A Glimmer of Death

by Valerie Wilson Wesley

  “Time to go get it,” Phoenix said to Celestine, who abruptly left the room. She came back with a pale blue stone attached to a thin leather string and handed it to me.

  “It’s a blue lace agate. Protects against everything. Rosemary gave it to me before she died, and I’m giving it to you. It shouldn’t have taken me so long.”

  “I’d say it’s right on time. Odessa may not have needed it until now,” said Phoenix.

  “Yes, I did,” I said, my thoughts on Darryl again, though I doubted it would have protected me from all that happened.

  The amulet was heavy; the leather string around my neck would take some getting used to, yet it was a gift I could hold and believe in.

  “When you wear it, chew some cloves,” said Aunt Phoenix.

  “Cloves?”

  “For courage. Understand that the killer will be the person you least expect it to be,” she added out of nowhere. “Don’t ask me how I know, but I do.”

  “That could be almost anyone,” I said, remembering Lennox’s warning. Harley had warned me, too.

  “Let’s leave it at that,” said Aunt Phoenix, putting an end to the conversation.

  Celestine went into the kitchen to make more tea. Phoenix refilled her cup with cherry brandy. Leaning back in her rocker, she closed her eyes. I checked on Parker, who was chomping on what was left of the apple slice. And Phoenix’s words stayed with me. It could be any one of them. Harley, Dennis Lane, Vinton, Juda—all of them or someone I hadn’t yet met.

  “Try some of this.” Celestine came in from the kitchen with a fresh pot of tea and poured me a cup. “I added rose petals in honor of Rosemary. It sweetens it a bit.”

  I sipped it, taking in the fragrance and taste, remembering my mother, made real at least for today by my aunts. “How long are you staying, Aunt Celestine?”

  “Until we get on each other’s nerves.”

  “Will you come back?”

  “Up to my daughters.”

  “Her daughters aren’t those distant cousins,” Phoenix said, opening her eyes.

  “My husband’s daughters. My stepdaughters. Strangely enough, we’ve grown closer since their father divorced me.”

  “Not a nice man,” Phoenix said, shaking her head. “Had a glimmer like your uncle. I warned you, Celestine.”

  “Yes, you did.” The sisters locked eyes, sharing some secret that they weren’t about to tell me.

  “And after you made that bastard all that money. With our gift,” Phoenix said, shaking her head angrily.

  “He won the lottery?” I didn’t hide my shock.

  “No. He played the market. Bought and sold stocks and bonds with my advice. I don’t play the lottery. That’s Phoenix’s game,” Celestine said with a sniff.

  “You play the market; I play the lottery. We’ll see who comes out on top at the end of the year,” Phoenix said, with a look at her sister that told me they’d had this discussion before.

  We said good-bye then, me and my aunts, me wondering about my cousins, distant and otherwise, and feeling connected to my family in a way I hadn’t been before. I touched the agate for protection, feeling my mother’s strength, sensing her spirit hovering somewhere near.

  Chapter 12

  It was three in the afternoon by the time I made my way to Royal’s with the cakes I’d promised. The place was nearly empty, except a clearly in-love couple oblivious to their surroundings and sipping coffee at one of the back tables. Lennox sat on a stool at the counter rather than behind it, leisurely reading the Star-Ledger. Georgia must have taken the day off. I’d worn my mother’s agate in case I had to confront Georgia’s evil eye. When it came down to it, she was the least of the evil folks I was bound to run into. As far as I knew, she hadn’t killed anyone. Yet I was relieved she wasn’t there.

  Lennox grinned when I placed the desserts on the counter.

  “Good to see this, better to see you,” he said, opening the top of the box containing the chocolate cake. “I’m going to cut us both a slice.”

  “For Lena,” I said, handing him the tin of chocolate chip cookies. “Tell her it comes with an automatic refill.”

