Definitely Dead (An Empty Nest Mystery)

by Lois Winston

  Another fact I’d learned about blurbs was that it’s best to memorize them. You never know when you’ll stumble upon an editor or agent who will utter those most important five words, “Tell me about your book.” So tonight in lieu of sleep and to the rhythmic snores of my husband, I formed blurb sentences in my head.

  By two a.m. I’d constructed what I believed to be a drool-worthy blurb. I could only hope it sounded as brilliant five hours from now.

  Hooking Mr. Right

  After writing a doctoral thesis that exposed fraud in the pop-psychology genre, thirty-two year old professor Althea Chandler has to sacrifice her professional integrity to save her family from financial ruin. She secretly becomes bestselling romance guru Dr. Trulee Lovejoy, a self-proclaimed expert on how to catch a man, even though Thea is a miserable failure when it comes to relationships—especially those involving the opposite sex.

  Burned by a failed marriage, Luke Bennett finds himself pursued by Dr. Lovejoy book-toting women after a gossip columnist dubs him New York’s most eligible bachelor. When he at first mistakes Thea for one of the women out to snare him, sparks fly, but the two soon find themselves battling sparks of a less hostile nature, thanks in part to an alley cat named Cupid.

  Luke believes he’s finally found an honest woman. Unfortunately, Thea is anything but honest. She’s got more secrets than the CIA and a desperate gossip columnist out to expose her. Cupid definitely has his work cut out for him.

  *

  I don’t think I ever fell asleep. When Blake woke Saturday morning, he found me staring at the ceiling. At least I’d accomplished something during my sleepless night; I had my blurb. What I didn’t have was enough energy to make it to my writers meeting.

  After making a quick pit stop, Blake padded to the front of the house and peered out a window. “No reporters camped on our street,” he reported.

  The morning news mentioned nothing in any way, no matter how remotely, connected to me. One of the escaped prisoners was still on the loose and another crash victim, a serial rapist serving a life sentence without chance of parole, had succumbed to his injuries. No great loss there. Blanche Becker’s arrest didn’t even rate a five second sound bite.

  “Here it is,” said Blake.

  He sat at the kitchen table, leafing through The Star-Ledger while I prepared a double batch of waffle batter, one batch for Connor, one for the rest of us to share. I didn’t want my son starving between breakfast and lunch. “Here what is?”

  “An article about Blanche Becker’s arrest. Buried in the Your Towns section.”

  I leaned over his shoulder and stared at the headline, Former Slum Baroness Charged with Masterminding Burglary Ring.

  Blake began to read aloud, “Former real estate heiress Blanche Becker, was charged yesterday, along with her sons Samuel Craft Becker and Peter Remick Becker, in a burglary ring that targeted widows in Union and Somerset Counties.

  “Becker’s sons were apprehended after fleeing from a Bernards Township residence. During the arrest, police recovered several pieces of jewelry belonging to the homeowner.”

  “Hmm…sounds like Craft and Remick couldn’t resist the temptation of helping themselves to a few things while searching for information on their father.” I said.

  “That’s going to cost them,” said Connor.

  Blake continued reading. “Their mother was later charged as a co-conspirator. Blanche Becker inherited a multi-million dollar real estate empire from her late father, Samuel Gottlieb, known back in the nineteen-sixties as The King of the Slum Lords in Newark and Irvington.

  “Mrs. Becker is also the former wife of Sheldon Becker, who disappeared ten years ago, along with a purported twelve million dollars of his wife’s family fortune, days prior to the couple being indicted on multiple counts of fraud and tax evasion. Sheldon Becker was declared dead seven years later. The missing money has never been recovered.

  “Mrs. Becker fell on hard times after her husband’s disappearance when she was forced to liquidate much of her personal wealth to pay back taxes and settle the judgments levied against the couple.

  “She and her sons were released after each posted bail of twenty-five thousand dollars.”

  “Not a word about Not-Sid’s death,” I said.

  “Maybe the police are treating the two as separate cases,” said Brooke. “At least for now, until they have proof that the two men were the same person.”

