by Lois Winston
"What would you have done? Blithely walk in on who-knowswhat? The creep who's broken into my home twice could be holding my family hostage in there at this very minute. Meanwhile we're out here playing Twenty Questions."
"You should have stayed in your car and called 9-1-1 on your cell phone," he said.
"I was going to. As soon as I checked all the windows." Except my cell phone was in my purse, which was locked in my car, but I decided not to admit that mistake to Fogarty. Instead, I opted to go on the offensive. "What are you doing here?"
"We got a call to keep an eye on your place. Seems you're making quite a few enemies, Mrs. Pollack."
More and more, I was convinced I had only one sleazeball turning my life upside-down and inside-out, but now was not the time for a discussion on investigative theories. My kids and Mama could be in danger. And Lucille.
I waved toward my house. "What about my family? They could be bleeding to death in there."
He walked back to the cruiser to confer with Harley. A moment later both men approached, guns drawn. Harley carried a flashlight.
"Give me your house key," said Fogarty.
I placed the key in his outstretched palm.
"Stay here," Harley told me. "We'll check things out first."
Fat chance. I was right behind them as they unlocked the door and stepped into my foyer. My extremely frigid foyer. Without electricity, the furnace didn't kick on. The power must have gone out several hours ago for the house to have gotten this cold.
"The switch is to the left," I said, indicating the wall switch plate with the light from my flashlight, even though I knew it wouldn't work.
Harley spun around, shining his flashlight directly into my eyes. "I thought I told you to stay outside."
Ignoring him, I reached for the switch, clicking it up and down several times. No lights. "The electric panel is in the basement at the bottom of the stairs," I said, pointing the way with my own flashlight. "A few feet down the wall on the right."
"Wait here. Or I'll cuff you to the banister," said Harley as he headed for the basement.
"It's too quiet," I told Fogarty.
"Maybe they all went out to dinner or a movie."
"In twenty-degree weather without a car?"
"Someone could've picked them up."
I shined my flashlight into the living room, sweeping across each piece of furniture, paying particular attention to Ralph's favorite perches and the cushions where Catherine the Great liked to lounge. "Along with the dog, the cat, and the parrot?"
"Right," he admitted. "Odd"
"Wait," I said.
"What?"
"Did you hear that?" I could have sworn I heard a muffled groan.
"The wind's picking up," said Fogarty. We had left the front door open. He shut it.
"No. It wasn't wind." I held my breath and listened. "There it is again."
"It's coming from down the hall," he said. "I'll check it out."
"Not without me." I dogged his heels as he headed for the bathroom. The door was closed. "We always leave the bathroom door open when no one's using it."
"Get back," he said. "Over there" He waited until I stood where he indicated.
As if on cue, the power came on the moment Fogarty swung open the bathroom door. "Jeez!"
"What?" I ran up behind him and stood on tiptoe to see over his shoulder. "Omigod!" Alex, Nick, Mama, and Lucille were all trussed up with duct tape, their hands secured behind their backs, their legs bound together at their ankles, all wriggling and squirming and banging into each other as they grunted and groaned behind duct tape gags. Blindfolds covered their eyes.
Mama and Lucille were taped together back-to-back. All were shoehorned into the bathtub with Nick and Alex sprawled on top of their grandmothers.
Fogarty lifted the boys out of the tub and settled them on the floor. Then he ripped a strip of silver tape from Mama's mouth. She screamed.
"Sorry, ma'am." He removed the blindfold. "There's no gentle way to get this stuff off. Faster is better"
"Mama, what happened?"
"That awful man. He had a gun."
"Who, Mama?"
"How should I know his name? But I think he might have been the same nasty man who ran into me during the first robbery."
"Did he hurt you?"
"Every joint and muscle in my body is screaming. What time is it? I swear we've been in here for hours. Where've you been?"
"On a wild goose chase," I said as I worked free the tape around her body-a task made even more difficult because Lucille continued to squirm and jerk.
"Stop moving!" yelled Mama, shoving her butt backwards into Lucille.
Fogarty ripped the tape from Nick's and Alex's mouths. "Did either of you boys see anything?"
