by Lori Avocato
Tina Macaluso lived in a trendy New England subdivision near the Connecticut River. Houses in her neighborhood, circa 1700s, gave me the feeling that I’d driven back in time. The wooden structures were mostly saltbox style. No split-levels with aluminum siding like my folks’ house. Nope. This neighborhood had ordinances that said residents had to comply with rules like no electric door openers, no chain-link fences and nothing that made them look as if they were in the twenty-first century.
I pulled up alongside a slate blue house and looked at the number. One hundred seventy-one. Macaluso’s. Perfect.
I looked at my watch. I’d been there three minutes.
Now what?
Ack. I should have waited until Monday to come with Goldie, since I had no inkling as to what to do next. I popped a Celine Dion cassette into the tape deck, leaned back and waited. Normally I was a country buff, but hey, who didn’t enjoy a little Celine once in a while?
A neighbor drove by in a silver Jaguar. Obviously this was the ritzier part of Hope Valley. She slowed alongside me and looked through the haze of snow. I smiled, leaned back. She moved on. Good. I sure didn’t need any interference on a job. I had enough to figure out on my own.
After forty-three minutes and the two power bars, my feet hurt. Cold does that to little toes. I’d turned up the heater, but the outside temperature dropped in proportion to my increasing the controls. The only excitement so far was when the light in the upstairs room of Tina’s house came on for a minute and then went off. Somehow I thought that wasn’t going to do me any good.
I decided to “will” Tina to come out the door and do something stupid. Something that a person getting paid by Workers’ Compensation shouldn’t be doing with a “back injury.”
I shut my eyes to have that “will” thing work better.
An engine purred in my left ear. My eyes flew open. I turned to look out the window to my side, but could only see a blur of black through the frosted pane. I wiped off a circle and peeked out.
Shit!
I pulled back, then looked out again.
A black SUV of some sort was pulled up right next to me! Real close. That wasn’t the part that had me pull back. Oh no. It was the occupant.
He sat staring at me. Not just any he. More a younger version of George Clooney—and hey, he’d been voted the star folks would want to come knocking at their door by a whopping 41.2 percent—so this younger version was no slouch. The guy, who was actually scowling down at me now, since his SUV towered over my Volvo, had the same look as George, only his hair was jet black without the sprinkles of gray.
From what I could see at this angle, and yes I did unabashedly peer up as high as I could, he wore a black ski jacket, black leather gloves and aviator sunglasses—also tinted black. I could picture him swooshing down some trail at Mount Snow. Maybe I should be more scared than excited, watching him stare at me like that.
And here I had thought surveillance was an orgasmic experience.
The window on his SUV slid open.
I opened mine. “Afternoon.”
“Need something?” The tone wasn’t friendly, more like a what-the-hell-are-you-doing-here kind of tone. But that voice! Scratchy in a sensual sort of way with a wee bit of a laid-back tone thrown in. Had my insides a-quivering.
Did I need something from him! Be still my heart.
I had to once again face the fact that I wasn’t a good liar. That was something I’d have to brush up on with Goldie. So, I looked at him. “Nope. Thanks anyway.” Then I shut my window and wouldn’t allow myself to look back. He must live near Tina. God, I hoped he wasn’t her husband. Then again, Tina was married to a doctor, and this guy looked too streetwise to be a doctor.
I convinced myself that he didn’t even know Tina. Besides, I could spot a doctor a million miles away—and this guy was no doctor. What was I thinking? He had me all confused. I’d learned from Adele that Tina’s husband was an orthopedic doc—go figure—and that she worked in his office.
After a few minutes I heard the crunching of snow and figured that he had driven off. I turned to see him pull up in front of the tan house next to Tina’s. I switched my windshield wipers on full tilt. Through the now-clear windshield, I could make him out, using his cell phone. Damn. Now what? What was he doing here, ruining my surveillance? Why hadn’t he just pulled into his driveway? This secluded neighborhood wasn’t the kind of place one just tooled around in, so he must have had a reason for being there.
