She nodded toward Jake again and sighed. “Better check your vaccine,” she murmured. “I don’t think there’s a dose strong enough for what he’s carrying.”
Marti walked back toward the kitchen, chuckling to herself. When she drew even with Tom she stopped, touching his arm in a gesture that left no doubt about the change in their relationship. His answering smile took my breath away.
“Now, that is love,” Spike said. “Wonder how long they’ve been together.”
“About sixteen hours,” I said. “I was here when it happened.”
Nina slid a little closer to Spike. “I love happy couples. They’re just so…I don’t know…happy, you know?”
Spike nodded, sipped her diet soda and leaned a little toward Nina. Happy. Everybody was happy, I thought, and that was nice, except when you had work to do and happiness became a distraction.
“Nina, what did you find in the archives?”
My cousin looked for a moment like a startled scarecrow. Her short, spiky blond and pink-tipped hair stuck out in wild tufts that framed her face and she wore faded denim overalls and a plaid flannel shirt. I could only imagine how the local librarians had reacted to Nina’s arrival on their usually tranquil scene.
“Oh, yeah, that… Well, I didn’t really spend too much time with those,” she said. “I mean, not at first. First I told this really nice old lady all about what I was looking for and she’s the one who said her son was forty-four now and maybe she could just call him and he’d know something.”
“So did he?”
Nina shook her head. “Nope.”
“So that’s when you searched the newspapers?”
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Jake point to our booth and watched as he and Tom began walking toward us. Their progress was slowed by Tom’s popularity. It seemed they could only move a foot or two before someone else stopped to greet Tom. At this rate, they’d arrive as we were finishing.
“Oh, no,” Nina said. “I didn’t get a chance to look at the old newspapers. The librarian, Mrs. Otis, made a couple of phone calls and before you knew it, there we all were, eating Mrs. Kinsky’s streusel cake. Then Mrs. Otis said it was too bad Freddie May died a couple of years back because he used to be the high school yearbook editor and he was all the time writing these short stories about the town’s history and his friends and stuff. So I said, not the Fred May that wrote action-adventure books for kids, and they said, yeah, that’s him, Freddie May.”
Nina was glowing. “The rest is history.”
“So you never got to the newspaper archives?”
“Nope.”
I felt my spirits sink below the tabletop. I was going to wind up spending hours in a damn library doing the background work myself while Jake would find some way to hit the streets without me.
“Mrs. Kinsky said everybody knew Fred would make it big one day. He was just, you know, different. While everybody else was out playing on the beach, Fred was writing scary stories.”
I was only half listening, but it was enough to hear her say, “That’s how I found him. Fred wrote about it. I don’t think it’ll be too hard now that we know his name.”
I stopped watching Jake and focused on my cousin. “Now that we know whose name?”
Nina sighed impatiently. “Mia’s brother, dummy. Isn’t that who we’re looking for? Doug Hirshfield, Fred May’s best friend. His parents died when their house burned down.”
“What makes you think Doug Hirshfield is Mia’s brother?” I asked.
Nina rolled her eyes. “Because he had two sisters and because Fred’s family adopted him.”
“What happened to his sisters?” I asked.
“Stella, follow along here, all right? Who cares? Mia’s one of the sisters and her sister is the other. Listen, Doug Hirshfield is the only boy anybody knows of who was born in Surfside Isle, is around forty, had two sisters, has dead parents and was adopted. He’s the guy.”
I had to admit there was a good possibility that my cousin had cracked the case in a single morning of gossip and coffee cake, but the facts still had to be checked.
“Where’s Doug Hirshfield now?” I asked.
Nina shrugged. “We just don’t know,” she said. “Mrs. Kinsky thinks he never came back after he left for college, but Mrs. Otis said she’s not so sure. She thinks we should ask Fred’s mom.”
Spike was apparently hearing this for the first time. “You didn’t tell me about Fred’s mother,” she said. “She still lives here?”
Nina straightened proudly in her seat, reached into the pocket of her flannel shirt and withdrew a folded slip of paper.
