by Debbi Mack
φ φ φ
Despite the different name, I recognized her. Just to be sure, I checked the senior photos for the following year. As I expected, Rhonda Timson wasn’t among them. Somewhere along the line, she must have married or changed her name. She was younger, thinner, and free of facial scars, but it was Rhonda Jacobi.
Chapter TWENTY-NINE
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I called Duvall when I got home and left another message.
I had a message from Detective Derry, thanking me for the information about Ash. Unfortunately, he said, taking a trip by airplane was not grounds for arrest or even a search warrant in Maryland. Of course it wasn’t. Just like working at a strip club with two guys who negligently disfigured you almost twenty years ago wasn’t grounds either. Or living three blocks from one of them.
If it was a coincidence, it was a big one. Other things were making sense now, too. Rhonda could have set up the accounts. She could have taken the money. She had access to the information she needed.
I went online and looked up Skip Himmelfarb’s phone number. He picked up on the second ring.
“Hey, Skip, it’s Sam McRae,” I said.
“Hi,” he said, the surprise apparent in his voice.
“Look, I hope you don’t mind my calling you at home, but I have a question about Rhonda.”
“Oh?”
“Do you know how long she’s worked at Aces High?”
“Hmm. I think she started a couple of months after me. Why?”
“Was this before or after Tom began there?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Try to remember.”
“I’m a bit vague on this, but I think it might have been after,” he said.
“I have a kind of delicate question to ask. Has she ever talked about why her face is scarred?”
He hesitated. “Why do you ask?”
I felt embarrassed for bringing it up, but it seemed necessary. “I’m just curious.”
“I think she said she was burned in a fire.”
“I see. Did she mention when it happened and how? Was it in high school?”
“I don’t know. What does this have to do with Tom’s murder?”
“Nothing necessarily,” I said. I wasn’t going to speculate to Skip about my theories. “I appreciate the information. Thanks.”
φ φ φ
Aces High was closed, cordoned off. The lot was empty. I turned around and headed toward Laurel.
Rhonda lived in the same apartment complex as Bruce. I checked the mailboxes for the unit number. It was down one flight.
I knocked on the door twice, but there was no answer, so I returned to the car.
Rhonda could have been at a day job. I checked my watch. It was around four o’clock. I hadn’t had a thing to eat since breakfast and my stomach was growling. It could take Rhonda hours to come home. For all I knew, she might not return for a month. For all I knew, she might never come back.
I drove to the nearest Burger King in a strip shopping center with a CVS drugstore and a Giant grocery. After doing the drive-through, I tried to reach Reed Duvall on my cell, but my last bar winked out in mid-dial. In all the excitement, I’d forgotten to recharge the stupid thing. I found a pay phone, and called Duvall the old-fashioned way. Got the message machine again. He must have been working on something hot.
“Hey,” I said, after the beep. “Where’ve you been all day? I went by Rhonda Jacobi’s. She’s not there. I might hang around her place a bit, see if she shows up. Call you when I get home.”
I didn’t know what else to do. Before going back to Rhonda’s, I went into CVS and bought a paperback. This could take a while.
I backed into a space with a good view of her building. After knocking on her door again, I returned to the car, cracked my new book, and started to read.
They say surveillance is boring. They’re right. Rhonda still wasn’t there by five. People came home from work. I kept reading. Rhonda wasn’t home by six either. People went out to dinner. Another hour crawled by. Still no sign of her.
I was glad to have the book, a mystery by someone named Walter Mosley. I don’t read mysteries, but this one was pretty good. I read it fast. More people came and went. At eight, nothing had changed.
I read until the sun set, then I turned on the radio, keeping it low. The wind died and the car stayed hot. I was soaked in sweat, my shirt plastered to my back and the undersides of my thighs sliding on the Naugahyde seat. The smell of honeysuckle drifted through the window. An unseen horde of cicadas raised their cyclical buzz into the night sky, sounding like someone pedaling an old bicycle, faster and faster, until the tune reached a crescendo and died. The cicadas took a breather and launched into another rendition. I stopped counting the number of times they did this after six.
Lightning flashed, strobe-like, revealing the marbled pattern of cloud outlines. An angry rumble followed several seconds later. Everything else was still.
I’ll give it another half hour, I thought.
About fifteen minutes later, she came home.
Headlight beams swept across the lot, then a small car pulled up near the building. Rhonda Jacobi got out and hurried inside. I switched off the radio and waited.
Within minutes, Rhonda came out, carrying a box. She shoved the box into the car and dashed back in the building. A few more minutes and she returned with another box. Into the car it went. I watched her do this a few more times. Sometimes it was boxes, sometimes a miscellaneous item or two—a broom, a mop, a torchiere lamp. Then she came out with a suitcase. She opened the trunk and heaved it in, then disappeared again. I didn’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to figure it out.
It’s now or never, I thought. When Rhonda reappeared with more bags, I left the car and walked toward her.
