Sleuthing Women

by Lois Winston

  “I’ll be damned. A Shakespeare-quoting parrot. I’d say that qualifies as unusual.”

  “That’s one word for it,” said Mama. “If that bird-brained Penelope Periwinkle had spent half as much time finding a husband as she did fawning over that damn bird, she wouldn’t have died a dried-up old spinster.”

  “Mama, I doubt Zachary is interested in your estimation of certain branches of our family tree.”

  I filled the tea kettle and placed it on the stove. “I hope instant is okay. Along with just about everything else that wasn’t nailed down, the thief helped himself to Mr. Coffee.” At least Ricardo had spared the pots and pans. I guess he had no use for eighteen-year-old dented Farberware and chipped Pyrex.

  Nick and Alex barged into the kitchen. “Hey, Zack!” they both called out.

  “Why didn’t you guys tell the cops outside that you know Mr. Barnes?” I asked. “You invite him into the house when he’s a stranger and leave him at the mercy of the police once you know who he is? Am I the only person who thinks this makes absolutely no sense?”

  “Huh?” asked Alex.

  “What cops?” asked Nick.

  “The ones watching the house. They were about to arrest him.”

  “Thought I was the burglar, come back to finish the job,” said Zack.

  “What in the world have you been doing the past half hour?” I asked my sons.

  “Jeez, Mom, it’s Saturday. We slept in.”

  “Until Grandmother Lucille woke us up a few minutes ago when she came clomping down the hall,” said Nick.

  “Sorry, Zack,” said Alex. He rubbed the still-red skin around his mouth. “We didn’t hear anyone knock. I guess getting bound and gagged with duct tape yesterday kind of wiped us out.”

  “I know what you mean,” said Zack.

  “You do?” Both boys’ eyes bugged out.

  “I once stuck my camera where someone didn’t want it. He had friends in low places.”

  I wondered if Ricardo was one of those friends. However, since I hadn’t told either the boys or Mama about my dealings with Ricardo, I slapped an imaginary strip of duct tape over my own mouth.

  “About the apartment,” I said.

  “What’s the problem? I told you not to worry about cleaning it. I can sweep up after the movers bring the furniture inside.”

  “It’s a little more than sweeping. Not enough hours in the day. I had planned to empty the apartment last night. Our intruder had other ideas.”

  “The movers have another gig to pack up later this afternoon,” said Zack. “If they don’t have enough time to bring everything upstairs, they’ll leave my stuff sitting in your driveway. How much time do you need?”

  “Thirty minutes. Forty tops,” I assured him. Not that I had a clue how long it would really take. And when was I supposed to find the time to compile an inventory of all our missing possessions for the police and the insurance company? I needed those good hands guys to cut me a check ASAP.

  I glanced at Mama to see if she could tell I was lying. She answered with the slightest raise of an eyebrow, but I had fooled Zack Barnes, and that’s all that mattered.

  I began issuing orders. “Alex, Nick, get dressed. You’re on cleanup and hauling detail. Mama, you make Zack comfortable in the den.”

  “I can do more than that,” said Mama. “And the Bolshevik can get off her fat rump and help as well if she wants to maintain her standing in the Workers’ Party.”

  “Lucille can’t climb more than a few steps, Mama.” Besides, even if she could manage the stairs, Lucille would be more a hindrance than a help. I could do without her spewing forth a nonstop litany of complaints.

  “How convenient. Laziest worker I’ve ever seen.”

  I ignored her, even though I agreed with her assessment of Lucille’s work ethic.

  “That woman’s all talk, no action,” said Mama. “Give her something to do that won’t require climbing stairs. She’s not the Queen of Sheba. What about the laundry? The hampers are overflowing.”

  “Hell, no,” cried Alex. “The last time Mom asked Grandmother Lucille to do laundry, Nick and I wound up with pink underwear.”

  “Deliberately, no doubt,” said Mama. “Devious old pinko battle-ax.”

  I turned to Zack and changed the subject. “I can offer you a selection of books and magazines while you wait. Unfortunately, you’re out of luck if you want to watch TV or a movie.”

