Blabbermouth (A Brit Moran Mystery)

by Joel Travis

  For example, let’s say that Joe Blow invested $100 with Charles Ponzi. Ponzi would take the hundred bucks and double it within the promised time period, paying Mr. Blow with the money he had recently taken in from Jane Doe. Then he’d pay Jane off with the money Jack and Jill had recently invested, and so on. Meanwhile, Joe Blow and Jane Doe would be busy bragging about their successful investments, and their friends would beat a path to Ponzi’s door. At the height of his scheme, Charles Ponzi was taking in a million dollars a week. Pretty good income in 1919 for a business with no actual product.

  But you know how it goes. Just when you think you’ve finally made it, the Boston Post comes out with a story questioning whether your business is legit. After a few years in prison, Ponzi tried his hand at a Florida land scheme, which resulted in a fraud indictment and another prison sentence. Ponzi didn’t think he needed any more rehabilitation, so he jumped bail. On June 28, 1926, he was captured in a New Orleans port. (I guess that’s when Crenshaw’s great-grandfather met him.)

  Ponzi served seven more years in prison before he was released on good behavior and deported to Italy, where Mussolini appointed him to a position in Brazil with Italy’s new airline. When the airline failed because of World War II, Ponzi couldn’t find a decent job. Sadly, the unemployed swindler died in a hospital charity ward in 1949.

  But Charles Ponzi had left his mark on this world. Like many modern-day practitioners, Sergio Moreno had used Ponzi’s scheme, offering to double any investor’s money in six months. And Sergio had learned a couple of lessons from Ponzi’s life—don’t get caught and don’t put yourself in the public eye. So he’d set Melvin up as the front man to take the fall in case the scheme collapsed. At some point new investments tailed off, or maybe Melvin lost the incoming funds gambling. When irate investors started demanding their money from Melvin, Sergio decided that his front man had outlived his usefulness, so he arranged for Melvin to be abducted and held captive in Mexico. And he’d still be there if Sergio hadn’t stopped sending Pedro his money orders.

  “Did Hedgeway know he was involved in an illegal scheme?” Sheila asked. “Or was he just an innocent dupe?”

  “The fact that he doesn’t want to contact the police tells me that he knew he was operating on the wrong side of the law. But he was also duped big time. Sergio set it up so that Melvin would be the only one answerable to investors. He required Melvin to move out of the Moreno home and into an apartment, reducing the chances that the scheme could be traced back to him. Likewise, he insisted that Melvin keep the business a secret.”

  “How can you prove any of this without Hedgeway’s cooperation?” Sheila asked.

  “As you know, I used to keep a betbook to keep track of all my wagers. I’m sure Hedgeway had a similar book where he recorded the names and contact info of investors. When he moved out of the apartment and back into Cynthia’s house, he’d have brought that book with him. I’m going back to Cynthia’s tomorrow. If I can find that book—”

  I cut myself off. The Stork was shaking her head.

  “No good,” she said. “You’re not the only one who could figure that out. Sergio has access to the house and he’s had a year to find that book. Even if he couldn’t find it, Hedgeway would have destroyed it himself by now, since it incriminates him as well.”

  “Oh, right,” I said. “Good point.”

  Susan said she had snacks in the kitchen if anyone was hungry. I guess everyone was, because they all filed out of the room. I stayed behind.

  “You’re not coming?” Ace asked from the doorway.

  “No.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “To hear Crenshaw talk, you’d think her great-grandfather solved the case.”

  “She was just being modest. Probably didn’t want to take all the credit for herself.”

  Ace said he was going home, so I walked him out. I stood on the front porch and watched the black man drive away in his cool car. I sensed someone standing behind me. I turned around and saw that it was Sheila. She was chewing vigorously. She swallowed.

  “There’s snacks in the kitchen,” she said.

  “Yeah, I know about the fucking snacks.”

  “What’s with you? Problems with the new girlfriend? By the way, what does she think of your theory that her husband arranged her uncle’s abduction and imprisonment?”