His damn car was a Suburban—long enough for a family of four to live in. Well, who cared? I had to be professional and concentrate on the job. Earn some money. That’s what I’d do.
A next-door neighbor came out, looked from the black Suburban to my Volvo and walked to her mailbox. When she opened it and took out a handful of mail, I wondered if I should ask her if she’d ever seen Tina lifting something heavy—or who the heck Mr. Instant Orgasm was. But wait a minute. That didn’t seem like a good idea. It could tip Tina off that the insurance company was on to her, and maybe have some half-crazed wife running out to slash my tires if Suburban over there belonged to her.
I couldn’t afford new tires so I forced my hormonal imaginings to Dr. Taylor. Tried to picture him in my thoughts—naked. I waited a few minutes. Nothing. Somehow it didn’t do the trick.
Although my car was now toasty warm from the heater, I realized that asphyxiation could come into play if I sat with the motor running too long. Also, not much of a mechanical wizard, I figured the tape player was sucking my battery’s juices dry. So, I shut everything off.
Just then the front door of Tina’s house opened. A heavy-set woman in a neon yellow parka, black leggings, and a furry yellow hat came out—with a shovel in her hands! I lunged across to the passenger side and pulled the binoculars from the bag. With my gloved hand, I wiped the frost from the window and wondered how “staker outers” kept their breath from fogging up the glass.
Then I shuffled around in the manila folder to find her picture. It wasn’t a very good one where you could see her face, but she did look like a plus-size kinda gal. Had to be her.
A scraping called my attention back to Tina. The “injury” that had kept her from working the ortho clinic must have felt peachy today, because she was getting that walkway cleaner than my mother’s dishes. Obviously a snowblower wasn’t usable in this neighborhood, since the sidewalks were all crushed stone.
I leaned a bit closer. Tina looked familiar, but the damn hat kept falling forward and blocking her face. I zoomed in my vision by squinting. Wait a minute! Antonina Scarlucci! I’d gone to nursing school with her back in the late eighties. Talk about a small world. Of course, several of us had remained in Hope Valley after graduation. But to spy on someone I knew? Damn. I hated that, but then again, she was a criminal, in my book. I vaguely remember her cheating on a biology final, come to think of it.
That’s right. I’d heard she’d married Donnie Macaluso, who was a doc. And, something to give me pause, Tina’s family was rumored to have ties to the old Mafia. Gulp.
But I had a job to do.
Excitement had me fumbling between the front and back seats, where my gigantic video camera had fallen. I hoped it still worked. And, I hoped Tina couldn’t see me or the dick of a microphone. I pressed the on switch, hefted it up on my shoulder, and started to mentally spend the money I’d get for this case when I hit RECORD.
Tina shoveled away.
Occasionally I had to reclean my window. But I was getting her on tape, so it didn’t matter. The Workers’ Comp claim would soon be dismissed. I’d have to get more evidence—something closer to prove it was Tina—because of the damn hat, but hey, this was a start.
Truthfully, she looked like a giant bumblebee. Much like the old Saturday Night Live clips of John Belushi. The giant bee shoveled until she reached the street sidewalk.
This investigating stuff was a piece of cake.
A tiny black battery flickered in the corner of my view.
&nb
sp; Ack. I hadn’t had time to charge the battery. Okay. Professionals don’t panic. I zoomed in to get a clearer shot. She held the shovel in one hand, flipped her hat back with the other (Oh yes, there is a God!) and bent to shovel snow the plow had piled in front of her driveway. It had to be heavy! This was going to be—
Fuzz
Click.
Black.
Black?
The video camera went black. Dead battery.
I leaned back, blinked my eyes since the strain of looking through the camera hurt, and cursed. Just like the proverbial sailor.
Professionals don’t panic, I reminded myself again.
I dropped the camera onto my lap with a thump and expelled a whoosh of air from my mouth at the weight. I grabbed my bag and hauled out the 35 mm. Two shots left. Good thing I’d never had the film developed. Had to be because I was so sick and tired of attending wedding after wedding. With a quick prayer that two-year-old film doesn’t go bad, I looked in the viewfinder. Foggy window. After a quick wipe of the glass, I leaned the camera near.
