The Big Dirt Nap db-2

by Rosemary Harris

  There was a tinge of grudging admiration in the remark and I couldn't resist bragging. "There's another one locked in the laundry room in the hotel."

  "And the head cheese?" she asked.

  "Still at large."

  "Not for long. My men just went around the back of the hotel to seal off that exit. Bernie won't get away." She chewed on the Tic Tacs and shook out some more.

  "Bernie Mishkin?"

  Winters ticked off her reasons. "He had the means, the opportunity, and fifteen million motives."

  Bernie's Chinese investor knew all about the hotel's precarious financial situation, but his people hadn't been able to navigate the byzantine workings of Congress and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Bernie had convinced them the Quepochas' federal recognition was imminent. And with that would come casino gambling and busloads of tourists from New York and Boston eager to leave their money in the Nutmeg State.

  "How could he promise them that? He's not a Native American," I said. "Is he?" I remembered what Betty had said about membership in the tribe.

  "He's not, but Daniel Smallwood is." Winters thought the two of them had cooked up a scheme to defraud the investors. Fifteen million dollars would go a long way toward paying off the Mishkins' bills and keeping the tribe's case in court for years to come. It wouldn't matter if the Quepochas were never recognized.

  "Why wouldn't Daniel Smallwood just do this on his own? Why did he need Bernie?" I asked.

  "They gave each other credibility. And they convinced this Wai Hi that they could earn the cost of a new hotel's construction with one year's worth of gaming revenues from Bernie's old hotel."

  "You think Nick was going to blow the whistle and one of them killed him?"

  "I think they hired someone to do it." She pointed to the Michelin Man, who was still shaking off the effects of the Taser and scratching the spot where the barbs had hit him.

  "I didn't kill nobody," he said. "That's not what I signed on for. I want my lawyer."

  "Maybe him, maybe Billy Crawford, we're not there yet. But we will be soon."

  I asked her about the evidence they'd found that implicated the Crawfords. She hesitated for just a second. I could almost see her thinking, Why the hell not?

  "Hair," she said.

  Sam looked up. That was all she said before walking away toward the hotel.

  The cops asked me for the key to the bicycle lock. They unchained the Michelin Man, cuffed him, and read him his rights, squashing him into the cruiser, where he took up most of the backseat.

  "This is police brutality. I should be in a van. I want my lawyer."

  "Shut up, Vitaly," one of the cops said, bored. He returned the chain and lock to me and I draped it around my neck, putting the key in the lock for safekeeping.

  For thirty minutes the cops interrogated us.

  "We struggled. I kicked him," Lucy said, skirting around the issue of the Taser; a good thing since none of us knew what Connecticut laws were regarding Tasers.

  Remarkably, they believed the three of us managed to subdue a three-hundred-pound thug. They'd know the truth soon enough but I didn't feel the need to volunteer that information, not just yet. If the Michelin Man was smart enough to ask for his lawyer, maybe I'd wait for mine.

  While we were outside answering questions, we could hear Amanda's goth party still going strong. The corpse flower was a huge success; somewhere Fran Mishkin must have been smiling. I doubted whether any of the students even noticed a scrawny, twitchy guy being freed from the hotel's laundry room and brought out in cuffs to join his fleshy friend on the way to jail in the back of a second police cruiser. Minutes later, Bernie and Rachel were led out of their hotel, Bernie, in cuffs covered by a jacket, blubbering on about the newspapers, and Rachel, two steps behind, as usual.

  Hector Ruiz stood in the doorway and assured them he had the situation under control and all publicity was good publicity. I wasn't sure that adage extended as far as an accusation of murder, but what did I know—Hector was a pretty sharp cookie.

  Sam, Lucy, and I watched them all drive off until we were alone in the parking lot.

  "I don't know about anyone else, but I could use a drink," Lucy said. She marched ahead of us into the crowded lobby.

  Sam passed. He'd been sober for four hours and said he was shooting for five. Then six. One hour at a time, then one day at a time. He wouldn't take any money. "I bought a few Powerball tickets with that twenty you left for me. I never got a chance to thank you."