  “She hasn’t warmed up to it yet.”

  “No, I wouldn’t think so. Especially if she was in on the scheme from the start.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  #

  Like most of the population, I’m slow to rise on Monday mornings. Unlike most of the population, I don’t have a job or any other logical reason to rise and shine. So it’s no skin off anyone’s nose if I scrape myself off the dog mat at two o’clock in the afternoon and grab a late lunch from my brother’s refrigerator.

  By the time I got around to calling Cynthia, it was 3:30. She asked if I could come over. Andrea would be hoping to see me when she got home from school. Cynthia had to go to the grocery store, but if I could take Andrea to the park and throw the football around for an hour, she’d have dinner ready when we got back. I said I’d be right over.

  I was planning to borrow Susan’s Honda, but I couldn’t find the keys. Apparently she’d driven off in her car without informing me, taking Sheila and the Stork along for the ride. I’d have to milk one more trip out of the Pinto.

  When I puttered to a stop in front of the house, Andrea was waiting in the front yard, football in hand. She ran up to the car and hopped into the passenger seat.

  “Is this your car?” she asked.

  “No, this is my brother’s car.”

  “Is your car the cool black one?” she asked, obviously referring to Ace’s car, which she must have remembered from our first visit.

  “No.”

  “Is your car the one you drove when you came over for dinner? The one that ran over all our flowers?”

  “No.”

  “How come you don’t ever drive your own car?”

  “My car got mashed in a wreck. They took me to the hospital. I should be dead.”

  “I’m glad you’re not dead, like Uncle Melvin. He always threw the football with me. He got tired out in about five minutes, but he wouldn’t quit till it was dark. I think he knew I wanted to keep playing.”

  I felt a lump in my throat. “Who told you he’s dead?”

  “Nobody. I just know. He’s been gone too long. The police came to our house. I think somebody killed Uncle Melvin.”

  It was almost too much to take. I wanted to tell her to run back into the house, up to the second floor to the storage room at the end of the hall by the staircase. “Look behind the boxes,” I wanted to say, “and you’ll find a big surprise!” All I said was, “Which way to the park?”

  In a beautiful park a mile from the house, we played catch in the cool air. Andrea had run about thirty yards downfield when I heard my cell phone ringing. I threw the ball in Andrea’s vicinity and walked over to the park bench to take the call.

  “Hello,” I said.

  No response.

  “Hello,” I said again.

  I heard a gurgling sound. I almost hung up, thinking the reception was too weak for meaningful communication. Then I heard one word clearly. I waited for more, but that’s all there was. Yet that one word had gotten my attention.

  Andrea retrieved the football and sprinted back to me on her spindly legs. She arrived out of breath, asking if it was her mother calling.

  “No.”

  “Who was it?”

  “Wrong number.”

  “I thought it was,” she said, “because it was such a short call.”

  Too short, I decided. I told Andrea to get in the car.

  “We just got here.”

  “We need to go back to your house for a second.”

  “Why?”

  “I wish I could tell you.”

  The Pinto died a
few blocks from the park. I couldn’t get it to start again. Andrea said that was probably because the car was so old.

  “No shit,” I said, forgetting that I was speaking to a child.

  I got out of the car, slammed the door, and opened the hood. I’m no mechanic, but I didn’t see any loose wires sticking up at weird angles. I dialed Cynthia’s number and got the answering machine, so I left a brief message to let her know that we were stranded.

  I told Andrea to go stand out in the middle of the street and look sad. Half an hour later, a nice lady with jumper cables recognized Andrea from the neighborhood and came to our rescue. The delay had been a costly one, as I learned when I pulled up to the house. In the driveway stood two cop cars and an ambulance. I saw Cynthia on the front porch, talking to a policeman. I dropped Andrea off and sped away, as any good citizen would. The last thing the police want is onlookers getting in the way of their work.