  “Or listen to a CD or play a video game or use a computer,” grumbled Nick.

  “He really cleaned you out,” said Zack.

  “Right down to Catherine the Great’s kitty litter,” said Mama.

  “I’m not going to sit on my ass while you work,” he said. “We’ll get done that much faster if I help you.”

  “Now that’s what I call a worker’s party,” said Mama. “That prima donna pinko should take a lesson from you, Zachary dear.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Four hours later my studio had been moved from the apartment to the basement and Zack’s furniture had been moved from the van into the apartment. It had taken Mama far less time to wrap Zack around her pinky, but then again, she’d already gotten a head start the other night.

  Mama had always gone for men her own age or older, but they had a bad habit of dying on her. Maybe she’d decided she’d have better luck with someone younger. Much younger. I decided I wasn’t cruel enough to tell her Zack already knew she was in husband-hunting mode and wasn’t interested.

  “If you’re thinking what I’m thinking you’re thinking,” I told her after Zack offered to pick up pizzas for lunch—his treat, “you can forget it.”

  “Whatever do you mean, dear?”

  “Don’t feign innocence with me, Flora Sudberry Periwinkle Ramirez Scoffield Goldberg O’Keefe. I know what you’re up to, and I’m telling you right now, no way am I calling that man daddy.”

  Although, if I weren’t so recently widowed and burned by a drop-dead gorgeous man, I wouldn’t be adverse to calling Zack Barnes a few other things.

  Mama fluttered her hand as if banishing my words into the stratosphere. “Honestly, Anastasia, I don’t know where you’d get such a ridiculous notion. After all, my poor Seamus is hardly cold in his grave.”

  As was Karl, but I was still having certain totally inappropriate thoughts in regards to my new tenant. But that was Karl’s fault, not mine. I wasn’t the one who had screwed my spouse and kids, leaving us at the mercy of the likes of Ricardo.

  Still, life would be simpler if I’d rented to a spinster piano teacher. Or a middle-aged gay couple.

  Even though Lucille hadn’t assisted with any of the packing or moving, she arrived in the kitchen at precisely the same time Zack returned with the pizzas. She grabbed four slices of pepperoni for herself and fed the crusts to Mephisto. So much for the Devil Dog’s delicate constitution.

  “Quite a zoo you have here,” said Zack, scanning the kitchen.

  Mephisto sat beside Lucille’s chair, awaiting another crust offering. Catherine the Great had curled up on top of the refrigerator, and Ralph kept an eye on everyone from his perch on the curtain rod above the sink window.

  “Hmm.” I spoke around a slice of mushroom pizza. “Casa Pollack’s very own version of Animal House.”

  “How do you keep the cat, the dog, and the bird from killing each other? They don’t seem to get along very well.”

  “It’s easier than keeping the grandmas from killing each other,” muttered Alex out of the side of his mouth.

  Nick laughed so hard he snorted root beer through his nose.

  I scowled at both of them. “Apologize to your grandmothers.”

  “Why?” asked Nick. “It’s true.”

  “They hate each other,” Alex informed Zack—just in case he hadn’t noticed this for himself.

  I continued to glare at my sons until they muttered an apology to Lucille and Mama. “Only Ralph is a permanent resident,” I said to Zack. Catherine the Great and Mephisto are
here temporarily.”

  “Manifesto!” said Lucille slamming her hand on the table. “His name is Manifesto.”

  “Either way he’s the devil incarnate,” Mama told Zack.

  “Right-wing reactionary!” accused Lucille.

  “Bolshevik!” shot back Mama.

  Zack winked at the boys. “I see what you mean.”

  Lucille pushed her chair away from the table. She pointed a gnarled finger at Mama. “That woman is insufferable. And so is that mangy fur ball alley cat of hers.”

  “Why you...you...Stalin lover!”

  “Fascist!”

  “Truce!” I screamed.

  Mama’s mouth clamped shut.

  Pounding her cane, Lucille stalked from the kitchen. As soon as she was out of earshot, Mama’s tongue once again loosened and she began batting her eyelashes at Zack. “I want to hear all about your exciting life, young man. Don’t leave out any details.”