  "It's been a pleasure meeting you, Sam. Take care of yourself." I didn't know what else to say. "If you ever want any part-time landscaping work, give me a call, okay?" I wished him luck and leaned in for the double back pat—friendlier than a handshake but not as intimate as a kiss.

  "You look good, baby," Sam whispered.

  I said a quick prayer that the night wouldn't get any weirder than it had already been. Granted, Sam had cleaned up pretty good and I didn't like to think of myself as a snob, but was this an appropriate time for a pass? I froze and said nothing. I hoped I wasn't wincing at what I thought was an untimely suggestion.

  "Billy brought me a jacket that night. We met on the loading dock." That might be why Billy's hair was found at the scene. "We heard someone coming. Billy wasn't supposed to be there, so we hid behind the Dumpster. I couldn't really see; Billy was closer. But I heard them. You look good, baby. That's what Nick said to the woman right before she shot him." Then Sam disappeared again behind the hedges.

  I walked through the party, into the bar, stunned. If Sam was right and the killer was a woman, there was a short list of suspects. And the one at the top of the list used to work for Sergei and was last seen wearing my black quilted jacket.

  "What's the matter?" Lucy said. "You look pale. Oh, wait, we all look pale." There were already two rings on the bar in front of her and she called the bartender over to order a drink for me.

  I didn't recognize the girl behind the bar but she stared as if she knew us. "Is one of you Paula?" she asked, with a faint accent. I toyed with the idea of saying no; after all, one of us wasn't.

  "That would be me," I said, exhausted, holding up my hand.

  "I have something for you." My whole body tensed. I hoped it wasn't a shot to the face. Being half-Italian, my family was big on open caskets.

  She pulled a plastic drugstore shopping bag out from under the bar. "Oksana left this for you." It was my quilted jacket.

  I let out a nervous laugh. "Hey, old friend, I never thought I'd see you again." I put the jacket on, turned up the collar, and dug my hands in the pockets, modeling it, QVC style. In one of the pockets I found a note. I unfolded the slip of paper and read it out loud.

  Dear Paula,

  If you are reading this I hope it means that you and your friend are okay. Billy and I are going away to someplace where Sergei cannot find us. Where we can start fresh. It wasn't Sergei's fault. It was that woman. He never would have needed so much money if she hadn't talked him into buying that damn Zamboni. Wish us luck.

  Oksana

  Lucy nearly coughed up an olive. "Holy shit. Well, she finally found someone to look after her. But what the hell is a Zamboni? It sounds like an Italian pastry—leave the gun, take the Zamboni."

  "It's a very expensive machine used to clean and smooth the ice at a skating rink," I said, putting two and two together.

  "Are there many skaters around here?" she asked.

  I knew of two, Viktor Petrenko, the former Olympic gold medalist, and Jackie Connelly, who blew a double axel at a high school competition twenty-four years ago and was comforted by an athlete from a school two thousand miles away. Something told me Petrenko wasn't involved.

  Forty-nine

  It made sense. Sergei and Jackie were both looking to hit the jackpot, and they had something in common: ice.

  "The waitress at the coffee shop told me that as a single mom Jackie frequently held two or three jobs just to keep a roof over their heads. She even worked as a mai
d. Shaftsbury's a small town in a small county—how many cleaning services can there be around here? Jackie probably met Sergei at work. The skating rink must have seemed like a way to get back to the life she thought she'd have when she was a kid." I downed my drink.

  "Until the cannoli broke down," Lucy said, she was more than a little tipsy.

  "Zamboni. No more drinks for you. When that didn't work out Jackie jettisoned Sergei and aimed higher," I said. "What if Jackie tried to involve her son-in-law in some scheme and he said no?"

  "The guy who died in the fire?"

  I nodded. "Bobby Crawford. He and Nick were friends. Maybe Nick found out about the scam and that's what he was going to tell you the night he got killed. Maybe Bobby's death wasn't an accident."

  "So what do we do now?"