  I poured four cups of coffee and passed them around. “Tell me the truth,” I asked Blake. “Do you believe Not-Sid was really Sheldon Becker?”

  Blake folded the paper and exhaled a deep sigh. “I don’t know, Gracie. The only evidence to indicate Sid was Sheldon is Blanche Becker’s claim about that birthmark. I never noticed a birthmark behind Sidney Mandelbaum’s ear—let alone one in the shape of Texas—did you?”

  I splashed milk into my coffee and took a sip as I pondered his question. “No, but how often do you take note of the back of someone’s head? Maybe if you’re stuck in the slowest moving supermarket line ever or packed like sardines on a subway at rush hour, but other than that?”

  “Which makes me wonder how Blanche would even have noticed the back of Sidney’s head, especially if she were seated at the time they were introduced. Do you remember where Sylvia Schuster said she introduced them?”

  “In the solarium.”

  “So it’s likely Blanche was sitting at one of the card tables at the time.”

  “I suppose.”

  Blake stood. “Sit down. Sidney was about my height. Let’s re-enact the most likely scenario.”

  When I took Blake’s seat, he stood over me and extended his hand. “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Becker.”

  I shook his hand. “And you, Mr. Mandelbaum.”

  Blake turned to Brooke, playing the role of Sylvia Schuster. “My dear, would you excuse me for a moment? Nature calls.” He pivoted and walked away, his back turned to me. At the doorway to the dining room Blake stopped and asked, “Where are your eyes, Gracie?”

  “Staring at your back.”

  “Not at my head?”

  “I’d have to crane my neck.”

  Blake spun around to face me. “Aha! Now do you believe Blanche recognized Sheldon’s birthmark on Sidney?”

  “Maybe she recognized his voice,” said Connor.

  Blake shook his head. “After ten years? Sidney sounded like every other seventy-something old geezer from New Jersey. There wasn’t anything distinctive about his voice. No quirk. No lisp. No stutter. Nothing that would set him apart.”

  “What if it was a phrase he used?” asked Brooke.

  “Or the way he tilted his head? Or some other gesture?” I added.

  Blake shook his head. “According to what you overheard, Blanche said she recognized Sidney as Sheldon by the birthmark. Nothing more.”

  “Oh. Right.” Darn his logic. So if Not-Sid wasn’t Sheldon Becker, who was he? And why did someone kill him? “Why would Blanche think Not-Sid was Sheldon unless she recognized something about him?”

  Blake shrugged. “Wishful thinking? For all we know, Blanche is suffering from dementia. Perhaps she saw what she wanted to see.”

  “And is now responsible for her sons committing a criminal act,” I said.

  “No one forced them to break into that townhouse,” said Blake.

  “Blanche coerced them.”

  “They’re grown men, Gracie. They could have refused. And they certainly should have kept their sticky fingers off Suzette’s jewelry.”

  I shrugged. “I guess it just proves that the Fig Newtons don’t fall far from the tree. Anyway, I’m glad I didn’t go into police work.”

  Blake shot me The Look but not for my Fig Newtons comment. “Aside from the obvious reasons, dare I ask?”

  I sighed. “Not knowing the truth is so frustrating. It’s a wonder the police ever solve any cases.”

  Another thought occurred to me as I poured batter onto the waffle iron. “If the police arrest
ed Blanche, one or both of her sons must have ratted on her. Maybe one of them cut a deal for a lighter sentence.”

  “Or Detective Menendez used what you overheard to squeeze a confession out of one of them.”

  “Neither seemed too happy about having to do their mother’s dirty work.”

  “Yet greedy enough to do it in the end.”

  “If Blanche is full of crap about Not-Sid being Sheldon, where does that leave the murder investigation?” I asked.

  “In the hands of the police, where it belongs, Gracie. Remember your promise to me.”

  “I haven’t forgotten. I’m just curious as to how they’ll go about solving the murder of a man with a fake identity. If they don’t know who Not-Sid really was or where he was living, how can they possibly find his killer?”

