The Man With the Iron-On Badge

by Lee Goldberg

  Next thing I noticed was the drizzle. I seemed to be the only guy on the road with his windshield wipers on, so I guessed it was like this all the time and that people there were so used to it, they’d learned to see through the layer of water on the glass.

  Finally, there was the green. There was so much vegetation everywhere, even along the freeway, it made LA seemed like nothing but concrete and asphalt, which I suppose it was.

  As the freeway cut through downtown, I craned my neck like a tourist to get a few good looks at the Space Needle. It was actually the least impressive of the tall buildings that made up the skyline, but at least I was certain I was in Seattle.

  The farther out of the city I got, the greener the landscape became. Just before reaching Everett, I took the turn-off for Highway 96. Things became what I’d call rural after that, the narrow highway passing through hilly forests, and lots of mailboxes on posts in front of dirt roads that led who-knows-where. Around the intersection with Highway 9, just outside Snohomish, there were a couple motels facing each other on either side of the road. I made a mental note of them and continued on towards town.

  Snohomish wasn’t really a town anymore, it was more of a theme for a shopping center. The quaint, nineteenth-century buildings at the heart of the old logging town were almost all occupied by antique stores and indoor swap-meets. That’s what they do with dead towns now, they turn them into antique malls.

  I drove through town and into the country again, past lots of rusted-out cars, rundown farms, and old, rotting houses until I came to a batch of mailboxes at a turn-off for a long, dirt road.

  I drove up the muddy road, lined on both sides with tall weeds, and took a fork that was marked by a weather-beaten wood sign that’d been spray-painted with Pelz’s address.

  I thought about stopping, and walking the rest of the way in, to be more stealthy, but figured I’d get bogged down in the mud. Besides, if things went bad, I didn’t want to be too far from my car and a quick escape. I decided to take my chances with a direct approach and I drove on.

  The road curved and suddenly spilled out into a clearing. There was a faded mobile home, a ten-year-old, corroded Chevy Lumina parked beside it. A clothesline was loosely strung between two trees. There was a barbecue, a picnic table, a couple of lawn chairs in search of a lawn, and an old couch sinking in the mud. The stripped, sheet-metal carcasses of a few decaying cars were scattered amidst the weeds on the edges of the clearing. It all fit with my initial impression of Arlo Pelz.

  I parked beside the Lumina and sat a minute, my heart racing. I don’t know which I felt more, terror or excitement, but I knew I couldn’t just sit there. I blew my nose into a napkin and tossed it on the floor. I took my toy gun out of the glove box, leaned forward, and slipped it into the holster that was clipped to my belt behind my back, underneath my jacket. That was the way Mannix used to do it.

  I eased out of the car and approached the door, one hand behind my back, ready to whip out my gun if Arlo gave me trouble. I’d lead him to my car, tie his wrists up with duct tape, and then make him think I was going to execute him unless he talked. Once he told me everything, and wet his pants, I’d take him in. The wetting-his-pants part was real important to me.

  The key to my plan was the assumption that Arlo would be unarmed. That didn’t seem like a big assumption until I approached the mobile home.

  What if he burst out right now with a sawed-off shotgun in his hands? Did I really believe I could hold him off with my state-of-the-art BB gun?

  I was about to go back to my car and drive away until I could come up with a better plan, when the door opened and Jolene Pelz stepped out in a pink bathrobe, wrapped tight around what I presumed was her naked body, looking tired and pissed-off.

  “Who the hell are you and what are you doing here so God-damn early in the morning?” she said.

  Jolene Pelz had the basic framework for beauty, a nice body and attractive face, but her attributes were eroded by a lifetime of bitter disappointment, which she wore on her skin, carried on her back, and expressed with a weariness that marbled her voice. No amount of make-up, perfume, jewelry, or designer clothing would ever hide it, not that she was even trying.

  “I’m looking for Arlo Pelz,” I said.

  “He isn’t here. In fact, he doesn’t live here anymore.”