  “Yeah, tell us about the guys who duct taped you,” said Nick. “Were they Mafia?”

  “Or terrorists?” chimed in Alex. “Were you shooting in Afghanistan or Iraq?”

  “Nothing so exciting. Or dangerous. At least I didn’t think so at the time. I try not to make a habit of winding up on the business end of an Uzi.”

  “Good,” said Mama. “We’ve had enough excitement in this family to last a lifetime.”

  “But you did?” asked Alex, his eyes bugging out.

  “Unfortunately.”

  Mama’s hand fluttered to her heart. “My goodness! You must have been terrified.”

  “No way,” said Nick. “I’ll bet he Rambo’d ‘em.” He turned to Zack for confirmation. “Didn’t you?”

  “We could have used you here yesterday,” said Alex. “Do you have a gun?”

  Zack held up both his hands. “Easy, guys. I think you’re getting carried away. I’m no Stallone.”

  No, you’re more a Pierce Brosnan-George Clooney-Patrick Dempsey-Antonio Banderas hunk.

  Where the hell had that come from?

  I felt my face flush and glanced around to make sure the words had only popped into my head and not out of my mouth. Luckily, Mama and the boys were too fascinated by Zack to notice the inferno emanating from my cheeks.

  I gave myself a mental rap on the knuckles. Newly widowed women—even those whose husbands had turned out to be lying, cheating bastards—shouldn’t have such thoughts for near strangers. I took a deep breath and focused back on the conversation flying across the kitchen table.

  “So where were you?” asked Nick.

  “Why’d someone want to kill you?” asked Alex.

  Zack leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table. “I was in rural Guatemala shooting a photo essay on Indian villages. There’s little social or political unity among the Indian communities. They even have their own colorful styles of clothing. That’s what I was focusing on for National Geographic.”

  Nick screwed up his face. “Sounds boring.”

  “Yeah,” said Alex. “Who’d want to kill someone over native costumes?”

  “Probably no one,” said Zack, “but unfortunately, while traveling from one village to the next, I stumbled across something I wasn’t meant to see.”

  “What?” asked Nick.

  I answered for Zack. “Drugs.”

  “Exactly,” he said. “Guatemala’s major natural resource is its fertile soil. One of the villages had discovered they could make a lot more money growing marijuana instead of corn. The farmers mistook me for a drug enforcement officer. I was lucky they didn’t shoot me on the spot.”

  “How ever did you get out of there?” asked Mama.

  Zack flashed her a twinkling eye smile. “I used my immeasurable charm.”

  Of that I had no doubt. In no time at all my new tenant had woven a spell around both Mama and my boys. I was contemplating asking him to work his magic on Lucille when the phone rang.

  “Quick! Turn on your television,” said Cloris after I answered.

  “I can’t.”

  “What do you mean, you can’t?”

  “Excuse me,” I mumbled to Zack, the boys, and Mama as I carried the portable phone into the living room. They paid no attention to me as Zack regaled them with how he talked his way out of a deadly situation—once his captors had removed the duct tape covering his mouth. “We were robbed yesterday,” I told Cloris.

  “Again?”

  “Luck of the Irish.”

  “Since when are you Irish?”

  “Since Flora Sudberry Periwinkle Ramirez Scoffield Goldberg became Flora Sudberry Periwinkle Ramirez Scoffield Goldberg O’Keefe.”

  “That doesn’t count.”

  “I suppose not. Anyway, Seamus O’Keefe died trying to kiss the Blarney Stone, so how lucky can the Irish really be?”

  “Anastasia!”

  “What?”

  “Stop babbling and listen.”

  “What’s so important?”

  “Vittorio Versailles is dead.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  “Omigod! How?”

  Through the phone line I heard Cloris take a deep breath. “A bullet to the back of the head. One of his peacocked goons found him at his apartment when he failed to show for some luncheon today.”

  Three slices of mushroom pizza flip-flopped in my stomach. “I’ll call you right back.” I clicked off, grabbed my cell phone, and headed for the back porch.

  “Anastasia! What’s going on?” asked Mama as I raced through the kitchen.

