by Lois Winston
“I mean everything. Yesterday you mentioned something about her being a slumlord?”
She studied me for a minute. “You’re too young to be losing brain cells. You must remember. The story made headlines in all the papers and was on the news for weeks.”
“When?”
She thought for a moment. “Probably about ten years ago. Give or take.”
I laughed. “Mrs. Schuster, ten years ago my life revolved around raising two young kids while holding down a full-time job.”
Who had time to read a newspaper or watch the news back then? Between cooking, carpooling, homework, laundry, and all the other trappings of motherhood, most days I barely had time to blow my nose. And that was with Blake shouldering his fair share. Of the household chores and family responsibilities, not the nose blowing.
Sylvia opened her door wider. “Come on in, dear. How do you like your coffee? I’ve got a fresh pot brewing, and I baked a pan of brownies this morning.”
Never let it be said that I’d turn down caffeine and chocolate. Especially when I needed answers.
Sylvia’s front door led directly into an open concept living area decorated with contemporary furnishings in a warm color palette of rusts, golds, and browns. The main portion of the room served as a combination living room/dining area with a granite topped bar separating the dining section from a small galley kitchen. A door off to the left led to the one bedroom. Family photos covered the walls and the shelving unit opposite her sofa.
“Sit,” she said, pointing to one of the two wooden Windsor chairs on either side of a matching bistro table. “Cream? Sugar?”
“Cream, thanks.”
She rounded the bar and poured two cups of coffee, placing them, along with a pitcher of cream, on the granite top. I moved them onto the table. Sylvia returned to join me, setting a platter of brownies, two plates, a knife, and some napkins between us. “So you want the scoop on Blanche.”
“If you don’t mind.”
“This have anything to do with the dead deadbeat who ran out on me?” she asked as she cut two pieces of brownie, plated them, and served me.
“I think so, but I’ll know more after I hear what you have to say.”
“Hmm…you think Blanche had something to do with his murder? He ditched me right after meeting her. I told you that, didn’t I?”
I nodded as I took a sip of my coffee.
“Said he was going to the little boys’ room, but that was a lie according to Bert Goldfarb, who spends most of his day in the little boys’ room. I told you that, too, didn’t I?”
I nodded again.
“And he was killed the very next evening. I wouldn’t put anything past Blanche. She’s such a coldhearted bitch, you should pardon my French, that I’m sure she’s capable of murder. That woman would nail her own mother to a cross if she found profit in it. And if her mother were still alive.”
She grew thoughtful for a moment. “She couldn’t have killed Sidney on her own, though. She would have had to hire someone. Blanche doesn’t get around all that well anymore. Maybe if she dropped a few dress sizes. She can barely walk half a dozen steps on her own. Bad knees. From all that excess baggage she carries around. Anyway, given that she’d have to pay someone, maybe she didn’t have anything to do with his death. That woman has trouble parting with a penny.”
“What happened ten years ago?” I asked, hoping to get Sylvia back on track.
She broke off a corner of brownie and popped it in her mouth, then began talking around the mouthful. “First you need a little background since you never saw the story on the news back then. Blanche Becker’s family made their fortune in real estate in the slums of Newark and Irvington.”
“How do you make a fortune in slums?”
“Her father was one of those unscrupulous realtors who created the epidemic of white flight back in the sixties. He’d move a Negro family—they were called Negros back then, not blacks or African Americans—into a neighborhood. The whites panicked. Blanche’s father bought their houses up at rock bottom prices. He converted all those single-family homes into multi-family dwellings and charged exorbitant rents. That man singlehandedly turned nice middleclass neighborhoods into slums almost overnight.”
I’d heard all about the downfall of Newark from my own parents who’d grown up in what used to be a lovely city. According to them. I’d always had my doubts, finding it hard to imagine that such a violence-plagued, rundown place had ever been a vibrant middleclass mecca.