  “Not every crime is solved,” said Blake.

  “Which means someone will get away with murder if this one isn’t, said Brooke.”

  Blake shrugged. “Happens every day.”

  “But this murder is different,” I said.

  “How so?” asked Connor.

  “Your father and I knew the victim.”

  “We knew a man who didn’t exist,” said Blake.

  Another thought occurred to me as I served the waffles. “What if Not-Sid was the killer’s target, not whoever Not-Sid really was?”

  Blake wrinkled his forehead. I think it took him a moment to puzzle out what I’d said, even though it made perfect sense to me. You’d think after all these years together, Blake would understand Gracie Speak.

  “Sweetheart, Sidney Mandelbaum took on a stolen identity because he was hiding from someone or something.”

  “You know that for a fact?”

  “Of course not, but it’s the only logical explanation for changing one’s identity. It stands to reason that whatever he had run from finally caught up with him. For all we know, he was in Witness Protection.”

  “That’s one theory,” I said.

  “You have another?”

  “Not-Sid either swindled or tried to swindle several of the women he met through Relatively Speaking.”

  Blake chuckled. “You think one of those little old ladies killed him?”

  “Of course not. But maybe he swindled other people we don’t know about. People who were capable of killing him. He took on the real Sidney Mandelbaum’s identity about three months ago. What’s to say he didn’t have another fake identity prior to that?”

  Blake’s forehead unwrinkled. He nodded. “I suppose that’s possible.”

  “For all we know, he may have had a string of fake identities, going back years. And maybe an equal number of plastic surgeries to go along with each new identity.”

  “Ouch,” said Brooke. “Talk about sacrificing for your career.”

  “One thing you’re all forgetting,” said Connor.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “Eventually, the police will be able to determine if your Not-Sid was really Sheldon Becker. All they have to do is compare his DNA to that of Blanche Becker’s sons.”

  Blake patted Connor on the back. “And that’s why my boy got into Columbia.” Then he turned to me. “And why you and I are leaving the rest of the investigation to the police.”

  SIXTEEN

  “I mean it,” said Blake. “We’ve had enough excitement the last few days for several lifetimes.”

  “Fine with me,” I said. “Besides, we’ve hit the proverbial brick wall in our investigation of Not-Sid and the questioning of his dates. I have no clue where to find more clues.”

  “Nowhere. We’re out of the sleuthing business, Gracie. Leave it to the police. We’re spending a relaxing weekend at home, and come Monday, our lives are returning to normal.”

  I wanted to ask if Blake’s definition of normal meant pre-Relatively Speaking normal, but I thought better of bringing up my business at the moment. Besides, I had a sinking feeling Relatively Speaking would fizzle out on its own. Bad publicity would kill my little enterprise once the press found themselves with another slow news day and began sniffing around the circumstances surrounding Not-Sid’s death and Sheldon’s disappearance.

  “We have plans this evening,” I reminded him.

  “What plans?”

  “Reinhold’s community theater.”

  Blake slapped his forehead. “I forgot.”

  “We have to go.”

  He grimaced. “I know.”

  Tom Reinhold, the head of Blake’s department, had convinced the university to support a local community theater he ran. I often wondered if blackmail was somehow involved because the guy lacked any discernable talent. However, that didn’t keep him from not only directing each season’s offerings but casting himself in every male lead, no matter the age disparity.

  As painful as it was to sit through Hamlet’s soliloquy spoken by a senior citizen with a Jersey accent, Blake not only felt obligated to purchase tickets for every show, university politics deemed it necessary for us to make an appearance on each opening night.

  “What play will he be butchering this evening?” asked Blake.

  I checked the tickets hanging on the refrigerator door. “Follies.”

  Blake groaned. “A musical? We have to listen to him sing? His acting is bad enough.”

  “We don’t have to go, do we?” asked Brooke. “I have plans tonight.”

  “I’ll make some,” said Connor.

  “You’re both off the hook,” said Blake. “Now that you’re in college, I can get away with buying only two tickets.”