  #

  It’s been two weeks since I’ve written in this journal. Two weeks since they loaded the Codger’s bloody body into the ambulance. The poor guy had been stabbed to death in his room.

  The police haven’t made an arrest. I can tell you from personal experience that it’s not from a lack of effort. I spent a whole afternoon down at the police station with a couple of skeptics from Homicide.

  The detectives had a thick file on me to refer to whenever their interrogation bogged down. They claimed I had a motive. According to the notes in their file, I had admitted on my deathbed that I owed Hedgeway a hundred thousand dollars.

  Well, at the time I thought I did, I explained, but I’d recently learned that there never was any legitimate, illegal wager. I didn’t owe him a cent. I assured them that Hedgeway himself would have backed up my story if he was still alive. They didn’t seem satisfied, no matter how many times we went over it. Fortunately, Andrea and her nice neighbor with the jumper cables provided me with an alibi. The detectives let me go without thanking me for my time.

  Cynthia spent even more time with the police than I did, probably because she was the one who discovered the body. After returning from the grocery store, she stopped by the storage room to check on Melvin. She poked her head into the room and asked if he needed anything, but all she heard was the same gurgling sound I’d heard on the phone. She saw his feet sticking out from behind the boxes and rushed into the room. Her uncle was lying on his back with his eyes wide open, blood gushing from his gut. She didn’t remember anything else. She must have gone into shock after she dialed 911. By the time the ambulance arrived, Uncle Melvin had expired.

  I went to the funeral and sat in the last row, which was actually the second row, for attendance was sparse. I had anticipated that would be the case, so on my way to the church I had dropped by the strip club to see if any of the strippers wanted to pay their last respects. Of course, it had been over a year since the Codger had set foot in the club. There had been substantial turnover in the workforce, but I recognized a few familiar bodies. The same girls who’d always loved to rub the Codger’s bald head while they smothered his face with their boobs said they couldn’t remember him, so I had to go to the funeral alone.

  I filed past the Codger’s open casket. He looked peaceful in there with his eyes closed, and it gave me great comfort to know that he no longer had to live in fear of his life.

  The pastor began his eulogy. I knew he had never met the deceased when he started talking about how brave Melvin was. He went on to say that Melvin Hedgeway was in a better place now, sitting at the right shoulder of our Lord, or something like that. He droned on for several minutes before giving way to the next speaker, who was Cynthia.

  Cynthia spoke through a flood of tears. I couldn’t hear half of what she said through her incessant sobbing. The half I heard was about how her Uncle Melvin had raised her from childhood after his brother, the kind man who had adopted her, had his face bashed in by a crazy shovel-wielding gardener (I’m paraphrasing), leaving her an orphan for the second time. It was all very sad. There wasn’t a dry eye in the place, except for the Codger’s.

  Old Man Enright was the next to speak. Andrea escorted the blind man up to the pulpit and dropped him off, returning to her seat. Enright spoke for about thirty minutes. Halfway through his speech people were checking their watches. He spoke of Melvin’s steadfast devotion to his family and his service to his country. Then he told about ten stories from his Army days. The Codger wasn’t even in most of the stories.

  He said he’d never forget Melvin, a true friend who’d invited a blind man into his home. He quoted his best friend, claiming that Melvin had said, “If anything ever happens to me, promise me that you’ll continue to live in this house rent-free until the day you die.”

  Sergio Moreno did a double take from his seat on the front row.

  When Enright paused to blow his pointy nose into a handkerchief, the pastor rushed up to the pulpit and pulled him away, as if the old blind man was too broken up to continue. Enright tried to shrug him off, but the pastor managed to clear the pulpit for the next speaker, Charles Fogelman. I thought it was nice of Charlie to come back to Dallas for his friend’s funeral, though I didn’t understand why he was wearing his old, tattered Army uniform.

  Charlie spoke from the heart. Or so it seemed at first. We realized his speech had been prepared in advance when he started telling all the same stories Enright had just finished telling. Several mourners left the church to grieve in the privacy of their own homes.