“When her father died back in the early eighties,” continued Sylvia, “Blanche inherited all his properties. Her husband Sheldon ran the business. He was a hundred times worse than Blanche’s father, probably because Blanche wouldn’t let him spend a penny to fix up any of the properties. Many had no heat, no running water. Broken windows. Holes in the roofs. Imagine having to live in such filth and squalor!”
“Why didn’t the cities step in?”
“I’m getting to that. They did. Slapped Sheldon with hundreds of violations, tens of thousands of dollars in fines. Instead of fixing up the buildings, Sheldon disappears, along with a reported twelve million dollars of Blanche’s family fortune.”
“And no one ever found him?”
“Not him. Not the money. Maybe he hooked up with D.B. Cooper or Robert Vesco. But it gets better.”
“Better?”
Sylvia grinned. She was definitely enjoying herself too much. Going for the dramatic pause, she popped another piece of brownie into her mouth, then washed it down with several sips of coffee before continuing.
“The feds indicted Sheldon and Blanche for tax fraud. Sheldon in absentia. Blanche hired some fancy pants barracuda of a lawyer. He convinced the feds she was just as much a victim, but it took years and cost her a fortune in legal fees. Meanwhile, she still had to pay all those city fines and fix up the properties. She wound up having to sell her three homes—one here, one in Boca, one out in the Hamptons—and move in here. Not that here is such a bad place to be, mind you. It’s one of the best retirement communities in the state, but it had to be a shock to her privileged fanny to go from multiple estates to a one bedroom apartment.”
“I’d imagine so.” Sylvia Schuster might ramble on and on, but her ramblings were quite informative. “How do you know all this, Mrs. Schuster?”
“Like I told you, it was a big flapping deal at the time. Even as busy as you were with a job and kids, I’m surprised you didn’t hear about it. I’m sure you can find accounts on the Internet.”
I made a mental note to Google Blanche and Sheldon Becker when I got home.
“And you might think all Blanche’s problems had a lot to do with her now being such a prune-faced misanthrope, but from what I hear, she was always that way, even when she had all her homes and all her money. Not that she lost everything. I hear she’s still got a few million stashed away somewhere.”
“You know that for a fact?”
“Of course not. I’m not her accountant or priest, but you know how people love to gossip. Some of the other residents here knew her back then. The moment she moved in, the stories started spreading like red wine spilled on a white damask tablecloth. Anyway, after seven years, she had Sheldon legally declared dead. That’s all I know.”
Only Sheldon wasn’t dead. Sheldon bought himself a new face and a new identity with some of that twelve million dollars and entered my life as Client Number Thirteen, one Sidney Mandelbaum. I’d bet my Fendi Zucca Baguette on it. The one with the black leather trim.
“So what do you think?” she asked. “Were Sheldon and Sidney the same sleaze? That has to be why he ran out on me. I’ll bet Blanche had something to do with his murder.”
“I think they were the same guy,” I said, “but I don’t think Blanche had him killed. She was trying to find out where he’d stashed her millions.”
“How’d you find that out?”
“That phony cop who questioned you? He’s one of Blanche’s sons. I’m surprised you
didn’t recognize him.”
“I didn’t even know Blanche had kids. She never talks about them.”
“After you introduced her to Sid, she asked you how you met him, didn’t she?”
“Come to think of it, she did. I’d already figured out Sid wasn’t really your uncle. Told her you were a wing woman who’d introduced me to Sid.”
Blanche or her sons must have done a Google search to find me and my company. Although I used a post office box as a company address, it wouldn’t have been difficult to find my home address. We’re one of only a handful of Elliotts in the area. They probably spent Wednesday devising a plan and purchasing the necessary phony police and FBI paraphernalia, only to discover via the news Wednesday night or early yesterday morning that Not-Sid had been murdered.
Sylvia chuckled.
“What’s so funny?”
“I’ll bet Blanche and her sons didn’t take the news of Sidney’s death very well at all. I would’ve loved to have witnessed that scene.”