Chapter THIRTY
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Rhonda leaned into the trunk, so intent on packing, she didn’t notice me.
“Going somewhere?” I said.
She jerked upright and whirled around. “God, you scared me,” she said, a little squeak creeping into her gravelly voice. “What are you doing here?”
“Looks like you’re moving.”
“Yeah.”
“Why did you lie about Bruce and Tom? Or should I say, Bruce and Greg?”
The change in topic appeared to disorient her. “What do you mean?”
“You never told me you knew them in high school.”
“I didn’t know them.”
“But you did know Tom Garvey was actually Greg Knudsen.”
“So?”
“You knew they were responsible for the accident that scarred your face.”
Rhonda’s expression grew hard. “What about it?”
She didn’t deny anything. That worried me.
“So why would you work with two people who did that to you?”
“I needed a job.”
“You expect me to believe it was a complete coincidence, your taking that particular job?”
Rhonda leaned against the car and crossed her arms. “Why should I care what you believe?”
“You also knew who Barbara was, and why she was arguing with Bruce.”
Thunder rumbled like distant tympani. Rhonda stared at me with an intense expression that belied her casual pose.
“Did you tell her Greg was back in town?” I said.
No response.
“Did you steal the money?”
Nothing.
“If they were using the club’s accounts to hide the money they stole, you would have known it. You had access to the records.”
Rhonda glanced at her fingernails as if bored. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“If you had access to the files, you must have put them in the office after you killed Bruce.”
“Bruce killed himself.”
“I don’t believe it. Those files weren’t there before.”
“How do you know?”
“I
just know.”
“How will you prove it?”
I didn’t say anything.
She smiled. “You see. You have nothing.”
“The police will figure out soon enough that Bruce didn’t kill himself.”
“And if they do, so what?” Rhonda’s voice was mocking.
I hadn’t the slightest idea. “What I can’t figure out is, why kill them?” I said. “You must have gone to a lot of trouble—gaining their confidence, stealing their money. You could have blackmailed them, and they couldn’t have done anything about it. So why kill them?”
“You’re grasping at straws, sweetie.”
“Better question still, why set my client up for Knudsen’s murder? Why divert suspicion from Bruce?”
For the first time, Rhonda reacted with something more than detached amusement or indifference. I thought I caught a flash of anger in her eyes. Maybe it was the lightning.
“Obviously, Bruce must’ve done it and set her up,” she said.
“It’s possible, but why didn’t he just plant the gun in her apartment? Why set her up with a box of files that linked his crimes to the murder? In a box from Aces High, no less.”
We stared at each other. The approaching storm boomed in the background, like an invading army. Now and then, a car went by, the driver oblivious to two women staring each other down.
“Bruce didn’t have a motive,” I said. “You did.”
She looked away, her cheeks twitching.
“You resented Melanie. That’s why you set her up.”
“No.” The directness of her response took me aback. “I wouldn’t do that.”
“But you would steal and kill.”
Rhonda laughed, her mouth twisting into a sneer. “Why are you so concerned with those guys? They were shit. They deserved to die.”
“I’m not concerned with them. I’m concerned with my client.”
“She wasn’t involved.”
“Now it’s my turn to ask, how do you know?”
“She’s not the type.”
“I thought you didn’t know her.”
“She was just another victim, OK?” She raked her hair back from her face, revealing a confused expression. “Another Greg Knudsen victim.”
“I thought you didn’t know him well.”
“Everyone knew Greg was trouble. Him and Bruce.”
“So she was a victim. Like Barbara? Like yourself?”
“Yes. We were all victims. And those bastards deserved what they got.”
“And you made sure they got it.”
“Give it a rest, OK? You have nothing.”
“And you’re counting on being gone by the time I have something.”
Rhonda stood there, breathing heavily. Her face was moon-like in its pallor, and her eyes glittered. She pulled a crushed pack of Lucky Strikes from her purse—I couldn’t help but notice the red bull’s-eye on it—and tapped a cigarette out. Placing it between her lips, she dug through her bag until she found a lighter. It flared with a snap in her shaking hands.
“Skip,” I said. “Did he—”
Before I could finish the thought, a car pulled up behind me. I turned. It was Skip behind the wheel of a white Chevy Cavalier. He held a handgun.
Chapter THIRTY-ONE
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Skip unfolded himself from the car, pointing the gun at me. It pretty much answered the question I’d started to ask. He looked about as natural with a gun as I would have carrying a jackhammer.
He looked from me to Rhonda and back at me. “What’s going on?”
“Put that away,” Rhonda said.
Skip shook his head.
“What are you going to do with it?” Rhonda spoke as if to an unruly child.
“What’s going on?” He repeated the words in a soft, throaty voice.
“I’m ready to go. Are you?” Rhonda said.
He nodded my way. “What does she know?”
“Nothing. Not a goddamn thing. Now shut your mouth.”
“The cops came by my place.”
Rhonda did a double take. “What? When?”
“Today. This afternoon.”
“What’d you tell them?”