  Charlie finally descended the pulpit. He approached the casket and gave a brisk military salute. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have thought the Codger died bravely out on the battlefield, instead of in the storage room where he’d been hiding in fear of his life.

  The last speaker was Sergio, which disgusted me. I have to admit that he looked very distinguished in his black suit and red tie, with his tanned, handsome face and silver hair. When he saw me, he did another double take. I guess he was surprised to see me in attendance. Or maybe he was surprised to see me wearing one of his suits, not to mention his tie, belt, socks, and shoes.

  If Sergio had delivered his eulogy two hours later, the Codger would have turned over in his grave. Among other things, Sergio said he had grown to love Melvin like an uncle. Melvin had lived a full life, but Sergio would miss him, as he had since the day Melvin disappeared. You don’t realize how much someone means to you until they’re gone, he said in closing.

  There’s no statute of limitations for murder in Texas. I swore I wouldn’t rest until I brought Sergio to justice, even if it took ten years. Of course, ten years is a long time to go without rest. Hopefully, I can bring him to justice in the next couple of days.

  #

  Soon it will be Christmas!

  Marty and I put up Christmas lights all along the eaves of his roof. My brother climbed up on the ladder and strung up the lights while I sat perched on the roof with a twelve pack, handing him replacement bulbs from a box whenever he encountered a dud in the string. It took hours, but you’d agree it was worth the effort if you happened to drive by the house on one of the few nights we remembered to switch the lights on.

  Marty has invited Ace to come over tonight, but I’ll be out. I’m due at Cynthia’s house at five o’clock sharp. The plan is for me to help Andrea with her homework, which is due tomorrow, the last day of school before her Christmas vacation. After I’ve done Andrea’s homework, I’ll be staying over for dinner. I don’t know what we’ll be having, but Cynthia said she was preparing a feast, so I know it will be good.

  I’ve never been to a bad feast.

  Chapter 21

  “This isn’t another connect-the-dots puzzle is it?” I asked Andrea as she spread her materials out on the kitchen table.

  “No. Do you know about homonyms? They’re words that sound the same, but they’re not spelled the same and they don’t mean the same.”

  “Right.”

  “Our teacher made up a sentence to show us how they work.” She h
anded me a sheet of notebook paper. “There are five homonyms in that sentence. Read it.”

  “Mary ate eight cupcakes the maid made and rode down the road for four hours to see the sea.”

  “It’s stupid, isn’t it?” she said. “It’s written on a first grade level.”

  “What grade are you in?”

  “Second! I told you that last time, Brit.”

  “Sorry, I forgot. So what are we supposed to do?”

  “We’re supposed to make up a list of homonyms. Whoever has the most homonyms on their list gets first prize.”

  “What’s first prize?”

  “You get your name on the wall. It stays up there till the end of the school year!”

  “Let’s go for it, then.”

  Andrea squirmed in her seat, visibly excited. “Mom and me thought of seventeen homonyms so far. That’s not as many as Carla Cunningham has.”

  “How many does Carla have?”

  “She said she has thirty-two. I think she’s lying so everyone will give up. I bet she has about twenty.”

  Andrea showed me her list so I wouldn’t think of the same ones she already had. She was disappointed when I picked up a pencil and crossed one of them off. “Why did you cross that one out?” she asked.

  “It’s not a homonym.”

  “Yes it is.”

  “Only if you have a Texas accent. ‘Win’ and ‘when’ aren’t pronounced the same in the rest of the world.”

  She sighed. “Now I have less than I did before you came over.”

  I made up the lost ground fast, producing such gems as “so” and “sew” off the top of my head. An hour later our list was Carla Cunningham caliber.

  “I’m going to win!” Andrea said. “No one in my class will have this many.”

  “I think we still need a few more to put you over the top.” I pressed the eraser end of the pencil against my chin to spur me on. I was just about to pull another homonym out of thin air when Cynthia broke my concentration.

  “Dinner’s ready,” she said. “We can eat right here. Clear the table.”