So would I. What were the odds that her scumbag husband would inadvertently wander back into her life one day and wind up dead the next day? If I hadn’t overheard Blanche’s conversation with her sons, I’d move the three of them to the top of the suspects list.
But why after all these years had Sheldon, aka Not-Sid, returned?
ELEVEN
“You need to tell Detective Menendez about the conversation you overheard,” said Blake later that afternoon when he returned from class and I’d told him about my morning discovery.
“Already did.” I thought about not contacting Detective Menendez, especially after the way she’d treated me last night, but knowing Craft and Remick planned to break into Not-Sid’s date’s homes, I realized I had an obligation to do my civic duty. Not for Menendez. For the women involved. I didn’t want anyone getting hurt.
“And?”
“It’s her problem now. I guess she’ll stake out the various homes, waiting for them to show up. She doesn’t exactly confide in me, you know.”
What I didn’t tell Blake was that Menendez reamed me out for not having called her sooner. I had waited until after speaking with Sylvia Schuster. To Menendez’s way of thinking, I should have called her while I sat eavesdropping in the solarium. Right. With the culprits sitting directly behind me. Terrific plan. Not.
“Do you remember anything about Sheldon Becker’s disappearance ten years ago?”
Blake thought for a minute. “Now that you mention it, I do have a vague memory of some guy from around here disappearing with a boatload of money. That sort of thing happens every few years, though. The guy usually winds up in some country without an extradition treaty with the U.S. Or it turns out he was whacked and the murder made to look like a disappearance by the person who really absconded with the money.”
“I checked out Sylvia’s story on the Internet.” Not that I didn’t believe her. I wanted to see if I could find more details. And some photos of Sheldon Becker.
“And?”
“Blanche Becker’s two sons are named Peter Remick Becker and Jeffrey Craft Becker. Remick was Blanche’s mother’s maiden name, and Craft was Sheldon’s mother’s maiden name.” Before Blake could ask how I’d sleuthed out that information, I added, “Compliments of Ancestry.com.”
“Not too smart using their actual names.”
“Maybe they did so to keep from forgetting their aliases. They don’t strike me as the brightest crayons in the Crayola box.”
I showed Blake some photos of Sheldon Becker I’d printed off the website. Sheldon of ten years ago looked older than present day Not-Sid. Or present day Not-Sid up until someone plunged a knife into his heart Wednesday evening.
Sheldon resembled the Pillsbury Doughboy, all paunch and soft flab around the middle. He sported Richard Nixon jowls, a quadruple chin, and bags under his eyes too large to meet airline carry-on regulations.
The recently departed Not-Sid had had the face of a middle-aged nineteen-forties movie star and the physique of a man who’d spent a good deal of time on a tennis court. All muscle. No flab. From the looks of him, Sheldon Becker’s only exercise probably consisted of raising his fork to his mouth. “What do you think? See any resemblance to Not-Sid?”
Blake studied the photos for a few minutes. “If Sheldon and Sidney were the same person, his plastic surgeon did a remarkable job of transforming him. I see nothing to connect the two men.”
“True, but you could say the same about before and after pictures of Michael Jackson before he died.” I took the photos from Blake and placed them on the counter. “Anyway, not to change the subject, but I’m changing the subject. Did you speak to The Girl With the New Testament Tattoos?”
“I never had a chance.”
“Blake!”
He held out both hands, palms facing me, the universal gesture for Shut up and listen, Gracie.
I shut up and listened, but I made a face to let him know he’d better have a damn good excuse. After all, his wife had been hacked, and I was a thousand percent certain the culprit was that tattooed and pierced little cheat.
“When she walked into the lecture hall this morning, I told her I wanted to speak with her privately after class.”
“So why didn’t you?”
“Because ten minutes into my lecture the police arrived and hauled her away. In handcuffs.”
“Menendez?”
“No, some cyber-crimes division.”
“I knew it!” The gut never lies. “For hacking into my computer, right?”