  “That’s not what it says on his credit card bills, Mrs. Pelz.”

  “What kind of cop are you?”

  I was so flattered that I almost smiled. I actually radiated copliness now. Wow. That had to say something fundamental about how much I’d changed, about the self-confidence I now radiated, even if I didn’t feel it.

  “Credit card,” I said. “My name is Frank Furillo. I’m a fraud investigator for VISA.”

  She leaned against her door. “The cop on Hill Street Blues was named Furillo.”

  If I was going to continue in this business, I had to stop assuming I was the only guy who watched TV and read books.

  “I know,” I said wearily. “But it’s not so bad. I grew up with a kid named James Bond. He got his ass kicked every day of the week.”

  “Probably by a guy like Arlo,” she said. “You want some coffee?”

  “That would be nice.”

  “All I got is instant,” she said and went back inside.

  I took my hand off my toy gun and followed her in.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The place was laid out a lot like Jim Rockford’s mobile home, only where his desk would be there was a tan, pseudo-suede couch, the kind that had bulging cushions when you bought it but that flattened to the width of typing paper within a month after you got it home. The cushions were still plump.

  That caught my eye, and so did the big-screen TV that dominated the boxy living room.

  Jolene asked me to sit down on the couch while she made the coffee, but I couldn’t. I was afraid my clip-on holster would come off and that, with my broken ribs, I’d have a hard time getting up again after I sunk into the cushions.

  So I stood at the low, chipped Formica counter that separated the kitchen area from the living room and watched her set the water to boil. There were bills, magazines, and a high school yearbook cluttering the countertop. I resisted the urge to rummage through them.

  Jolene washed out two coffee mugs and dried them off.

  “What’s this about?” she asked.

  This was my first time questioning somebody, and my second attempt at subterfuge, and I didn’t want to blow it. I reminded myself that when she first saw me, she thought I was a cop. Everything I said and did now had to reinforce that first impression. I couldn’t show any doubt or hesitation. I couldn’t let my nose run and I couldn’t sniffle.

  “We noticed an unusual flurry of activity on your account in a very short period of time,” I said. “Were you aware that your husband stayed at the Universal Sheraton in Los Angeles last week and ran up a bill of twelve hundred and fifteen dollars?”

  “No,” she cinched the robe even tighter around herself. I looked past her to the open door of the bedroom. I could see one corner of an unmade bed and a pair of tennis shoes on the floor. I’d seen them before, coming at my face.

  “Did you know he rented a Ford Focus from Swift Rent-A-Car, which he returned after a week with two thousand three hundred and eighty-seven dollars in uninsured body damage?”

  “I don’t know anything about that.”

  “His name is on the account, which makes you responsible for his charges and the damage to the vehicle.”

  I glanced at the yearbook on the counter. On the cover it read: Marcus Whitman High School, 1986.

  “It’s a mistake,” Jolene said, cinching her robe again, even though it hadn’t loosened up any in the last twenty seconds. “I put his name on the account when we got married and I forgot it was there, or I would have taken it off when he went to prison. I certainly would have taken it off after the divorce.”

  This was getting interesting. I decided to give he
r a little something to hang some hope on as a reward. “It’s true that we haven’t seen his signature on a credit slip in quite some time.”

  “Four years.”

  “That was one of the things that seemed suspicious to us,” I said. “Still, the fact remains he is an authorized user. Technically, the charges are valid.”

  I didn’t want to give her too much hope. I wanted her to have a reason to answer my questions, to try to convince me to write off the mythical thirty five hundred dollars.

  “You have to believe me, I didn’t remember he was on the card,” she whined. “We’re divorced; why the hell would I pay his bills anymore?”

  “When did you divorce him?”

  “Right after he went to prison,” she said.

  “What did he go to prison for?”

  “He was a drug dealer,” she said. “Not a very good one. He used too much of what he sold. So did I.”

  It was a nice try, that little bit of self-recrimination, but she wasn’t getting any sympathy from me. “When was he released?”

  “About six months ago.”