"The house was pitch black when I got home," said Nick. "He came up from behind me. Next thing I knew, I was in the tub with the grandmas."
"Same here," said Alex. "Except Nick was already in the tub when he dumped me in."
"When was that?" asked Fogarty.
"About six-thirty."
"Over two hours ago," said Fogarty.
"What!" shrieked Mama.
Lucille twisted, jerked, and growled. Fogarty tossed me a do-1really-have-to? glance before ripping the tape from her mouth. "Where the hell have you been, Anastasia? If you came home from work at a decent hour instead of gallivanting all over creation-"
"I'd be stuck in the tub with the rest of you, and who would have rescued us?"
Harley poked his head into the bathroom. "Looks like he cleaned you out this time, Mrs. Pollack."
"What do you mean?"
"He got all the electronics equipment. Stereos. TVs. Computers."
"Shit! My term paper's on my computer," cried Alex. "All my research notes! The rough draft."
"Did you back up?" asked Mama.
Back up? Since when had Mama become computer literate?
"Not sure that's going to help," said Harley. "Unless you kept the disks hidden somewhere. Looks like he took anything that wasn't nailed down. The desk drawers were all upended. I didn't see any disks."
Alex groaned, and it wasn't from the tape Fogarty was ripping off his wrists.
"Your bedroom's been ransacked, too, Mrs. Pollack. Looks like he grabbed some jewelry."
Mama climbed out of the tub as soon as her limbs were freed. Poor Mama. Her joints creaked and cracked, but she didn't complain.
Too bad the same couldn't be said for Lucille. "Watch where you're putting those hands, young man," she yelled at Fogarty. "How dare you touch me there! I'll sue for sexual harassment."
Fogarty dropped his arms to his sides and stepped away from the tub. "Sorry, ma'am. I'm only trying to help you out. Maybe you'd like to do this on your own?" He spoke in a calm, civil voice, and I gave him credit for keeping his cool. A lesser man would have dumped her back on her rump and walked away.
"Just give me your hand," she demanded.
He stepped forward and held his hand out to her, but she couldn't hoist herself up. Eventually, she had to give in to the inevitable, and it took both Fogarty and Harley lifting her from under the armpits to hoist her up and over the rim of the soaker tub.
Alex had retrieved her cane and handed it to her. She waved it in my face. "If you had a normal bathtub, I wouldn't have had a problem."
Of course, it's always my fault. I'm surprised she didn't blame me for the break-in.
"Where's Manifesto?" she demanded.
I turned to Harley. "Did you see any animals? A dog? A cat? A parrot?"
"The dog's in the kitchen, but I-"
"Out of my way!" Lucille pushed Harley aside and hobbled out of the bathroom. "Manifesto? Where are you, my darling? Come to mother."
"Ma'am-" Harley reached for her arm, but she swatted him away and headed toward the kitchen.
"What is it?" I asked.
"The dog and cat are lying on the kitchen floor. The parrot's-"
"Manifesto!" Lucille's screa
m cut off the rest of his sentence.
The Devil Dog, Catherine the Great, and Ralph weren't dead, just drugged. The thief had apparently laced their food and water bowls with a sedative or something. Fogarty called headquarters to dispatch the animal control officer. Ten minutes later Mephisto the Devil Dog, Catherine the Great, and Ralph were on their way to the We Care Animal Clinic.
Lucille insisted on accompanying her dog, but Officer Fogarty refused to let her leave. "You're witness to a crime," he said. "Either you answer my questions here, or I cart you down to headquarters."
"You can't do that. I know my rights."
"Have it your way." Fogarty reached for the set of handcuffs attached to his belt.
Lucille's eyes widened. She stumbled backwards, steadying herself with her cane. "You wouldn't dare!"
Fogarty called her bluff. Or at least I think he was calling her bluff. "Wanna bet?"
With a grunt and a mutter, Lucille plopped onto the sofa, folding her arms across her chest. I swore I could see little puffs of steam emanating from the top of her closely cropped, utilitarianstyled head.
"Can you describe your assailant?" asked Harley, his ever-present stub of a pencil poised over his ever-present spiral notepad.
