw the familiar little muscle jump that meant he was working to control his temper.
“I called your cell and your apartment last night. You said you’d call when you left Shelia’s. Either you never left or you just decided to turn your phone off and take a little vacation.” I leaned back in my chair and studied him. “You don’t look like the type to take a vacation in the middle of a case, so I suppose I can answer that question for myself.”
“Brilliant. Well, I suppose you’d better start worrying about this habit you have of talking to yourself because now you’re not only asking the questions, you’re answering them, too. What do you need me for? You’re having this conversation all by yourself.”
“Good question. What do I need you for?”
“You know, I don’t like being interrogated. Either we’re partners and you trust me, or we’re not and you don’t. Partners give each other the benefit of the doubt, but I don’t have that with you and I guess I never have. Hell, I guess I can answer that one for myself. You don’t trust me. I don’t suppose you ever will.” Jake stood up, face flushed, jaw clenched and stared down at me. “Stella, what happened between us in high school was almost twelve years ago. It was two teenagers being impulsive, wanting to run away and get married and live happily ever after, but it was wrong. I didn’t show up. I couldn’t call you. Are you going to hold that one against me forever?” He shrugged. “I guess I know the answer to that one, too.”
Without another word, Jake turned and walked out of the office. A few moments later the downstairs door slammed, followed by the sound of his Viper roaring to life and driving away in a harsh squeal of rubber streaking onto asphalt.
I sat there watching the steam rise and disappear into the air above my mug, feeling as if every ounce of strength and hope I had were vanishing along with the curling tendrils of mist. Somehow Jake had turned the tables on my righteous indignation, leaving me to wonder if I’d been the one in the wrong and not him at all. What if I’d been a more trusting person? What if I’d let go of our foolish youthful past enough to take a good look at the present? Outside of our high school romance, what had Jake ever done to make me distrust him?
Jake’s words gnawed into my bottomless pit of insecurity and created an even larger hole in my chest. I’d run to Florida to forget Jake but left there ten years later, after another disastrous love affair with an untrustworthy man. Now I was back in my old hometown, experiencing Déjà vu all over again. Sure, I was older, but was I any wiser? I was even letting the past make a total mess of my new career.
I’d allowed myself to become sidetracked, choosing to spy on my aunt’s new boyfriend rather than take care of my own life. Then, when a real client had called for an appointment I’d blown her off. Why? Because Jake had dated her after we broke up…eleven years ago, in high school, for pity’s sake! Then I’d felt so guilty when Bitsy died that I took on her grandmother’s petty-theft case for whatever cash-poor Marygrace could scrounge up.
I took a sip of cold coffee and shook my head in disgust. Maybe Jake was right. Maybe I was stuck in a child’s-eye view of the past. Maybe it was time to get back to the bread and butter of our young, struggling agency; the insurance scam cases and the skip traces. My heart sank. I’d have to do those cases alone now. I’d just chased off the partner whom I hadn’t even allowed to be a true partner…yet.
Could the day get much worse? Apparently so. Still, I was surprised to arrive home later that afternoon and find total chaos erupting in Aunt Lucy’s kitchen.
I walked into the house through the back door, my head swimming from all the phone calls and e-mails I’d sent out trying to drum up new business, and for a moment failed to take in the full extent of the pandemonium. But when I realized Aunt Lucy had tied aprons around Lloyd and Fang’s necks and was talking to them as if they were capable of understanding her, I knew it was time to pay attention.
Nina, Spike, Lloyd, Fang, Aunt Lucy and a short, elderly man were all crowded around my aunt’s long wooden table, completely consumed in Aunt Lucy’s current project. It wasn’t exactly unusual for Aunt Lucy to be concocting some new potion or cleaning product, after all, she was one of the governmen
t’s top research chemists, but this was obviously not the case today.
Stockpots boiled away furiously on the stove, and cooling jars of my aunt’s tomato gravy sat out on every surrounding countertop. It seemed Aunt Lucy had decided to make up a large batch of her special sauce, something she normally did in the late summer, when the tomatoes were fresh and plentiful. Then I noticed the other jars. Quart-size jars filled with clear liquid and lemon peels. This explained the chaos.
For the first time since my uncle Benny’s death, limoncello—lemon liqueur—was being made in the Valocchi household. I blinked hard, as hot tears fought to spill over onto my cheeks. Limoncello. Only Uncle Benny made the limoncello. But here they all were, with a stranger, making my uncle’s liqueur in his kitchen with him not even dead a full year!
“What’s going on?” I said, and was surprised when no one seemed to hear me…except for Lloyd. Lloyd the Dog always remembered who brought him out of Florida and up north to the household where dogs were king. Lloyd hopped down from his chair and ran over to lick my hand. I knelt down, buried my face in the warm black fur covering his neck and fought to regain control of my emotions.
“Stella!” Nina called. “You’re home!” Was it my imagination or was she talking just a little bit louder than usual? “Hey, everybody! Stella’s home!”
Spike looked up, distracted, grimaced and dropped the knife she held. “Ouch! Damn. I cut my finger.”
“Baby!” Nina cried.
The elderly man, who I knew had to be Arnold Koslovski, grabbed a paper towel up off of the table and wrapped it around Spike’s finger. He squeezed her finger tight with one hand and handed her an ice-filled tumblerful of a yellow liquid with the other.
“I don’t know what’s in this stuff exactly,” he with the faint trace of a flat, midwestern accent. “But it oughta cure what ails ya!”
Aunt Lucy smiled at him affectionately. “Is good, Arnie.” She reached across the table, her hand extended as if she were going to smack him, like she did with all of us, but stopped short and ruffled his hair gently.
What Stella Wants Page 9