“I wanted it to be a surprise,” she said. “I knew Stella wouldn’t think I could do it.” She waved a note card in my direction like a signal flag. “I may not do it your way,” she said, “but I always get the job done. I have here Mrs. Angela May’s address. We can go see her right after lunch.”
“See who?” Jake asked, pulling a spare chair up to the end of the booth.
“Fred May’s mama, that’s who,” Nina answered.
“Now, that should be an experience you won’t forget,” Tom said. “She was always a character. I can’t imagine she’s changed too awful much.”
Jake made the introductions and Tom straddled the extra chair, his long legs positioned awkwardly under the table in an attempt not to trip the passing waitresses. He was the right age to have known Fred May and Doug Hirshfield.
“Nina thinks Fred May’s adopted brother could be the man we’re looking for,” I said.
Tom nodded, but he was distracted by the persistent buzzing of the pager attached to his belt.
“Damn thing won’t leave me alone this morning,” he muttered. “Damn reporters, like flies on shit.”
He flipped open his cell phone, punched a number and when the person at the other end of the line answered, began talking without so much as a hello.
“Listen, you tell them sons of bitches that we’ll do another press release at five o’clock and not before.”
He listened to the voice on the other end of the line, shaking his head as he did and waiting for the tirade to end before continuing.
“I know. I’ve been doing the same thing since we ID’ed her. Now you tell them people this ain’t TV and I ain’t Elvis. I don’t know what she was doing here. I don’t know any more than what I already told them and I can’t get more information to give out if they don’t leave me alone to do my job.”
He flipped the phone shut, crammed it back into its holster and sighed.
“You know, I’d rather it have been Jimmy Hoffa’s body we found than Rebecca DeWitt. At least with old Jimmy, you knew it was a Mafia killing straight up. This thing’s a mess.”
Marti arrived with our food and Tom forgot all about his current frustrations. He hopped up in an attempt to help her, nearly knocked the tray out of her hand, and proceeded to turn beet red, all the while apologizing and unloading bowls of soup.
Marti had suddenly become every bit as klutzy as her new boyfriend, stammering and blushing like a schoolgirl.
“I don’t know what’s the matter with me,” she murmured, but no one believed her.
Once the plates were safely on the table, Jake made an attempt to bring Tom back down to earth.
“So who was Rebecca DeWitt?” he asked.
Tom shook his head and frowned, no longer the smitten boyfriend. “It’s not so much who she was as it is the circumstance and the timing. Becca DeWitt was Fred May’s literary agent and she apparently died on the two-year anniversary of his death. So the gossipmongers are going crazy thinking she committed suicide because she couldn’t live without him. I tried to tell them that it’s next to impossible to tie your own hands behind your back, but they just won’t listen. Now they’re trying to come up with some new scenario and I don’t have time to fool with them.”
“Oh, my God.” Nina gasped. “That is like, so completely tragic.” Tears sprang to her eyes and she stared at Tom wi
thout seeing him. “It’s like some cosmic-fate thing, you know? I mean, what if life had no meaning after Fred’s death. I know I was depressed for weeks!”
Tom bit forcefully into his sandwich, probably so he wouldn’t say anything to Nina. His eyebrows were knit together in a solid black line that darkened his features into a thundercloud of frustration.
“Tom, do you know a Doug Hirshfield? I think he’s a local,” I said, hoping to change the subject.
Tom’s pager went off again. He snatched at it and read the text message without the same amount of irritation as he’d shown before lunch.
“Well,” he said, snapping the pager shut, “that’s the end of my lunch hour. The M.E.’s waiting in my office.” He smiled ruefully at me. “Doug Hirshfield? Can’t say I know the name.”
He pushed his chair back and stood, the smile on his face even including Nina.
“Pleasure meeting you, ladies,” he said. His smile broadened as he looked from Jake to me. “Hope you get your man, Stella.”
Marti came up behind him, in time to hear his comment and throw in her two cents’ worth.
“Oh, I don’t think Stella’s the type to leave empty-handed,” she said.
Marti chuckled and walked off with Tom.
“She doesn’t miss much, does she?” Jake asked, watching Marti’s retreating figure.