  "We call the cops, like normal people. But only when we get the hell out of this hotel," I said. "I don't know who to trust anymore except for you." I looked around as suspiciously as Oksana had that night in the casino.

  Back on the Merritt, we stopped for diet Red Bulls. They didn't really go with martinis, but Lucy had had three drinks and I'd had one, and I wanted to stay awake and not drive us into a ditch. At the service station's minimart, I'd call Winters and tell her what we'd learned.

  Lucy entered the market and I was just about to dial Stacy's number when I saw what looked like my own Jeep, blue tarp flapping in the wind, speeding in the opposite direction. I tried to flag it down. It didn't take me long to figure out what was happening. So I ran into the market to tell Lucy.

  "I never called Babe; I think I saw her driving back to Titans."

  The clerk's eyes were wide and his mouth hung open. Two agitated women in Goth makeup were loading up on highly caffeinated drinks and appeared to be on the lam. Were we dangerous? Were we the ghosts of Thelma and Louise ready to knock over his Plexiglas cubicle? I tried to reassure him.

  "It's okay, Ravi. We just need a couple of drinks," I said.

  "How do you know my name?" he shrieked. "Take whatever you want!"

  "Chill. Your name's on your shirt." I peeled off a few dollars, then hurried Lucy out of the store, but not before sticking my head back in and telling the frightened clerk to have a nice day.

  "What did Stacy say?" Lucy asked, straightening up and popping open a can.

  Damn. I still hadn't called. I tried her number but it was busy. Then I speed-dialed Babe's other number from the phone she'd given me.

  "Where the hell are you?" she said.

  "On the Merritt. Did you just pass the Mobil station?"

  She had. I told her to turn around and meet us back there.

  "All right, but it may take a while, the next exit isn't for miles."

  We still hadn't called Winters so I told her we'd wait. And we would have if a blue Isuzu hadn't pulled into the service station's lot inches away from Lucy's rental car, effectively blocking the driver's-side door.

  Jackie Connelly wasn't as afraid to use the gun as I'd been to use the Taser. Of course, she'd had more practice. She forced us into the wooded area past the place where families on long car trips stopped to picnic or walk their dogs. But not at this hour of the night.

  "I wouldn't let Nick screw this up," she said, "and I'm certainly not going to let you two. Keep walking."

  Between the martinis and the uneven surface, Lucy stumbled and I held on to her to keep her on her feet. Every once in a while, Jackie prodded me in the back to make me speed up. I tried blaming the shoes again, but she was smarter than Marat and made me kick them off.

  "I've been waiting a long time for a break like this. I wasted five years with Sergei. Helping him start those two-bit companies. I wasn't going to waste another five waiting for him to fix his Zamboni."

  Jackie thought she'd gotten her break when Chantel married Bobby Crawford. She went to him with a plan to wring money out of the casino backers. They'd be playing to the investors' greed. People like that deserved what they got, she'd said. And chances are the casinos would never even be built. But Bobby didn't go for it. Neither did Bernie Mishkin.

  "All my life I've been surrounded by underachieving men," Jackie said. "That's why I finally went to Rachel."

  I knew the more she told us, the more she'd feel she had to kill us, but she just kept talking. I fingered the phone in my pocket, wondering if I could hit redial or 911 so at least someone could hear our last words, but the phone was Babe's and had an unfamiliar keypad.

  "What are you doing?" she asked, poking me in the back again.

  "It's my rosary."

  "Bullshit. It's a phone. Hand it over."

  "My phone's in my handbag. You can have it." I took my time and walked toward her barefoot, sidestepping the petrified dog poop. I fumbled in my bag for the Taser, found it, and slid back the safety cover.

  "That's close enough. Don't forget I've got your drunken friend here." She pointed the gun directly at Lucy.

  In the dark, the way I held it, the leopard-print Taser even looked like a phone. I pretended to hand it to her but pressed it to her arm instead. She dropped in an instant.

  I grabbed Lucy and we ran back to the car. Then we heard the sirens. In the Jeep, Babe jumped the curb and screeched to a halt right near us, having seen some of the action in the headlights. A state trooper's car followed because Babe had hopped a divider to get to us faster. And Ravi hadn't been fooled by my have a nice day; he'd called the cops like any normal person would.