“I didn’t answer the door. I heard them talking about getting a warrant.”
“How the hell can they do that?”
“I don’t know.” He looked at me. “What do you know about this?”
“Nothing,” I said in complete truth.
His gaze shifted to Rhonda.
“What?” she said.
“Did you tell them anything?”
Rhonda’s jaw dropped. “Are you crazy?”
“Why would they be able to get a warrant?”
“I don’t know. Don’t look at me. I wouldn’t ... you know I wouldn’t. Not after everything—”
She shot a nervous glance at me.
Skip appeared dazed. “After everything I’ve done for you?”
“That’s enough,” Rhonda said.
He didn’t react to her words.
“What did you do?” I asked.
“Shut up!” Rhonda yelled.
I wasn’t sure if she was talking to me or Skip.
“Nothing,” he said. “Everything.”
“What do you mean?”
“Skip, don’t say another word.”
“You killed them?” I said. “Why?”
“No,” he said. “But I let it happen.”
“Goddamn you.” Rhonda’s face was livid. “How can you do this to me?”
“I can’t let it go on,” he said.
“What?” I said. “Let what go on?”
“The lies. They’ll come after us, you know. They’ll come after me.”
“Did you steal the money?” I asked, trying to make sense of his words.
“Yes. And that’s all it was supposed to be. No one was supposed to get hurt.”
I looked at Rhonda. Tears streamed down her face.
“Oh, you fool,” she said. “I love you, but you’re such a fool.”
“All this time, I covered for you,” he said. “I protected you. All because of an accident fifteen years ago. But I’m not going to prison, not even for you.”
“We did the right thing,” Rhonda said, her voice rising.
She looked at me. The tears made her face look like it was melting.
“I never meant to kill Greg. It wasn’t supposed to happen,” she said.
“But it did. And you set my client up.”
“No. I did it for her.”
I gaped at her. “What?”
“I did it for her and all the other women that man screwed over.” She paused, sniffling. “Bruce was out of town. I took care of the club that weekend. Greg called me.” She smiled bitterly. “I love this. He wanted to see me, ’cause he thought Bruce was ripping him off. Isn’t that good? He thought I could help him prove Bruce used the business accounts to steal the money.
“He wouldn’t leave his apartment, so I went to his place. He was acting all weird about something—said some crazy guy was after him. Anyway, I figured I’d play along, pretend I didn’t know anything about the money. I was thinking maybe I could set Bruce up with Greg, and Greg with Bruce. Play one against the other.”
She took a deep breath, exhaling a shuddering sigh. “Greg said he’d be up, so we went by after closing. He looked like hell. A regular Howard-fucking-Hughes. He looked like he hadn’t slept in a while, and he smelled. No wonder he and Bruce weren’t getting along. Anyway, before I could say anything, I noticed the papers. He’d left them on a table in the living room. Your name was on them.”
“Papers?”
“The one’s that said he’d beaten on your client.”
“The petition for the protective order?”
She shook her head. “I guess so. Whatever they were, I just snapped when I saw them. After everything he’d done, now he was beating up on women. I just snapped. I took the gun from my purse and I shot him.”
“You carry a gun?”
“I took it with me that night,” Rhonda said. “It’s a gun I keep at the club.”
“I gave it to her for protection,” Skip said. His voice sounded far off.
“And you were with her, at this meeting with Greg?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said.
“Did you try to stop her from shooting him?”
He shook his head, looking at me as if he couldn’t imagine why I’d ask such a thing.
“It was strange,” Rhonda said. “I did it without thinking twice. And afterward, I didn’t care. Why would I care about exterminating a bug?”
Skip looked at her, a trace of sadness in his eyes. “He wasn’t a bug.”
“He was evil,” she hissed. “He deserved what he got and you know it.”
“And Bruce?” I said.
“Bruce figured out I took the money. When you told him about the bank statements, he put it together. He had thought Greg was ripping him off, that Barbara was putting more pressure on him, making him pay more. It never occurred to him I’d be involved. The guy was so sloppy. You’d think he’d go the extra mile to throw out the evidence somewhere far away, but he just threw it in the club’s Dumpster. I took it out and kept it.
“When he realized what was going on, he came to the club, all pissed off. He stormed into the office, grabbed me outta the chair, and threw me on the floor. Then he said if I didn’t give back the money, he’d personally beat the crap out of me. He didn’t hear Skip.”
I looked at Skip who wouldn’t look back.
“I knocked him out,” he said. “Hit him over the head, with a fire extinguisher. We picked him up and moved him to the chair. I was still trying to figure out what we should do, when she ...” His voice faded out.
“Why kill him?” I said to Rhonda.
“He deserved it.”
“Why not go to the police? Did you want the money?”
“Hell, I didn’t care about the money. Besides, what would happen if I told the cops? They’d give him probation, maybe order him to pay back what he took. A slap on the wrist, that’s all he’d get. Just like when they blew up the lab. They could never be punished enough for what they did to me.”