Tina resumed her shoveling.
My finger was poised on the shutter.
Behind her I noticed a light blinking. A blue light. I looked through the camera to see a cop car pull around the corner and slow near the SUV. Good. Maybe he’d get arrested for being a Peeping Tom. Despite my wacko thought that I wouldn’t mind someone who looked like him peeking at me, I watched a few minutes.
The cop looked too friendly with him. Uh-oh. They were laughing! Then they both looked at me!
Oh no! Who was that guy? My finger slipped. Snap. Damn. A wasted shot.
I probably shouldn’t hang around. Besides, hunger pangs reminded me it was after six. When all else fails, I think of food, and getting the hell away from here. Okay, when I sense the police are about to question me, I think of food. Tina’d have to wait.
My parents would be sitting down to eat right now. Mom always served at six, twelve and six. No matter the day of the week. When we were kids, she made us get up at 6 A.M. for breakfast. As teens we’d sleepily shove something down, then sneak back to bed until around noon, when she’d wake us for lunch.
I hurriedly flung the stupid camera into the backseat and vaulted across to the driver’s side. Thank goodness I was only blocks away from my folks’ house, or I’d get there in time for only dessert.
The cop got back into his car, turned into a nearby driveway and started to back out—in my direction.
I started the engine, dusted the snow from the front window with the wipers at warp speed and watched Tina lift a statue with one hand. Ack! I shouted, “You damn camera! You just cost me big! A waste of time.” Boy, someone her size was strong.
As I drove past the SUV, I couldn’t help but slow, smile and scoot away. Wow! That wasn’t like me at all—but the look on the mystery man’s face was all worth it.
Deliciously pissed.
In my rearview mirror I could see Tina, still shoveling, and cursed at my behemoth of a video camera.
I needed to talk to my folks—about my new job.
About buying equipment.
Making a mental sign of the cross so as not to take my hands from the steering wheel, I asked Saint Theresa for her help—yet again.
I added another prayer that she wouldn’t get tired of me praying to her about all my causes and threw in that if she wanted to have the mystery man follow me and …
Never mind. Saints shouldn’t get involved in things like that.
I spun out of the circa 1700s neighborhood before the cop could follow me.
“Why would you need a new video camera?” my father asked through a mouthful of potato pancake. “Didn’t I give you my old one?”
I scooped a dollop of sour cream onto my pancake and added another of applesauce. It had to be Friday night. Mom always cooked meatless Polish meals on Friday. I hadn’t realized today was Friday. Seems days ran together since I’d become an independent investigator—although I’d just started. But I didn’t miss the daily nursing grind. “Yes, Daddy, you did. But I need something smaller.”
Uncle Walt scraped a forkful of potato pancake across his dish. Mother raised an eyebrow at him, but he ignored her. “Smaller is better these days. Ask all the chicks at the senior citizens center.”
My parents rolled their eyes. I lost my appetite, thinking they were going down that road with Uncle Walt. After I set my fork down, I made a mental note to call Doc Taylor again. He really, really needed to take me out to dinner soon.
My mother put the rest of the pancakes on my father’s dish without even asking. Of course, after forty-three years of marriage, they had some kind of matrimonial mental telepathy between them. He started to eat them all.
“I still don’t understand about this new job. I’m thrilled you found something, although you could have taken a break and stayed here with us instead of living with that homosexual man,” she said.
“We aren’t ‘living together,’ and Miles is my best friend.” She’d always called him that, but treated him as one of her sons soon after she’d found out his parents had died in a skydiving accident.
“Oh, nothing against him, darling, he is a doll. It’s just that family should be taking care of you when you have no money, although I told you numerous times you needed to start a vacation club savings account—”
“I have a job now. I told you that I’m going to help out at Miles’s uncle’s insurance agency.”