“The cops who arrested her wouldn’t tell me anything. So I called Detective Menendez. This must have been before you spoke with her. Anyway, she admitted that after you pointed out the discrepancy between Kitty Pichinko’s lifestyle and her net worth as listed on your computer, she had the techs dig deeper. Sure enough, they found evidence of hacking which they traced back to Tiffany.”
“That little bitch went to a hell of a lot of trouble to implicate me.” She probably wanted to get me out of the way so she could sink her tattooed claws into Blake.
“If she’s adept at hacking, it probably didn’t take her very long,” said Blake. “Once she got into your computer, she would have had access to your client files. From there all she had to do was fake some financial spreadsheets for each of Sid’s dates and plant them on your laptop.”
“That explains the missing seventh spreadsheet. I’ll bet there wasn’t one for Charlene. Tiffany would have wanted to keep her grandmother from getting dragged into a police investigation.”
“Especially one where Tiffany manufactured and planted the evidence,” added Blake.
“I guess it never occurred to the police that finding the information right there on my home screen was too easy. Anyone who watches any one of a dozen cop shows on TV would have known that.”
“Maybe cops don’t watch cop shows.”
“Are you kidding? I bet most cops watch cop shows. They sit around yelling at the TV when the writers get it wrong, then discuss the errors the next day around the water cooler. Same for doctors and medical shows and lawyers and legal shows.”
“And you know this how?”
“Because that’s what I’d do if I were a cop, a doctor, or a lawyer. Anyway, you suppose I’ll get an apology from Menendez? I deserve one.”
“Don’t push it, Gracie.”
“I don’t know, Blake. Seems to me, I’m the one cracking this case for her. Every break she’s gotten so far has come from me. Maybe I should become a P.I.”
Blake responded with The Look.
I still wanted to interview the three remaining women Not-Sid/Sheldon had dated through Relatively Speaking introductions. Blake tried to dissuade me.
“Knowing Remick and Craft are planning breakins, I’m sure Detective Menendez has assigned details to protect each woman,” he said.
“That’s a lot of resources. With all the budget cuts throughout the county, do you really think each woman has a patrol car parked outside
her home? Maybe they’re doing drive-bys once an hour or so, making a loop between the women. If I were Craft and Remick, I’d scope things out and make my move between the drive-bys.”
“That’s sounding very logical for you, Gracie.”
“Which is why you should have thought of it first.”
Blake couldn’t argue with that, so he reluctantly agreed that we should still visit the remaining women.
*
Mary Louise Franklin lived in a sprawling rancher in Fanwood, a tiny community sandwiched between Westfield and Scotch Plains. I’d introduced her to Not-Sid several weeks ago at the monthly Social for Seniors sponsored by the Scotch Plains Y. I was surprised when Not-Sid showed an interest in meeting her, given her relatively normal-sized casabas and lack of looks. However, now that I think back, Mary Louise Franklin stood out from many of the other single women in the gym that night.
“I should have suspected something right then,” I said to Blake as we drove down South Avenue.
“Right when?”
“At the gym.”
“Gracie, back up.”
I have a habit of doing that, bringing Blake into the conversation in the middle of my thought process. You’d think after years of living with me, he’d be able to jump in with complete understanding of whatever the topic in question. After all, he’s supposed to be a smart guy.
I caught him up. “Mary Louise Franklin didn’t have the requisite looks to interest Not-Sid. There were plenty of other women that night more to his taste, but after scoping out the room, he zeroed in on her.”
“And your theory, Sherlock?”
“Carlos Falchi.”
“Who’s Carlos Falchi, and what’s he got to do with Not-Sid?”
“He’s a designer. And a Carlos Falchi Python bag hung from Mary Louise’s shoulder that night.”
“You’re losing me, Gracie.”
“That bag sells for fifteen hundred dollars, Blake.”
His jaw dropped. “Do you own one?”
“Of course not. I merely drool over them from time to time. But you’re missing the point.”
“There’s a point?”