  The teapot whistled. She poured the water into the mugs.

  “You’re not gonna make me pay for all that stuff, are you?” she asked. “I mean, doesn’t the fact that we’re legally divorced make what he did fraud? I mean, doesn’t that make you and me the victims?”

  “How did he get the card?” I asked.

  Jolene dropped a couple spoonfuls of coffee crystals into the cups and stirred them while she thought about her answer.

  “All his mail was forwarded to him in prison,” she said tentatively. “I guess that included credit cards.”

  That didn’t make much sense to me. I couldn’t see prison officials letting inmates receive credit cards in the mail. Couldn’t the cards be sharpened into shivs or something? But I had to give her points for thinking fast on her feet. I decided to make my next move while she was still off-balance. I headed for the bedroom like I paid the mortgage.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, dropping the spoon with a clank into the sink.

  I strode directly into the bedroom before I replied. “Looking for the bathroom.”

  The closet doors were open, so Arlo wasn’t hiding in there. Her panties and bra were on the floor. She’d taken them off in a hurry. The bed didn’t have a mattress frame; the box spring was right on the floor. There was no way he could be hiding under the bed.

  “The bathroom is over here,” she said from behind me.

  I turned around and she knocked on the door that was between the kitchen and the bedroom.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  She opened it. The bathroom was empty. I went inside and closed the door behind me. It reminded me of an airplane lavatory, only not as roomy. I looked at myself in the mirror and pondered my next move.

  The first thing I did was take some toilet paper and blow my nose, which hurt my ribs, and I was reminded again of how they were broken.

  Those were definitely Arlo’s tennis shoes in the bedroom. He’d been here, maybe only moments ago. They’d probably heard my car coming up the road long before I got there.

  If Arlo was still around, he was outside hiding somewhere, shivering in the wet weeds. Maybe he was waiting to ambush me, but I doubted it.

  I flushed the toilet, washed my hands, and came out again. My coffee was waiting for me on the counter, an issue of Cosmo serving as a coaster.

  Jolene sipped her coffee and looked at me over the rim of the mug.

  “When was the last time you saw your ex-husband?” I asked.

  “March twenty-seventh,” she blurted out.

  That was roughly three weeks ago, about the time Lauren started acting funny. “How can you be so sure of the date?”

  “It was the day after my high school reunion,” she held up her yearbook. “I was a cheerleader.”

  “Really?”

  Jolene opened the book and proudly showed me the picture. It was taken of her in mid-leap, pom-poms in the air, a big smile on her face. She was pure beauty then, unblemished by the disappointments that burdened her now. She stared at the photo as if it were a diamond.

  “You were very pretty,” I said.

  “Yes, I was.” She abruptly closed the book.

  “What was Arlo doing here?” I asked.

  “He wanted to borrow some money. I told him to get fucked,” she replied, studying me now. “You ask an awful lot of personal questions for a guy checking on some credit card purchases.”

  “It’s my job to determine whether we swallow the charges or you do, and I have to support my decision with the circumstances surrounding the transactions,” I said, realizing I’d let her put me momentarily on the defensive. That had to be corrected. I looked over at the big-screen TV and the puffy couch. “I don’t recall seeing those on your statement.”

  “They were a gift,” she said quickly. “From my aunt.”

  “Lucky you,” I said dryly. I pulled a photo of Lauren Parkus from my jacket pocket. It was one of the special ones I’d taken for myself. “Do you know this woman?”

  She gave the picture a quick glance. “Was she using my credit card, too?”

  I just looked at her. She sighed and looked at the picture again. I studied her face to see if I could detect a reaction. What I saw was a woman afraid of being stuck with a thirty-five-hundred-dollar bill. I didn’t see anything else.

  “Who is she?” Jolene asked.

  “Her name is Lauren Parkus,” I said, looking again for a reaction and not getting one. “We suspect your ex-husband was seeing her in LA, that she might be involved.”

  When I said that, Jolene sighed with relief. “So, you’re not going to make me pay. You believe me.”