“I know, darling—” She started to stack the dirty dishes in front of her. “But when you said you’d be working there, I thought filing, answering phones. Not going out and spying on people. What is this world coming to?”
I wasn’t going to share that I’d felt the same way about the job originally. Hell, I’d never be caught dead admitting that I thought like my mother. After a quick shudder, I said, “They need to be spied on, Mom. Some people cheat the insurance companies out of millions.”
Daddy looked up. His eyes widened. If he weren’t such a pious man, I’d think he’d want to hear how they did that. Instead he said, “They should buy lottery tickets. They could win big and win honestly.”
After retiring, and playing the lotto 364 days of the year, he still hadn’t won “big” on the daily numbers. He didn’t buy a ticket on Good Friday, out of respect.
“Anyway, I need a very small video camera, a digital camera and a few more things. So—” The plea stuck in my throat. How I hated to ask my parents for money. It would be the third, fourth, and fifth degree until I described every detail of my new job. I’d owe them. Ack.
I looked up to see Uncle Walt waving at me while my parents ate. “What—”
He waved frantically, then laid a finger over his closed lips. Okay, I get it. He didn’t want me to go on about asking for money. I’d humor him until dessert. Tonight had to be bread pudding. Not my favorite, though. My mother makes better desserts than Bellinski’s Pastry Shop, but Friday night wasn’t the time to come looking for good sweets.
Uncle Walt got up. “I need help … in my room.”
My father started to get up. Uncle Walt pushed a hand on his shoulder. “Pauline has smaller fingers.”
I looked at my hand and wondered if Uncle Walt was hitting the Vodka too much. But I stood and followed him.
Mother clattered the dishes as she must have gotten up to set them by the sink. She refused a dishwasher every Christmas from us kids. Said she could do a better job than any machine and didn’t want to waste the cabinet space, although she had two empty drawers and one cabinet under the sink where she only kept a bucket in case of leaks. I’ve never known the sink to leak.
Uncle Walt waved me into his room. The old maple furniture always smelled freshly lemon polished. The drapes were a deep brown, matching the carpet. Beige doilies that my mother had crocheted sat under the lamp on his dresser. He walked near, turned to look at the door and again held his finger to his lips.
I smiled to myself and remained quiet.
He pushed in the small piece of molding above the top drawer. I was about to tell him that he might break it by doing that, but before I could, a little button appeared. He pushed it, releasing some mechanism that made the thing pop out like a drawer. On closer inspection, it was a drawer.
“Wow,” I whispered.
Uncle Walt turned around. I would have given every penny I had to get a snapshot of the pleased expression on his face. His watery blue eyes sparkled. The thin, cracked lips beneath the wrinkles of his face curled up on each end. Uncle Walt, the crafty senior. “How much you need, Pauline?”
He reached in and pulled out a wad, and I mean a wad, of money.
“Shit. Where did you get all that?”
Walt’s gaze flew to the door. “Shush. Don’t worry. It’s all legal. Years of hard work.”
And poker games with highly pensioned widows, no doubt. “You should put that in the bank—”
“Bank shmank. How much?”
“I can’t let you—”
“Humor an old man. I’ve never been able to do much for you kids, Pauline. Especially you, since you don’t have any kids yourself. I get to buy for the little ones, but you … you’re still single.”
Thank you very much for the reminder.
“You’re the only reason your mother lets me eat an occasional cookie or piece of cake.”
I smiled, told him how much I needed and made him take my written IOU. I said I’d pay him back. He said he wouldn’t take the money. We agreed I’d give it to Saint Stanislaus Church once I’d earned it back.
I left my parents’ house with my stash, hurried back to my apartment and called Goldie at home to tell him about the money.
“Shit. Nice uncle. Wish I had one of those.” I could hear the sadness in his voice and found out he’d grown up shifted from one foster home to another. Didn’t know any uncles, let alone parents. He sucked in a breath and told me where to order my spy equipment.
When I hung up, I booted up Miles’s computer and searched the Web for detective equipment. Amazing what someone could buy online with a credit card. After spending all the money from Uncle Walt, I was set.