  “Thanks for thinking of her. It means . . . means a lot to me.” He stumbled over the words, trying not to show he was touched but didn’t do a good job of hiding it. I knew little about his relationship with his daughter, only what Darryl had told me, and less about the challenges of dealing with a special needs child rapidly approaching adolescence. But the weariness in his face some mornings let me know it was a struggle. Darryl had mentioned that Lena was on the autistic spectrum, but I didn’t know what that meant. Darryl had dozens of books about raising kids with special needs. I wondered if they might be helpful to Lennox. At some point, I’d mention them.

  “She’s going to love this gift box, a cookie tin, right? Hey, Lena, got a gift for you,” he yelled, then went to where she was sitting with her iPhone and laptop in her corner booth. He came back in a moment, a wide grin on his face. “She was fascinated by this with all these colorful tulips and leaves. You may be refilling this box more times than you think. Thanks, Dessa, you didn’t need to do this,” he added, his eyes warm with gratitude.

  “I have a lot of fancy cookie tins to fill. I’m happy to find someone who will love them as much as I do.” I’d found a place for them. At last.

  “Tea or coffee?” Lennox asked from back behind the counter, as he brought out two cups and dessert plates. “I think I’ll go with the chocolate this time.” He cut a generous slice for both of us.

  “Tea is good.”

  “Sometimes it feels good just to take off that apron, such as it is, and pretend to be a customer, particularly on a lazy day,” he said as he removed his apron, sat down beside me, and took a forkful of cake. “Now this is some good cake! I’m giving you a check for two more of these,” he said, finishing it off. “Mrs. Dessa Jones, you are one hell of a baker! But you know that, don’t you?”

  “It’s always nice to hear it.” I nibbled a bit of my slice. After Tanya’s cake and all those tastings of frosting last night, I was just about chocolated out.

  “Can you handle two more? And some cookies.”

  “The cookies are a gift.”

  He hesitated for a moment as if something was on his mind. “Dessa, you’ve been doing a lot of cooking for this place. Are you sure this isn’t too much? I can cut back.”

  “You have been paying for it,” I reminded him, not adding that I needed the money.

  “I know, but I want to do something nice for you. Try to come up with something or I’ll feel bad.”

  It was the opening I was waiting for. “As a matter of fact there is. I want you to tell me everything you know about cons.”

  “Cons? Do you mean like grifters, con artists, thieves?” He didn’t bother to hide his astonishment, then added, only half joking, “Why would a nice lady like you need to know about people like that?”

  Male chauvinism, even wrapped in the skin of a charming man, always gets my back up. “Do you mean, like, please don’t trouble your pretty little head about it, my dear? Come on, Lennox, you sound like somebody out of a 1940s movie,” I said, not hiding my annoyance.

  “Wow, I didn’t mean to insult you,” he said, his back up, too.

  There was a moment of prickly silence as we both tried to figure out what to say next.

  “I . . . ,” he began, and I interrupted him.

  “I didn’t mean to snap,” I said, realizing we didn’t yet know each other well enough to speak so freely.

  “No, I’m sorry. I just meant . . .” He paused again as if trying to figure out something to say that wouldn’t offend me.

  “Charlie Risko was running a con,” I said, finishing his thought for him. “And that may be what killed him. I need to figure out what it was.”

  He sighed, and gave me a slightly embarrassed smile. “Dessa, I don’t mean to be condescending, but I really think you need to back off from this mess and leave it to peopl
e who know what they’re doing. Remember that promise you made me with that cherry on top?”

  “I need to know the basics,” I said, more firmly than I needed to.

  “Okay,” he said doubtfully, probably not wanting to offend me. “Ask some questions, and I’ll tell you what I remember from the academy. It wasn’t all that interesting to me at the time. Major crimes, homicide, larceny was where I wanted to be, but folks should know about scams to protect themselves, if for no other reason.”

  “Tell me what I should know, just in case,” I said with a hint of mockery.

  Lennox didn’t take it as a joke. “Dessa, this is serious business. If you think your dead boss was running some kind of a scam that resulted in his murder, you need to tell the authorities.”