  I pocketed the photo. “I’ve still got to verify what you’ve told me. But if it checks out, we’ll pursue Mr. Pelz for the money. If we decide to press charges, you may be hearing from the FBI.”

  “The FBI?”

  “He crossed state lines in the commission of a felony,” I said. “That makes it a Federal offense.”

  I didn’t know what the hell I was talking about. I was making it up as I went along. But I wanted to scare her. Then I remembered something I read in a detective novel once, I couldn’t remember which one, but it confirmed my faith in learning-by-osmosis.

  “I’ll be staying at the Sno-Inn for the night,” I said, referring to one of the two motels I saw on opposite sides of the highway as I drove in. “If you think of anything that might help me locate Arlo, give me a call.”

  I headed for the door, opening it slowly, my hand behind my back near my gun, in case Arlo was waiting on the other side to clobber me.

  He wasn’t.

  I relaxed and walked out. She stood in the doorway and watched me go to my car.

  “The Sno-Inn Motel is a dump,” she said.

  I smiled at her. “I’m frugal.”

  I got in the car, made a wide U-turn, and drove off. I checked my rearview mirror for a glimpse of Arlo as I left the clearing, but if he was there, he didn’t come out of hiding.

  Overall, I was pleased with my performance. I learned a lot of useful information. In my estimation, I was getting pretty slick.

  I would have liked to stake the place out, but I didn’t see a way to pull it off. I wasn’t about to park the car and creep back up there. If he was there, he’d be expecting that, so that would be stupid. And if he decided to flee in the Lumina, I’d be stuck up there on foot. And if he wasn’t around now, there was no place to stash the car and still keep my eye on the dirt road without him spotting me when he came back. I just didn’t see a way to go after him for the moment that didn’t put me at a big disadvantage.

  But I wasn’t concerned. I had a feeling I wouldn’t have to go after him. I had a feeling he’d come after me.

  Chapter Fifteen

  On my way back to Seattle to see Mona Harper, Lauren’s mother, I took an hour out to do a little sightseeing. I did it to reward myself and wor
k up the courage to talk with her.

  I stopped in Pioneer Square because that’s what my guidebook recommended. It also recommended I take the tour of underground Seattle, but I figured if they decided to bury it, nobody thought it was much to look at to begin with.

  So I parked on a side street near the cobblestone plaza and walked around the neighborhood, seeking shelter from the drizzle under a Victorian-looking, iron-and-glass pergola.

  I studied the passers-by and thought about what I’d learned from my visit with Jolene. I learned that cheerleaders may have it great in high school, but that things evened out later. And I learned that Arlo Pelz used to be a drug dealer and served time in prison, so blackmail wasn’t a big moral dilemma for him.

  He’d definitely seen his ex-wife since he’d returned from Los Angeles. I knew that from the tennis shoes by the bed. And I was pretty certain the new TV and couch were bought with the piss-soaked blackmail money. What I didn’t know was whether Jolene knew that’s where his money came from. I was sure she gave Arlo the credit card, but she might not have known about the trip to LA or anything about Lauren Parkus.

  But now they both knew I was on the case and, judging by Arlo’s reaction to me in Santa Monica, I knew he wouldn’t be too happy about the news, especially if he caught a peek at me and recognized me from the elevator. I figured he might do something rash and save me the trouble of cooking up some way to sneak up on him.

  I’d be able to get more out of Arlo if I could make him think I knew more than I actually did. Private eyes pulled that trick all the time.

  I didn’t come to any new conclusions about the case while I was standing there, but I discovered I could tell the tourists from the locals pretty easily. The tourists were the ones hiding from the drizzle under umbrellas. The locals were the ones who only needed a lid for their espressos.

  Just about everybody, except the obvious tourists, seemed to have a cup of coffee in one hand and a novel in the other. Apparently, there was a city ordinance that required everybody to join Oprah’s book club and declare a favorite coffee blend. Even the bums were sipping Starbucks and reading Barbara Kingsolver.