  “Not now, Mama.” I grabbed my coat off the hook in the mudroom and slammed the back door behind me.

  “Execution style?” I asked Cloris when she answered on the first ring.

  “What was that all about?”

  “Batswin and Robbins tapped my phone.”

  “Is that legal?”

  “I gave them permission.”

  “Are you out of your friggin’ mind? Why on earth would you do that? They’re trying to pin Marlys’s murder on you, in case you’ve forgotten.”

  “Believe me, I haven’t forgotten. They gave me no choice. Tell me about Vittorio.”

  “The news mentioned the lawsuit he filed against Trimedia. And according to an unnamed source, the police are questioning several persons of interest at the magazine. The newscaster implied the police think someone at Trimedia took out a contract on Vittorio.”

  “I suppose whoever paid to get rid of Vittorio figured a hit man was a heck of a lot cheaper than an extended court battle.”

  “No guessing as to the outcome, either.”

  “But who?”

  “Someone with balls. And connections.”

  The mushroom pizza solidified into a two-ton cannonball. “Hugo?”

  “He fits on both accounts, doesn’t he?”

  According to the rumor mill, Hugo grew up in the shadows of organized crime, his father having been an accountant for one of the five New York crime families. Years ago Hugo had changed his name from the ethnic-sounding Herschel Rosenbaum to the aristocratic sounding Hugo Reynolds-Alsopp. However, those same rumors claimed he still maintained ties with many of his father’s associates and his own old friends from back in the day.

  “We don’t know that for certain,” I said. “Besides, Hugo has no real power at Trimedia any more. He’s nothing but a figurehead.”

  “What about that argument you overheard?”

  I thought back to the angry voices coming from the other side of Naomi’s office door. The out-of-character behavior exhibited by both Naomi and Hugo afterwards. Hugo’s assurance that he’d handle everything. “If Hugo were leveraging a buyback of the company, Vittorio’s lawsuit would put everything on hold.”

  “Or kill the deal if Trimedia lost the court battle,” added Cloris.

  “No Vittorio. No lawsuit. No problem.”

  “Bingo!”

  “Now all I have to do is find out if Hugo was in negotiations with Trimedia.”

  “Still think he and Naomi didn’t have an
ything to do with Marlys’s murder?” asked Cloris.

  “No, but I still don’t want to believe they did. Hugo maybe. He’s got the connections. But Naomi? I just don’t buy it.”

  “Maybe she didn’t know.”

  “That would make more sense.”

  “So what’s your next move, Sherlock?”

  “I think I’d better keep that to myself. If my plan backfires, I don’t want you getting hauled off to the slammer with me.”

  “You’re planning something illegal?”

  “Depends on your definition of illegal.”

  “Forget my definition. How would Batswin and Robbins define whatever it is you’re planning?”

  “I think it would fall under one of those murky areas of the law.”

  “Be careful, okay?”

  “I will.”

  What I planned was a search of Hugo’s office. I wasn’t certain I’d find anything incriminating—part of me hoped I didn’t—but a reconnoiter of the office was easier than finding a way into his apartment.

  ~*~

  The next day, after dropping Alex at the library and Nick at basketball practice, I headed for Trimedia. Even though I didn’t expect anyone else to show up at the office on a Sunday afternoon, I decided to park my car across the road in the train station parking lot.

  After letting myself into the building, I first headed for my office. I slipped out of my coat, and hung it on the hook to the side of the entrance. In case someone else did decide to catch up on work today, I flipped on my computer and arranged my cubicle to make it appear that I was working on a project.

  To add to the illusion, I slipped on my work smock and stuffed a few tools and supplies into the deep front pockets. In case the boys called, I grabbed my cell phone before storing my purse in the bottom drawer of my desk.

  Hugo’s office was situated on the fourth floor, the top story of Trimedia. Although he shared the marble-tiled, mahogany-walled floor with the other corporate stuffed shirts, the size and location of his office—a windowless, out-of-the-way closet of a space—reflected his status as a corporate Bottom Feeder.

  However, power or no power, Hugo kept his office locked. I wasn’t deterred. He shared a secretary with several lower level managers. I headed for her desk.