  “I will,” I said in the most earnest voice I could manage. This wasn’t the time to share my reservations about the good will of the police. “What exactly is a con?”

  Lennox relaxed a minute before continuing. “Basically, con is short for confidence game. You got to get somebody’s confidence to run it. There’s the short con and the long con. Both have a hook, a line, and a sinker. You hook the victim, feed them a line, then sink them.”

  “Like fishing.”

  He nodded. “A short con is the easy one. Aims to take only what someone has in his wallet. Takes place in about fifteen minutes. Ever seen somebody play three-card monte? That’s a short con. They do it with cards, shells, anything. It’s one of the oldest scams around. Been here since the fifteenth century, and folks still fall for it.”

  “Well, they say a sucker is born every minute.”

  “Anyone can be a sucker. Believe me.”

  “Even you?” I didn’t conceal my disbelief and chuckled out loud at the thought.

  “Even me. Let me explain it. You have a con man or woman, a shill or shills—the dudes or women who work with the crook—and then you got the mark. That would be me or you.”

  “Me?”

  “Not if you listen closely,” he said with a slightly patronizing tone that I chose to ignore. “Marks are also called gulls, short for gullible.”

  “And you think I’m gullible.”

  “Dessa, I don’t know you that well. I didn’t say that!”

  “I’m not as gullible as I may seem,” I said defensively. But I wasn’t so sure.

  “Listen, anybody with a good heart and a trusting nature can be played. Here’s the scene: Let’s say you’re walking down the street and there are strangers gathered around a guy playing cards on a table. You stop to watch the game. But actually, the only stranger is you. You are the mark. There are usually one or two shills, and they’re all waiting for you. Looks like a simple game, where the player is following the queen, or something under a shell.

  “You stand there, watch for a few minutes, and see how easy it looks. So one of the strangers, actually a shill, bets money, wins once, and then loses, then wins again, and you can see what the dealer is doing. And you think, I can do that. I can follow that card or that shell.”

  “And you bet?”

  “Right. And he’ll let you win once. Get a taste.”

  “And the shills standing around say how smart you are,” I said, beginning to see how this con was played.

  “Right. It goes to your head. You put some more money on the table, and you start to lose. And lose. And lose. Suddenly, somebody will say, Here come the cops! And the dealer will fold up his table. The shills will disappear into the crowd. And you’re left standing there broke, feeling like a fool.”

  “Humph,” I said. “But if you hadn’t been so greedy . . .”

  “Everybody is greedy. Look how many folks play the lottery.”

  Aunt Phoenix quickly came to mind. “Sometimes they win.”

  “Mostly they lose.” He was wrong about that, but now wasn’t the time to tell him.

  “Could you use property instead of cash? Any con that Risko played would have to use property backed by Risko Realty.”

  Lennox turned serious as his old profession reared its head. “They’re not still doing it, are they? If they are, you need to report it fast.”

  “No. They stopped before I started with them. Now they’re legit.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “As far as I can tell.”

  “I hope you’re right. Well, if it involved real estate it was a long con, which takes time and people and makes more money.”

  “Like what?”

  He picked up the newspaper he’d been reading and pointed to a headline. Millions Lost, Yearning for Love. “Now this is a long con. A con man finds a mark, in this case a lonely person looking for love. He convinces her that he has a way for her to make some money, a fortune maybe, but he needs a down payment to smooth the way. Like help him get out of his country, pay a lien, whatever. And he’ll throw in a bit of romance to sweeten things.”

  “You wouldn’t think somebody would be foolish enough to fall for that,” I said, shaking my head in disbelief.

  “Well, everyone is vulnerable and con men can smell it. People get lonely, depressed. In this case the ‘lover’ needed money to get out of the country. He’ll find his marks on the Internet. Put somebody else’s photograph up, create a false identity, the whole bit.”

  “How could somebody do it in a place like Grovesville, using real estate?” I was eager to know if Vinton was right.

