by Sandra Balzo
Only my fingers came away . . . sticky?
Chapter Nineteen
Astonishing how many things can flash through your mind in no more than an instant.
For example, the zigzag pattern of the crocheted afghan and the irregular pattern of stippling on the side of Gabriella Atherton’s face.
The easy-care fabric that, given Elaine Riordan’s all-consuming responsibilities since yesterday, hadn’t been washed and therefore had to be stashed in the trunk of her car.
And then there was Gabriella Atherton, herself, the woman Riordan had caught in her own marital bed with her then-husband, Robert.
The woman who was about to marry that now ex-husband, leaving Riordan with almost nothing, not even health insurance.
And the other women? They were the trees that hid the forest. Or vice versa. Either way, ‘Gabriella was the real victim.’
Riordan had turned away to bundle the afghan into her trunk and it was only when she pivoted back that I realized I’d said the last aloud.
‘Gabriella, a victim? It's women like you and me who are the "real victims" of the Gabriellas of this world, Maggy. And I was damned if I was going to let her marry my Robert.’ Riordan clutched her handbag like it was the man she couldn’t let go.
‘But what difference would it make whether they married or not? The damage has been done. You and Robert are divorced.’
‘Only because of her,’ Riordan said. ‘You see, with Gabriella out of the way, Robert will come back to me. He and I will have a second wedding. And honeymoon.’ A weird smile creased her mouth. ‘Especially when I tell him I’m sick, as anyone can plainly see.’
Depended on what you meant by ‘sick’. I shrugged. ‘And are you?’
‘Sick? I told you.’ Riordan slammed down her trunk lid, but it bounced right back up. ‘I lost weight. My hair even started to fall out and I was getting headaches. I knew I had cancer and I was going to die. I had no insurance.’
I remembered that Robert had said his ex texted him, asking about COBRA coverage from his employer. Which she’d let lapse, given the crushing expense of each premium. ‘Did you go to a doctor?’
‘No.’ Riordan was shouting now. ‘I told you: I don’t have insurance. If I’d been diagnosed, even Robert’s company insurance policy might not have taken me back.’
Pre-existing condition. God help her – and us – she was probably right on that point. ‘Please don't tell me you took four innocent lives just to get insurance again?’
‘Four . . . ?’ Elaine shook her head, violently. ‘I killed one guilty home-breaker to get my life back again.’
Gabriella, I could see. Elaine Riordan had a vendetta against her.
Brigid, who knew? The woman reportedly came on to anybody with money and a pulse. Maybe that included Robert Riordan.
But . . . ‘Elaine, did you even know the first two women?’
‘Of course. They were horrible to me. Ridiculed me, laughed at me not just behind my back, but to my face. You can ask anyone.’
Like Sarah, who had said Riordan was an embarrassment even to the Broker Barbies. But that didn’t mean they should be shot, execution-style, like a professional killer would the objects of his or her contracts.
I said, ‘So they had to die, too?’
A look I’d never seen before crossed Elaine’s face. I couldn’t even call it an expression, because it ‘expressed’ nothing. Even her eyes showed no emotion, just two glazed buttons, displaying depth but not emotion. ‘Better them than me, Maggy.’
A shiver rippled up my spine. ‘How did you get Gabriella to MaryAnne’s?’
‘“Where are you, honey?”’ Riordan’s voice was suddenly stronger, the Southern lilt more pronounced. A perfect mimic of MaryAnne. ‘“I’ve changed my mind on listing the house. Honey, can you come right on over?”’
The cellphone call Atherton had received in Uncommon Grounds, the one with the ‘poor connection’. That explained why Gabriella told Jane Smith her new client was MaryAnne. Atherton genuinely believed that’s who she was going to meet.
‘MaryAnne told me you stayed with her for a while after your divorce. You would have had a key to MaryAnne’s house.’
A cackling laugh. ‘I even tried to give it back, but she is just such a generous person? She insisted I keep it, just in case.’
‘And you repaid her kindness by killing a person in her swimming pool and leaving the gate open to hide the fact the killer had a key?’