"He was tall," said Lucille. "Well over six feet. And fat. Maybe around three hundred pounds."
"He was not," said Mama, settling herself in the center of the sofa. "Don't listen to that crack-pot commie. He was five-nine. I remember because he was exactly the same height as my third husband."
"You can't even remember your third husband," said Lucille. "You don't keep them around long enough" She turned to Harley. "He was at least six-three, maybe six-four." She pointed to his notebook. "Write that down."
"How dare you!" cried Mama. "Are you going to believe this ... this communist or a law-abiding citizen and member of the Daughters of the American Revolution?"
She glared at Lucille. "At least my husbands have the misfortune to die. They don't run off on me and never come back."
"Isidore didn't leave me," said Lucille. "He was abducted."
Mama, the boys, and I exchanged baffled glances. This was news to us. Karl claimed his father had walked out on his mother.
"By aliens?" asked Nick.
"By J. Edgar Hoover and his battalion of right-wing cronies," said Lucille. "I have reason to believe they buried him under one of the goalposts in Giants Stadium."
Mama snorted. "That's Jimmy Hoffa, you pinko idiot. Besides, Giants Stadium wasn't even built when your husband walked out on you.
Way to go, Mama. I had no idea she had such a wealth of trivia hiding beneath those wavy strawberry blonde locks of hers. Maybe I should sign her up for the seniors' Jeopardy tournament.
"And for your information, I remember each and every one of my husbands, thank you very much. That man was exactly the same height as my dear departed Oscar Scoffield. And he wasn't fat." She turned to Harley. "He was very muscular. Like a body builder."
Fogarty rolled his eyes. "What about hair?"
"Black," said Mama.
"Light brown," said Lucille. "What was left of it. He had a large bald spot in the front."
"He had a full head of hair," said Mama. "Thick. Like my first husband's." She turned to me. "You remember what a gorgeous head of hair your father had, don't you, Anastasia dear?"
"Yes, Mama."
Fogarty and Harley shook their heads. Lucille and Mama exchanged looks that could kill if given half a chance. Nick and Alex tried to stifle their laughter. They weren't very successful.
"Why don't I make some coffee?" I suggested.
"I'm hungry," said Nick.
"Me, too," added Alex.
I headed back into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. I flung open the freezer.
I ran across the room and yanked open the pantry.
"That bastard!" I screamed.
ALEX, NICK, MAMA, FOGARTY, and Harley came running. The refrigerator and freezer doors stood open, bare bulbs illuminating their cavernous, totally empty interiors. The pantry was equally bare.
"He didn't leave us with so much as a lousy cornflake!" I said.
I wanted to throw myself on the linoleum and kick and scream like an overtired two year old, but I contained my tantrum to an adult-like two-fisted pummeling of the refrigerator door. In hindsight, considering the size of the dent I created, I should have gone with my first and baser instinct.
"He was here a long time," said Mama. "Surely one of the neighbors saw him carrying stuff out the front door and can give the police a description."
"Yeah, Mom," said Nick. "Batty Bentworth probably even wrote down his license plate number. You know what a busybody snoop she is."
Fogarty grimaced. "We know all about Mrs. Bentworth. She calls at least once a day to report alien sightings. No one at the station pays attention to her."
"Maybe you should this time," said Mama.
Fogarty shook his head. "We'll check it out, but most likely the perp pulled a truck around to the back before ringing the front doorbell. He wouldn't have been seen from the street, and you have high shrubbery masking the yard from your next door neighbors."
"He also may not have been here as long as you think," added Harley.
"But it had to take hours to empty the house," I said.
"He probably had help," said Fogarty. He turned to Mama and the boys. "Did it ever sound like more than one person was in the house? Did you hear him speaking to anyone?"
"I couldn't hear much of anything," said Nick.
"Me, neither," added Alex.
Mama scrunched up her face and shook her head. "Not with the way that woman was carrying on with her grunting and groaning."
"This guy is a real sicko," said Harley. "We'd better check the garage and apartment. He probably hit those, as well."
I turned to reach for the keys I kept on a hook by the phone. They weren't there.