  “Scams and cons reinvent themselves according to the con man, the scene, and the mark. I’ll tell you about two I worked because somebody got killed and that fell into my purview. A con man got this widowed lady, the mark, to sign over her property, wooed her with roses and chocolate, cheap vacations (which she paid for), and introduced her to a whole new lifestyle, supplied by friends—shills—who vouched for him. When she found out what was going on after she’d lost everything she had, she shot him dead. My case then.”

  “At least she got even.”

  “That’s one way of looking at it,” he said with a shrug. “But she’s in jail. Another one I caught. The con woman was working with a partner posing as a contractor, and she convinced the mark to have work done on his house. He thought she was in love with him and took her advice, followed her recommendation, hired her partner. The two of them convinced the mark to sign a lien that gave the contractor rights to the property if the mark didn’t pay what was owed. Then they forced him to make payments they knew he couldn’t afford because she knew what his finances were. When he missed two payments, they took him to court and got his house.”

  “Who was killed?’”

  “The contractor killed the con woman who double-crossed him. She had a pang of guilt and told the mark what was going on, but then she tried to con him to get more cash. No honor among thieves.”

  “That’s terrible!”

  “Then there are phony psychics. A con woman will pretend to have ESP or special gifts, all the better to con some poor sucker into believing that he should sell his home now to make a big profit.”

  “Wow,” I said. I wouldn’t be telling Lennox Royal about my gift anytime soon.

  “What makes a person a mark?”

  “Anyone who relies on the goodness of the con man, and believes he won’t be cheated. They use a victim’s compassion against him or her, that and a person’s greed and belief he can get something for nothing.”

  “How can you tell if somebody is a con man?”

  Lennox thought for a moment. “There are all kinds of swindlers, but they are usually charming, persuasive, attractive. They need to be in order to rope somebody in. It comes down to making a victim believe in you. Be willing to make you trust him or her with your money. They’re also perceptive; they can look at a mark and figure out how he can be taken. Be it for love, money, or both.”

  I skimmed the newspaper article Lennox had shown me earlier. “This crook took all this money from people he met on the Internet?”

  “Yeah, but it’s easier done in person. You think your late boss was runni
ng real estate cons?”

  “Not if charm is what it takes. But he had people working for him who were charming, and he knew what was going on. Allowed his business to be used as a front,” I added, remembering what Vinton had said about his brother’s suicide.

  “He probably kept all records and deeds. That might have been what got him killed.”

  “But I think he had stopped running it.”

  “Past is prologue when it comes to crime. Criminals don’t forget slights, don’t let sleeping dogs lie.”

  I thoughtfully sipped my tea, saying nothing. If con men were charming and seductive, Charlie Risko was out of the running. He was about as charming as an eel. Dennis Lane, on the other hand, was charming. And Tanya Risko, and, I hated to admit, so was Harley Wilde. I didn’t like to think about that, but he’d admitted as much to me when he talked in jail. Maybe I was as gullible as Lennox thought I was.

  “Do you want me to look into this for you, find out what I can? I have friends on the force who owe me some favors,” Lennox said. He must have noticed how quiet I’d suddenly become and how far I’d drifted from our conversation. “And that offer is still open to meet your young friend so I can get a look at him.” He’d guessed about that, too; I wasn’t the only one with a sixth sense.

  I hesitated before I spoke. “I don’t think he’ll meet you, but it would be nice to get a second opinion,” I said.

  “We all need them from time to time. Like I keep saying, Dessa, you’ve got a good heart.”

  “I know,” I said, just a bit annoyed. “There’s one more thing you can help me with. A name keeps coming up, first from the officers when I had that interview and then from my coworkers. Avon Bailey. Ever heard of him?”

  A pained expression settled on his face.

  “Yeah. I’d have heard about the father if they had the same name. Avon Bailey Sr. haunted the precinct about five years ago, looking for his son. Said he’d disappeared. Wasn’t much we could do, since his body never turned up. Just told the father we’d keep looking and we did. Was he involved with that crew?”

  “He was in one of the photographs,” I said without thinking and immediately regretted it.