  _________

  Jackie Connelly was in the back of the trooper's car and the weapon she'd pulled on Lucy and me had been retrieved by the time Stacy Winters arrived. Rachel Page had broken down and confessed to fraud but vehemently denied any involvement in Nick's murder.

  "She couldn't watch baby brother go to jail for something she'd done. She gave us plenty on Jackie though. And Sergei. Although the elusive Mr. Russianoff seems to have disappeared. No one's seen him for the last four days."

  "And the Smallwoods and the Crawfords?" I asked.

  "In the clear," she said. "Jackie orchestrated this beautifully. Manipulating Sergei, getting him and Rachel to do her dirty work, and throwing suspicion on anyone who got in her way."

  "As long as you've got her in custody, you might want to ask her about the fire at Bobby Crawford's," I said.

  Stacy was impressed. "All right, maybe you're not the pain in the ass I thought you were."

  Once I found my shoes, I'd take the Jeep and Babe would drive Lucy's rental car back to Springfield. I poked around in the dog run.

  "Come here," Babe said, calling me over to the side of the car, "I've got something to tell you."

  "Only if it's good news or funny," I said. "I've about had all the excitement I can handle for one night."

  "You know Caroline Sturgis has been trying to reach you. She's got an idea she wants to talk to you about."

  "I've got an idea too," I said. "I know a great diner about twenty minutes from here, and I'm pretty sure it's still open."

  Epilogue

  The gun found on Jackie Connelly was identified as the same gun used to kill Nick Vigoriti. She is awaiting trial for his murder.

  Rachel Page confessed to falsifying documents related to the sale of the Titans Hotel to the Quepochas tribe for the purposes of defrauding foreign investors. The state is currently determining what charges will be brought against her.

  Bernie Mishkin was cleared of all charges, but his Chinese investor was scared off and pulled his money off the table. In Fran's honor he kept the corpse flower.

  Amanda Bornhurst was hired part-time as an event planner for the hotel, and has since run three successful parties, contributing to Titans's first profitable quarter since 1986.

  Hector Ruiz was promoted to director of publicity and marketing, chiefly on the strength of his assertion that he could get Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony to agree to appear at the hotel. They have yet to perform but the attendant publicity has raised the profile of the hotel and increased business by 12 percent.
>
  Sam Dillon used some of the twenty dollars I gave him to buy a handful of lottery tickets. He won one of the state's single biggest Powerball payouts and is planning to reopen the shoe factory and rehire some of the old workers. He's been sober for fourteen months.

  I got a postcard from Oksana Smolova and Billy Crawford from the Four Corners area. They have opened a motel and have no plans to come back to Connecticut.

  Sergei Russianoff's decomposing body was found six months later in an abandoned skating rink in Simsbury, Connecticut. Jackie Connelly claims she knows nothing about it but she is considered a prime suspect.

  Lucy Cavanaugh and Claude Crawford are working on a screenplay covering the events at the Titans Hotel. They have interest from a VP at Paramount providing Chantel Crawford agrees to let baby Sean appear in the film. She's agreed. Betty Smallwood brokered the deal.

  The Springfield Bulletin ran the feature on the Hawley family quilt. I never volunteered to write another article for the paper, for which Jon Chappell is very grateful.

  Grant Sturgis was not cheating on his wife. The white Maltese named April really was the pet of a colleague who had to join Grant on a last-minute business trip. The colleague's name was Bob and he occasionally wears a red wig and women's clothing.

  Caroline Sturgis is still looking for her big idea and it comes in book three of the Dirty Business mystery series.

  Author's Note

  This is a work of fiction. There really is a state of Connecticut, a University of Connecticut, a Merritt Parkway, and a corpse flower. The corpse flower, by the way, is a magnificent plant, and if there's one blooming anywhere near you, you should check it out. Most everything else just exists between my two ears; any similarity to actual people, places, laws, tribes, etc., is purely accidental.