  In the past Blake had been pressured to purchase four tickets for each show. Reinhold insisted that teenagers these days weren’t exposed to nearly enough culture. Not wanting to get stuck with a killer teaching schedule any given semester, my husband never told the man his acting was the antithesis of culture. Neither did the rest of the department faculty and staff—or their spouses. Four times a year we all suffered together in silence for two to three hours.

  *

  Follies, a tale of aging showgirls who come together one last time for a cast reunion, features a large company of older performers. Given past Reinhold productions, we were in for a long evening of amateurs butchering Sondheim.

  We settled into our seats and made small talk with Greg Jordan, one of Blake’s colleagues, and his wife Shelly. As soon as the lights began to dim and the small orchestra struck the first notes of the overture, Blake leaned back, closed his eyes, and said, “Wake me when it’s over.”

  “Don’t snore,” I warned him.

  As the overture ended and the curtain rose, an overweight older man in an ill-fitting tuxedo lumbered across the stage and began singing a slightly off-key rendition of “Beautiful Girls.” While he belted out the lyrics, the showgirls entered from either side of the wings and took their places at the front of the stage. I was about to close my own eyes when one of the women caught my attention. Then another. And another. And finally a fourth. I nudged Blake with my elbow and whispered into his ear, “Open your eyes!”

  He whispered back, “Not until it’s over. Listening is bad enough.”

  “Really, Blake, you have to see this.”

  “See what?”

  “Any of those actresses look familiar to you?”

  Blake squinted at the stage. “The woman in the pink sequins. Isn’t that—?”

  “Maureen Boland. Keep looking. That’s Mary Louise Franklin two women to her left, Leila Raffelino on her right, and Suzette Stephanovich standing next to Leila.”

  “Highly coincidental,” said Blake.

  “If you believe in coincidence.” Although coincidences do happen, what were the odds of four of Not-Sid’s dates knowing each other?

  Blake and I definitely needed to duck out of the theater before the cast members joined the attendees at the opening night reception. I couldn’t run the risk of Maureen Boland accosting me about her missing stock certificates, not with my husband’s colleagues within earshot.

  �
��I feel a migraine coming on,” I whispered to Blake.

  “A perfect excuse for leaving,” he said. “Try to look green.”

  At intermission I accessed what limited acting skills I possessed—which certainly weren’t any worse than those showcased onstage. Greg and Shelley saw right through me. “Wish I’d thought of that,” said Greg.

  “No, really. I’m in terrible pain.”

  “Aren’t we all,” said Shelly. She patted my arm and winked at me. “I’m sure you’ll feel much better once you’re home.”

  They promised to offer our congratulations to Tom Reinhold and regrets that we couldn’t stay for the party. “But only if I get dibs on the migraine for the next production,” said Shelly.

  “Absolutely,” I said.

  “So what do you think?” I asked Blake as we drove home.

  “About your migraine? You need to work on your queasy look.”

  “About Maureen, Mary Louise, Leila, and Suzette knowing each other. Maybe one of them had something to do with Not-Sid’s death.”

  “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, but do you really think any one of those women is capable of sneaking up behind Sidney and bashing his skull?”

  “Maureen is big enough.”

  “Maureen is all flab, no muscle. Sidney could bench press her. Besides, with all that jangling bling, he’d hear her coming a mile away. She’d never get the drop on him.”

  “Maybe she wasn’t wearing any jewelry that night. Besides, dead men can’t bench press.”

  Blake gave me The Look. “When he was alive, Gracie.”

  I knew that.

  I also knew that Not-Sid had scammed Maureen Boland but he’d treated Mary Louise Franklin like—in her words—an empress, sparing no expense in the wining-and-dining department. How had his dates with Leila Raffelino and Suzette Stephanovich gone? Leila had refused to speak with us and Suzette wasn’t home when we showed up at her townhouse. Were either of them scammed? Dropped after one date? Or as with Mary Louise, had their wealth caused Not-Sid to look beyond a short scam? Was he stringing each woman along until he had a handle on the size of their portfolios before popping the question to one of them?