I ignored this and turned the focus back to our case.
“All right,” I said. “We need to pay a visit to Fred May’s mother and we need to make sure Joey Smack doesn’t decide to bother Aunt Lucy.”
“Do you think he sent Aunt Lucy the flowers?” Spike asked. “I’ve been thinking about it and I can’t figure out how an old man would find your aunt here. Joey Smack’s more resourceful. He’s already found you. He’d be more likely to bug a vase of flowers, too.”
Jake was nodding as she spoke. “Certainly a possibility.”
“I just can’t help wondering why he thinks we still have the sleigh. I told him his damn sled is back with Lifetime. Why doesn’t he just go down and pay for it?”
Jake frowned. “Maybe he thinks we took something else. Maybe it’s not the sleigh he’s after.”
“What then—Santa Claus? That’s all we took—Santa, the sleigh and a few reindeer. I left the entire load with Lifetime. I didn’t see anything else, and I wouldn’t have taken anything but what was on the repo order. The guy’s got a screw loose.”
My cell phone rang and I dug through my coat searching for it. Aunt Lucy’s voice, sounding thready and frightened, crackled in my ear.
“Stella, I need you. Can you come home?”
Jake and I pulled into the driveway three minutes later. Spike and Nina were a close second, having remained just long enough to throw bills on the table to cover our lunch tab.
I pulled the Glock out of my waistband, held it down at my side and took the steps with Jake right behind me. Aunt Lucy met us at the door, her face ashen, lips compressed into a tight, worried line.
“What happened? Are you all right?”
Jake brushed past the two of us, scanned the living room and kitchen, and looked back at Aunt Lucy, waiting.
“Your grandmother called,” she said, looking at Jake. “Someone broke into our house last night. They cut the phone lines, but the security system went into bypass mode and alerted the police department anyway. By the time they reached the house, whoever it was had gone, but not before they tore the house apart.”
I felt my chest tightening. “Did they find the lab?”
Aunt Lucy’s lab was a state-of-the-art chemist’s dream, installed behind a hidden door in the basement by her friends at the CIA so she could tinker away on top-secret formulas without traveling to Washington, D.C.
Aunt Lucy shook her head. “No. Apparently nothing was taken.”
I felt relief wash over me. As long as Aunt Lucy was safe, there were no problems.
“That’s not the problem,” she said. “Sylvia said this morning three large white panel vans arrived from Disaster Master. They’re in our house now, cleaning up, painting, and repairing anything that needs it.” Aunt Lucy took a shaky breath and continued. “When your grandmother went to see what was going on, the men said the bill had been taken care of—they assumed by the home’s owner.”
I nodded, and Jake broke in. “But you’re not home to have called them. You didn’t know.”
Aunt Lucy sank into a chair by the front door. “I thought maybe my insurance agent had found out and sent them. He’s good like that, but he didn’t. I called him and he didn’t know. He’s in Westchester. He wouldn’t have heard about a burglary in Glenn Ford. He says even if he had, he would’ve waited for me to call him and he wouldn’t have used Disaster Master. He says they’re too expensive.”
Spike and Nina had slipped in while Aunt Lucy was talking, and stood around her looking worried.
“Did Sylvia call the police?” I asked.
“No, she called Jake’s cell phone and got me. I told her to call the police, but by the time they showed up, the men were gone. The police called Disaster Master and they said yes, they’d received an order.”
“With a check?” Spike asked.
Aunt Lucy shook her head. “Cash. A middle-aged guy in a cheap sports jacket. That’s all they remember.”
I looked at Jake and raised an eyebrow. What in the hell was going on? Joey Smack broke into Aunt Lucy’s house and then, in a fit of contrition, had it fixed?
“He called,” Aunt Lucy said. “I don’t think it was Joey Spagnazi who did this.”
“What? Joey Smack called? Here?”
Aunt Lucy nodded and looked at the wall phone hanging in the kitchen. “The phone rang right before I called you,” she said. “The man asked for you, and when I said you couldn’t come to the phone, he laughed and said he was sure you were having trouble walking.” Her eyes darkened and for an instant my aunt seemed to struggle with her emotions.