‘No, Maggy. Not a “person”. Gabriella Atherton. Home-breaker . . . slut!’
The red ‘slut’ dress in my own car flashed through my brain.
‘Besides –’ Riordan shrugging now – ‘MaryAnne didn’t have to actually deal with the mess. I mean, she does have a pool boy.’
A glimpse of the pre-divorce Elaine Riordan. When she had her pride and enough money to indulge it.
Riordan used the pause after ‘pool boy’ to dip into her massive purse.
I, on the other hand, took advantage of the brief pause to turn away.
And run. I’d make it an all-out, fist-pumping . . .
But I stumbled right out of the box, toe catching heel, putting me down in a heap on the parking lot’s gravel.
I swiveled my head. In her right hand, Riordan held a little gun, its barrel not more than a couple of inches long.
‘Let me . . .’ My voice quavered. ‘Let me guess, Elaine. A twenty-two caliber?’
She nodded. ‘Manufacturer, Beretta. Model, Bobcat. The perfect self-defense weapon? Which, of course, is what I was doing.’
The woman was a sociopath. Nothing mattered but her goal, obstacles in the way toward it be damned.
God knows I could identify with that, but . . . I had people whose well-being I put before mine. Most important of all, my son Eric.
Riordan waggled her gun. ‘Now get to your feet. Slowly.’
I complied, less than three feet separating us. Riordan put her free left hand on the still-raised trunk lid. ‘Now get into the car. We’re going for a ride.’
There was no way I was going anywhere with this woman. ‘Don’t you want to take the afghan out before you close the trunk? That way you can throw it over my head before you shoot me through the temple, like you must have done with the others.’
Riordan cocked her head to the side. ‘Why, Maggy. That is such a fine idea. I admit it does help a little lady like me to get the drop on someone. That, and I'm afraid I'm such an embarrassment when I go to digging though my voluminous bag, it's not unusual for people to turn away.’
Like Sarah had, when Riordan's yarn made a run for it just before we discovered Brigid Ferndale's body.
In contrast, Elaine managed to keep her eye on me just fine as she reached for the afghan with her left hand. The 'voluminous bag,' though, slipped off her shoulder just as it had earlier that night and, weight thrown forward, she instinctively put her gun hand out to steady herself on the typewriter.
That’s when I jumped as high as I could, spread my hands, and devoted every ounce of me to slamming the trunk lid closed.
Chapter Twenty
The damn thing came right back up again, but this time because it had bounced off Elaine Riordan’s right forearm.
So I slammed the lid down thrice more, my lungs screaming bloody murder the whole time.
I still don’t remember whether Riordan did the same.
Ironically, it was Kate McNamara and her media brethren who first came to my aid.
Not to restrain Riordan, mind you, but rather to photograph every angle of my wrestling the lightweight, bone-fractured Barbie to the ground and then sitting on her – literally – until real help arrived in the form of the two sheriff’s deputies, Pavlik’s representatives, who had still been inside the slaughterhouse.
They took one look at me, and the older brought out a cellphone. He, like me, had Pavlik on speed-dial.
‘Good job,’ said the sheriff an hour later as we sat side-by-side on the rear hatch of my ope
n Escape, a safe distance away from the insatiable hordes of media – both print and broadcast now – who had descended on the area.
Or who, like Kate, thanks to her undeserved great Luck of the Irish, was already there.
‘Good job? ’ I repeated. ‘Please Pavlik, know this is one fight I did not go looking for.’
He reached up and pushed an errant lock of hair behind my ear. ‘Since you’re all right, I’ll admit that in this case I’m glad you were involved. Elaine Riordan was not on our radar screen and she should have been.’
‘Because she was the ex-wife of Gabriella Atherton’s fiancé? You would have gotten to her eventually. Thing is, Elaine seemed like such a timid little thing.’
‘Those are the people you have to watch out for. The ones who bottle things up until they explode, taking everybody in the vicinity with them.’
‘I guess.’ I leaned against him. ‘Don’t suppose you want to come to the party now, huh? I mean, since your homicide cases are all closed.’
