by Norah Wilson
To add insult to insult (and injury if he didn’t watch himself, for I was that close to giving him a thorough ass-kicking right there) he was dialing his cell phone as he talked to me.
The fucker!
He’d used me. He’d lulled me the flowers and the candy and the aw shucks ma’am crap, and then he’d used me to set up my own mother.
Shit shit shit! The puppy dog eyes, sad tales of lost friendship. He’d totally played me. When I was supposed to be playing him!
“Smith!” he barked into the cell. “Deputy Almond here. Go ahead on the Katt Dodd arrest. The daughter confirmed her expertise. Yes, send a couple squad cars over there right now. Marked. I want sirens and lights. Let them know we’re coming. Consider her a flight risk. I want that woman in handcuffs. I’ll meet you at the station.”
He clicked the cell shut and pocketed it neatly. And he stared across the table at me.
“That’s all you got, Deputy? The praise of a first-born daughter?”
“How stupid do you think I am, Ms. Dodd?”
“Very.”
“That was a rhetorical question.”
“Rhetorical? Don’t say words you can’t—”
“Can’t what? Spell?”
“Can’t shove up your ass!” For emphasis I slammed my fist on the table.
He stood. “There was another theft this morning. Roger Cassidy had a diamond broach lifted. One he had bought for her granddaughter’s Christening next month in Miami. He discovered it missing this morning, right after the gathering at the Wildoh.”
“Ha! And that makes my mother the prime suspect? Simply because something’s gone missing? Wow, great detective work there.”
Noel smiled — damn him. “One of our officers found your mother’s watch at the crime scene. That makes her the prime suspect.”
Few things in this world shut me up.
That shut me up.
Deputy Almond rose. With a nod and a half wave, he signaled the waiter. From all appearances, he was already on the way to our table, but pushed the dessert cart all the faster when Almond signaled. “Yes, sir?”
“Put everything on my tab, will you, Joey? Oh, and coffee and dessert for the lady, and whatever else she wants. Or maybe she prefers another drink? She looks like she could use one, don’t you think, Joey?”
Joey was smart enough not to answer that question. “As you wish, Deputy. Anything the lady wants,” he dutifully answered.
Almond slapped him on the back before he turned to me again. “Thank you for the evening Ms. Dodd. It’s been … well, interesting. And educational.”
It took every bit of restraint I had not to get up and kick the shit out of Deputy Noel Almond right then and there. But my tingling toes were pretty determined to kick my own butt as well. He’d played me perfectly. Mirrored my posture as we’d talked. Nudging me more and more to talk about myself. Earning my trust. Chocolates and roses. Flattery (grrrrrrrrrrrr, that one stung the most).
But I’d fallen for it.
Yep, we both needed a good boot in the ass.
“There was no Isabella, was there?”
“Of course there was an Isabella. What kind of man do you take me for?”
“Swine variety.”
He feigned a hurt look. “I had a goldfish named Isabella when I was nine. Only lived a week though before it died. I flushed it down the toilet. Three times. Damn thing kept swimming back up!” Almond smirked. “Now I must be off.”
Oh Christ, people actually said that?
“Business at the station house, you understand.”
I glared at the back of Almond’s head as he headed toward the door. Despite my best efforts, it still didn’t blow up like a balloon and explode.
Damn!
“Can … can I get you anything, madam?” Joey asked, a little sympathetically and a little bit scared.
I thought for all of one millisecond. “Yes, Joey. Yes you can, as a matter of fact.”
He’d already taken a step toward the bar.
“I’ll take every dessert you have.” I stood. “Every damn one of them.”
Joey stopped mid stride and turned back to me. “I don’t think the Deputy wanted—”
Fuck what the Deputy wanted.
As quickly as I could, I started handing out desserts. There was a party of ten at a nearby table (wedding party rehearsal dinner — pity the fools). “Compliments of the Sheriff’s Department,” I said, setting the little plates down. “Here, have two.”
“Are you serious?” Bride-to-be asked (two foot hair — dead giveaway), through a forkful of pie.
“Well isn’t that nice,” a beautiful silver-haired woman said. “Thank him for me, will you, dear?”
Oh I would. Personally.
I was just about to start on another table and hand over the chocolate cheesecake when I realized, ‘am I nuts, this is chocolate cheesecake’ and I shoved two pieces instead into the over-sized purse I’d brought along (yes, I did think to grab a linen napkin from my table to wrap the cheesecake in thank you very much).
All in all, it took me no more than thirty seconds to unload the trolley completely at this and another couple nearby tables.
Shit! Thirty seconds! I had to get out of there now.
“Five bottles of your finest champagne, Joey, no ten!” I yelled. “Over to the wedding party.”
The group shouted a collective “Hurray!”
Okay, the desserts, it looked like I would be getting away with (well, they were already forked into — not much Joey could do about that now) but the champagne?
Joey’s face was growing redder by the moment. “Now I know the Deputy wouldn’t want—”
“And tip yourself thirty percent!”
Joey stood still for all of one heartbeat before he started for the bar. “Well, the Deputy did say anything the lady wanted.”