“He said… He said…you would have trouble breathing if you didn’t return his property.”
“Damn! What is the matter with that guy?”
The wall phone rang and we all jumped. Jake crossed the room in three strides, jerked the phone off the hook and barked, “Who is this?”
He listened, frowning. “What delivery? We didn’t order… Well then, who did? What?” He listened. “Where are you? All right, but I want to talk to you when you get here.”
Jake hung up, turned to my aunt and said, “You didn’t ask Guinta’s Market to deliver any groceries, did you?”
Aunt Lucy looked as if she couldn’t quite understand him. “Why would I do that? We’re here, not home.”
Jake smiled, but the smile never reached his eyes. “Well, that’s just it. The guy on the phone said he was making a delivery from Guinta’s but not to the Glenn Ford house. He’s coming here, says someone paid to have him drive the order to the beach. He even has the address, so whoever sent him knows where you are.”
Aunt Lucy lost her composure and panicked. “No! That’s impossible! I didn’t even tell Sylvia where I was going!”
“That leaves us with your friend, Marie,” I said. “Don’t worry, honey. I’m sure there’s a simple explanation for all of this. I’ll call her.”
Aunt Lucy didn’t seem to hear me. “Benito!” she called. “Where are you?”
She looked around the room, looking for Lloyd and growing increasingly agitated. Spike, noting this, walked quietly into the kitchen and poured my aunt a glass of Chianti.
She carried it over, knelt down in front of my aunt and gently wrapped the woman’s fingers around the tumbler.
“Take a couple of sips,” Spike encouraged. “We’ll find him. Did he go outside?”
Aunt Lucy raised the glass to her lips, drank then nodded. “Oh, yes,” she said. “That’s right. He went outside a little while ago. He’ll be back soon. I bet he’s fishing.”
I looked at Jake and knew he was as worried about Aunt Lucy as I was. The tone in her voice mad
e me wonder if she was expecting a flesh-and-blood version of my uncle to walk back through the door and not a four-legged canine. She seemed one step further away from her tenuous hold on reality.
Spike stayed by Aunt Lucy’s side, softly reassuring her as Jake and I slipped out the front door to talk and wait for the mysterious delivery from Guinta’s Market. We sat on the steps, side by side, and listened to the pounding of the surf on the beach. The temperature had climbed into the lower forties but there was no breeze and the sun warmed my face, fooling me into thinking that winter might actually be on its way out.
Jake slipped his arm around my waist and it seemed natural to rest my head on his shoulder, if only for a moment. It was as if we suddenly fit together, held fast by the current crisis and the knowledge that we were the ones responsible for fixing it. All the superficial posturing fell to the wayside when the chips were down. We could fight about our pride later; for now, we’d be one strong team.
“You know,” I murmured, “if we hadn’t pissed Joey Smack off, this trip might’ve been a vacation. I mean, I think we’ll find Mia’s brother pretty quickly. If it wasn’t for Joey Smack, we’d be enjoying ourselves.”
Jake chuckled. “If it wasn’t for Joey Smack, you’d be running back to Glenn Ford the minute we found our client’s brother. The others wouldn’t be here. You’d be all alone with me, and we both know that’s more than you can handle.”
I pushed off his shoulder and looked up at him. “Aren’t you tired of that line yet?”
He was saved from answering me by the arrival of the Guinta’s delivery van. It rolled slowly around the corner, searching for the house number, and pulled up into the narrow driveway behind Jake’s pickup.
A skinny man in work pants and a gray zip-up jacket stepped out of the driver’s-side door, a cigarette dangling from his lips, and proceeded to the back of the van as if he hadn’t seen us.
The two of us watched him, but Jake dropped his arm from my waist and both of us slid our right hands behind our backs, touching our guns, ready to pull them out if the delivery wasn’t what it seemed. Joey Smack had his fingers in a lot of pies around Glenn Ford. It would’ve been nothing for him to commandeer a delivery van and show up gunning for revenge.
Stella, Get Your Man Page 13