‘I take your point, but I still think it would be poor form.’ Pavlik massaged my shoulder. ‘I do think you should go, though.’
‘Without you, I’m not sure I’m up for it.’
‘Of course you are.’ He turned me toward him, hands on both shoulders now. ‘Everyone who is anyone – except me, of course – will be there and you just cleared a string of homicides, missy. You deserve to enjoy your evening.’
‘Missy?’ I gave him a quick kiss. ‘Well . . . Sarah is meeting me there and I’d hate to disappoint her. Besides –’ I pointed to the balled-up Pick ‘n Save bag next to the Escape’s wheel-well – ‘I do have my dress.’
I gave it a beat. ‘And it is red and short and nigh unto dazzling.’
‘I’m sure it’ll be gorgeous on you.’ Pavlik rose to his feet and pulled me up after him. ‘Now, you go have fun and reserve tomorrow night.’
‘For what?’ We were standing toe-to-toe in the shadow of the liftgate.
‘For us.’ He gave me a proper kiss and went off to work.
###
When I re-entered the Ristorante, clutching the bag containing my slut-dress and enough make-up to do it justice, the place seemed deserted. ‘Helloooo?’
Getting no answer, I was about to leave when a workman stuck his head into the entry hall. ‘Can I help you?’
‘I was a guest at the show tonight. I’d like to use the bathroom?’
‘Aren’t you Maggy Thorsen?’ he asked, eyes wide.
‘Well, yes, but I—’
‘Wow, great to meet you. I hear you took down the Realty Killer.’
Geez, Elaine Riordan already had a news slug. She’d like that distinction. Or not. The woman was crazy, so who could predict? ‘But that was less than an hour ago. How did you recog—’
‘This is the age of social networks,’ he said, pulling out an iPhone. ‘Look you’ve already gone viral.’
Sure enough, there I was. Not a flattering shot, though. While I’m not a giant, I looked like a gorilla sitting on top of tiny, skinny Elaine Riordan. If I’d stood up, she could have been wedged in my butt crack like the poor Chihuahua in the fat-lady cartoon.
‘Lovely,’ I said. ‘Though—’
‘The press took off like a shot when word started to spread. The big man wasn’t very happy about it, I have to say, but the media already had their story once the count was complete.’
‘What did it come out to?’
‘Only about fifty thousand.’
‘Not a million?’
The man shrugged. ‘Maybe the rest went sliding down the drain after the bag ripped. It’s lucky any of it was salvaged, when you think about it. The plastic got hooked on a rough part, otherwise the whole thing would have been washed out to Jones Island.’
Milwaukee’s sewage treatment plant. I thanked the man and asked again if it was OK for me to use the restroom.
‘Sure, but I’m heading out and I think I’m the last of the crew. Here, take this.’ He handed me a heavy brass key. ‘I think I can trust you to lock up and stick it in the box that’s hanging on the doorknob. I mean, after all, you’re the star of the day.’
He held up his iPhone. ‘Or at least the minute.’
Speaking of minutes, as I went into the bathroom I wondered how soon Eric would get wind of his mom’s evening antics.
I didn’t have to wait long. I had slipped into my dress and was finishing up my make-up when my smartphone vibrated on the marble counter next to the sink.
A text message. God forbid my only son would want to actually talk to me.
‘What’d you do now, Mom?’
His punctuation, grammar and spelling had improved, now that we both had graduated to smartphones with real keyboards. Last year his message would have been: ‘wut u do now, mm’.
I texted back. ‘Captured a killer and saved humanity. More on News at Ten. Love you.’
I had time to run a brush through my hair before receiving, ‘Love you, too. Night.’
I had barely set the phone down again before it began vibrating once more. This time a Twitter link, forwarded from Eric: ‘Coffeehouse owner takes down serial killer’.
Probably with the same damn photo. I thought for a second and then texted to Eric. ‘Hate the visual. Can you find a better pic of me and post it?’
Thirty seconds later: ‘My high school graduation? I can cut myself out, if you want.’
Back from me: ‘No! Leave you in!!’ Love those exclamation points.