I hightailed it out of the restaurant and spotted Deputy No Nuts (yep, no freakin’ nuts in my dull-knife castrating fantasies!) just getting to his car. And in my mind all I could hear was Mrs. Presley’s chastising voice: “Give me a four letter word for this situation, Dix.”
Fuck!
“Hey, Nutless!” I yelled, not so much to make myself heard over the distance so much as to enlighten everyone in the parking lot. “You’re driving me to the station!”
Yes, I would have preferred a cab, but I couldn’t waste the precious time.
Smirking, Almond waited and opened the door for me. I yanked it out of his grip, slammed it closed, and opened it again for myself. I got in. Deputy Almond was still smiling as he pulled out of the parking lot.
Why were men such pricks? Why had I let Almond play me like that?
And oh, shit. What had my mother’s watch been doing at the crime scene?
Chapter 9
As long as I live, I will never forget the look on my mother’s face when I walked into the into the prisoner’s area of the Pinellas County Jail. She was sitting in a cell with a half dozen hookers, and a small assortment of other poor souls down on their luck. Katt Dodd was sitting in the middle of them, talking to a particularly young looking dark-haired lady who looked scared to death. With her big round eyes and her trembling bottom lip, the girl looked all of fifteen years old. She wasn’t of course. She had to be at least eighteen to be in here (or at least claiming to be eighteen). But right then, she also had to be mothered, and Katt Dodd was doing her damndest to fit that bill.
Why didn’t that surprise me?
But still, when Mother looked up to see me looking at her through the bars of the cell — a smug and satisfied Deputy NO FUCKING NUTS smirking beside me, I know that my mother’s tears were not that far away from falling themselves. Despite the stiff upper lip, she looked so helpless. She looked so fragile. Goddamn it, Katt Dodd looked old to me. And I didn’t like this one damn bit.
“Well, I bet this is one place you never thought you’d find your mother, huh, Dix?” her voice quavered.
“Certainly isn’t on
e I’ll find you in for long. Not if I have any say in the matter.”
And oh, fuck, you’d better believe I’d have my say in the matter.
Mother nodded, firmly. One blink of those dark lashes and the tears would be falling. Both hers and mine.
“Well, this is my new friend Bobbie-Sue.” Mother said quickly. She squeezed the hand of the girl on the bench beside her. “We’re going to keep each other company in here tonight.”
“What do you mean ‘tonight’?”
Deputy Almond was only too happy to answer that question for me.
There would be no bail hearing until the morning, he informed me. Mother had refused to talk to police tonight, wouldn’t until she’d spoken to me and spoken to a lawyer.
Smart woman. And I told her. I made her promise to stick to her guns on that, no matter what. She would.
Of course No Nuts had taken this as an indication of her guilt. He’d so much as told my mother so, but Dodd women don’t get intimidated. Nevertheless, it all added up to my mother having to spend the night in jail.
That sent fear up my spine, I’ll tell you. I could handle myself with the toughest of crowds. But my 71-year-old mother? I don’t know when the shift takes places, but somehow that protective mother-daughter instinct does a complete turnaround in the adult years.
I was half tempted to kick Deputy Almond right in the almonds (they had to be that small) right then and there. Surely a good foot to balls kick would earn me a night in jail and I could watch out for my mother. And it would be sooooo rewarding..
“Do it, do it!” urged a little voice.
Mine.
My foot was just itching to fly — heel coming off the floor, toes feeling that special pre-kick tingle that I loved so much….
Then two other officers walked down the darkened hallway. One of them was even clanging/rattling her baton on the bars as she came along. God, I thought they only did that in the movies. They should only do that in the movies … it’s annoying as hell.
Nevertheless, I was pleased when the two officers stopped in front of Mother’s cell.
“You wanted to see us, Deputy?” the officer tagged N. Vega said.
Her partner grunted the same question.
“You two are posted here tonight. Right here. Both of you.” He pointed at my mother. “See that one there — the old one? She’s under arrest for theft,” he said, loud enough so that everyone could hear — me, Mother’s cell mates, and especially Mother herself. “And she’s a definite person of interest in the disappearance of one Frankie Morrell.
“Frankie?” One of the prostitutes spoke up. She’d been leaning her blue-haired self up against the wall with the greatest disinterest up until this point. “Frankie Morrell? I didn’t know he was missing?” She was a little older than most working girls. A little bit more make up around the eyes. She wore a short red skirt, black halter top, and heels that under other circumstances (more pleasant ones I assure you) could be used as lethal weapons.
I made a mental note to get a pair just like them.
Mother turned around and spoke to her. “You … you know Frankie?”
“Tall guy — like about six foot two? Grey haired swept back from his forehead? Glasses that always slipped down on his nose?” Blue Hair answered. “Yeah, I know Frankie.”
“When did you see him last?” Noel and I both asked at the same time.
She teetered left, teetered right. “Can’t remember. Maybe it isn’t even the same guy.”
Mother turned back around. She didn’t look up at me. It was the same guy I could see it in the blush of Blue Hair’s cheeks. I could see it in my mother’s eyes
This was one more kick in the ass my mother did not need.