Harley and Fogarty, their hands poised on their guns, headed out into the back yard.
"I'm starving," said Nick.
"What are we gonna eat?" asked Alex.
He and Nick began to open and inspect the contents of every cupboard and drawer, for what I couldn't imagine. It wasn't like I hid Hershey bars inside the crock-pot. Not that we still had a crock-pot. Ricardo-and at this point I had absolutely no doubt the burglar was Ricardo-had helped himself to all the small appliances as well. However, my normally reasonable and understanding sons reverted to whining babies when hungry. And like babies, they needed feeding every two to three hours or things got ugly.
Having checked every nook and cranny of the kitchen, the boys moved on to the mud room. "Jeez, Mom! He even took the dog and cat food."
"And Ralph's bird seed," added Alex.
I let loose a string of four-letter words that made Mama blush. "Anastasia!"
Too bad. Between the few dollars in my wallet and the forty left in my checking account, I might be able to feed three adults and two teenagers for a day or two. Tops.
Trimedia cut payroll checks every two weeks. I wouldn't see another dime until next Thursday. I'd never stretch fifty dollars or so until then. And that left nothing for the menagerie. Not to mention gas for the car.
And I didn't even want to think about the vet bill. Mama and Lucille were responsible for Catherine the Great and Devil Dog, but what would the vet charge for the care and feeding of a Prozac-riddled parrot?
Harley and Fogarty returned, shaking their heads. "Looks like he helped himself to anything of value," said Harley. "If I remember, you had a computer in the apartment, right?"
"Yes"
"It's gone. So's the lawn mower and snow thrower. I don't remember what else you had in the garage in the way of garden gizmos. If you had a leaf blower, he helped himself to that, too."
"We'll need a list of the missing items," said Fogarty. "So will the insurance company."
I wondered how long it took our homeowner's policy to pay out a claim on a robbery. I was still
waiting for a check from the damage Ricardo inflicted Monday.
In all the years of owning the house, we'd never had to place ourselves in the insurance company's trademark good hands. Now, two claims in a week. I wondered how much that would increase my premium-assuming the good hands people didn't simply wipe their hands of me, since I was fast becoming an extremely poor risk.
We had to eat. I saw but one option. "Mama, I'm going to need to borrow some money."
"Don't worry, dear, I'll get my purse."
She headed for the bedroom.
The rest of us returned to the living room where Lucille waited impatiently, her arms still folded across her chest, her mouth set in its classic grimace. I explained the latest catastrophe, adding, "I'll need to borrow whatever you've got in the way of cash in order to buy food for all of us."
"Only if you promise to buy Manifesto's regular food, not that cheap dry crap you forced on him"
Unfortunately, I knew she was serious. Mephisto came before her grandchildren. "Be reasonable, Lucille. A can of that stuff costs as much as a quart of milk"
"He's having digestive problems, thanks to your selfishness!"
And I was getting a whopper of an ulcer thanks to her. "Look, Lucille-"
Before I could finish, Mama returned empty-handed from the bedroom. "My purse is missing," she said. "My wallet. My credit cards. My check book. My passport. All gone."
"And Lucille's purse?" I asked.
Mama shook her head.
"Now what do we do?" asked Nick.
"You can have whatever I've got, Mom. Alex reached into the back pocket of his jeans. His jaw dropped. "I don't believe it! That creep pinched my wallet."
Nick checked his pocket. "Mine, too"
That left me with no choice. I couldn't let my family starve to death. Not when I had fifty-thousand dollars in marked bills locked in my car. Batswin and Robbins would have to understand.
Fogarty and Harley waited for back-up to take their place watching the house, then left to file their report. As soon as they were gone, I scrawled an IOU on a scrap of paper and added it to the envelope with the Burberry receipt. Then I removed two crisp hundred dollar bills from one of the stacks and stuck the envelope in the tote with the money.
But the thought of continuing to ride around with fifty thousand dollars in a car without an alarm system creeped me out. So I decided to freeze the assets. Literally. After stuffing the moneyladen tote in the empty freezer, I headed for the nearest twentyfour hour supermarket.