And, finally, a sign-off from Eric, more reminiscent of our old days of texting: ‘LOL :-)’
He and I were living in an entirely different world than my parents’ and mine. I balanced on one foot to slip on a red stiletto and fastened its strap around my ankle.
Eric had gotten his first cellphone when he was all of twelve, though admittedly just for emergency purposes. When I was twelve back in the seventies, there’d been no cellphones, no personal computers – at least so far as I knew.
My mother had been a self-proclaimed, technology-shunning hippie. In fact, one of my earliest memories was being taken by her, me at age four, to the first Earth Day, started by US Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin.
Now, I thought, putting my make-up back in the Pick ‘n Save bag, recycling was a fact of life and ‘paper or plastic’ was an everyday . . .
I stopped. Cold.
‘Holy shit,’ I whispered into the mirror.
Chapter Twenty-One
I don’t recommend snooping around while wearing slut heels and a dress that slides nearly up to your waist when you lean forward enough to see the toes of said shoes.
In fact, I’m not sure I recommend snooping around, period, especially in a slaughterhouse.
I reached through the hidden doorway from the boardroom to switch on the light, just as Elaine Riordan had done earlier in the day when she showed Tien and me the room and its closet escape route.
Seemed like years ago now.
The fluorescent fixture buzzed, then flickered weakly, giving me just enough illumination to step through into the slaughterhouse. By the added light from a street lamp barely shining through a dirty window set high in the concrete block wall, I could see that – unlike in the Ristorante, where all of the equipment had been broken down – here the crew had left some items, including the flood lamps.
I picked my way across the disgustingly stained ‘killing floor’, praying that I wouldn’t catch a heel or turn an ankle in a covered drain. Or, much worse, slide down an opened one, hem scrunched up to my armpits. I took three deep, if dank, breaths and found the plug for one of the flood lamps.
It would have made a whole lot more sense to change back into my other clothes, but my plan was to still attend the party at Sapphire. After, that is, a quick look for signs of tampering with the drain from which Ward Chitown had fished the money bag.
The candlepower of that one light allowed me to see that the slaughterhouse was pretty much as we’d left the place, including the dra
in cover, which sat to the right of its hole.
I tried to think things through. Probably made some sense for the crew to leave the awkward – and, unlike cameras, relatively inexpensive – pieces of gear on-site, especially if Chitown was hoping to field interview requests. The scene of the crime, and I do mean crime.
Because, of course, plastic grocery bags as we know them today just weren’t available in 1974. More like the early eighties, when I was in high school and old enough to be embarrassed by my mother, who refused to accept them on environmental grounds.
A green pioneer, my mother, but that was beside the point.
The supposed loot from Romano’s Raid could not have been hidden in the bag I saw resurrected from the drain hole. At least not in 1974.
I crouched down near the opening, tottering a bit. I was trying to see inside the drain itself to where the bag supposedly had snagged, but I was blocking my own light. Getting up, I tried the other side, but the pillar I’d nearly run into earlier that day cast its own shadow as well. I’d left the bag with my clothes and purse in the bathroom, but I’d brought my keychain, which had a tiny Maglight attached to it.
I flicked the switch.
Incredible how much light the thing threw, though I was having trouble steadying it enough to see anything. I gave in and gingerly touched the pillar with my fingertips for balance and tried again. About two feet down the hole was a protrusion, where the bag could have hung. Chitown had managed to snag the thing with a screwdriver to bring it up, but it would have been a lot tougher to hang it there originally. Especially since one slip might mean the loss of $50,000.
I got back up with an effort and looked around. ‘The meat hooks,’ I said, forcing myself to toddle over there. Most of them were too big to fit down the drain, but one . . .
‘Looking for something?’
I turned to see Ward Chitown, who’d changed into a different designer suit and what looked like handmade Italian loafers. ‘Nope, just snooping. It’s kind of my thing.’
‘So I’ve heard.’ He crossed to me. ‘Quite the collection, don’t you think?’ His hand gesture toward the hooks was graceful, his voice as silky smooth as the leather of his shoes.