Okay, so now there was a tie for that coveted place on the top of my shit list.
“So you want us here all night, Deputy?” the second officer, J. North asked. “Right here or down the hall?”
“Right in front of the doors, Officer North.” He looked at both of them. “This woman is an escape artist. She can’t be left alone for a minute. Can’t be trusted. Keep an eye on her. And if she gets out of here, I will hold both of you personally responsible. Do I make myself clear?”
He did. To everyone.
Of course, he thought he was pissing me off. Well, I guess that was a given. But I was pleased nonetheless that Mother would be ‘watched’ all night long. Just in case something went wrong. Guess I wouldn’t be kicking Almond in the nuts after all. Which would have ruined the shoes.
And realistically as much as I would have enjoyed a good nut-kicking, I could do mother more good outside of jail than inside. Could and would.
Like get bail money ready.
I was going to post bail if it cost me every last dime I had and every last favor I could call in. I hadn’t called Peaches Marie yet. There wasn’t a hell of a lot she and her girlfriend could do at the present time while backpacking through Europe. Last email was from somewhere around Glasgow. But if I had to, I’d email Peaches to get money from her.
Goddamn it! I’d do whatever it took.
~*~
I’d called Dylan on my cell phone just as I’d arrived at the station, filling him in on what had transpired. He’d listened to everything (and yes, maybe a little bit too silently when I told him I’d been out on a strictly-business meeting with Almond at the fancy French restaurant). I asked Dylan to find a lawyer. The best in criminal law in Pinellas County. Hell, in all of Florida.
As I walked back out to the unmarked police car that would be driving me back to the Wildoh, Dylan called me with a name. I saw the officer shift when I repeated that name. I repeated it twice more, just to be sure, and saw the tightening of the hands on the steering wheel.
Yes, apparently the name Cotton Carson was a familiar one to the police. And not a well-received one. Good.
Dylan elaborated: Cotton Carson was the senior man in Carson, Carver and Associates, attorneys at law. Smart as they come. Tough as nails. Expensive as hell.
I’d pay.
Cotton had thirty-five years criminal law experience. He was known as the Black Suit of Death to local prosecutors. Not only because the man always dressed in black from head to toe, but because he kicked ass in court.
Why, I liked him already!
He’d be at the bail hearing in the morning. Had his secretary shifting things around at this very minute to accommodate it.
“And Dix,” Dylan said. “Cotton had one piece of advice he insisted your mother follow.”
“That is?”
“Under no circumstances is she to talk to the police unless he’s there.”
I thanked Dylan. Told him I’d see him later. I clicked the phone shut, and knew Mother would follow the advice I’d given her earlier.
~*~
I arrived bearing gifts. Well, not my gifts. But I carried them.
I arrived at the door to Dylan’s room at the Goosebump Inn bearing the basket of goodies Mrs. Presley had packed with the remnants of her spicy pepperoni spaghetti — still enough to feed an army (and when I considered the great big hulking sons Mrs. P usually cooked for, I didn’t wonder why) — and fresh rolls from Mona.
Apparently, Mona had insisted Mrs. P take the rolls when she delivered the spaghetti. Mother and Mrs. P had gone over to Mona’s before the big arrest scene, but hadn’t stayed long. Tish was there — with her feet up on the coffee table and a drink in her hand while Mona ran around the condo baking and cleaning.
I just didn’t get that — Tish was such a bitch, and Mona just seemed to cater to her. But it wasn’t just Tish’s presence that prompted Mother and Mrs. P to leave. Mona had been busy baking a cake for her upcoming birthday party. Two days from now. Which I thought was kind of sad, that she had to make her own cake.
But it was Big Eddie’s cake for the party really, Mrs. P explained. There was going to be a potluck for Mona. (“And it’s a surprise, Dix, so don’t go blabbing it.”) But Mona was making a special dietetic ca
ke. While Mother, Mona and most of the others would be enjoying the finest of ice-cream cakes, a few Wildoh residents (Big Eddie and Harriet included) were diabetic. This was generous of Mona. Well above and beyond what most people would think to do.
A hell of a way above and beyond what I would have done.
I’d told Mrs. P what was going on as soon as I arrived home from the police station. And she gave me her first-hand account of what had happened when the cops had come — in multiple squad cars with sirens blaring. Just as Deputy Almond had wanted, every Wildoh resident had dashed out to witness my mother’s arrest. To see her humiliation at being placed in handcuffs.
According to Mrs. Presley, Roger Cassidy had looked angry.
Harriet Appleton had looked smug and satisfied.
Mona had cried. Tish was drunk.
Big Eddie had shaken his head. “But really, I’m not surprised,” he’d declared to the crowd in general.
Mrs. P sat on the couch and listened quietly as I filled in the other blanks. I was tempted to leave out the parts where I told Deputy Almond that mother was such a great escape artist, but I didn’t. I told Mrs. Presley everything — starting at point A and moving on to Z, hitting all points in between, even when those points weren’t so pretty. And I told her about Cotton Carson.
She nodded. “Things’ll be fine, Dix. You’ve got it under control. The lawyer will have your mother out in the morning, and you’ll have this case solved in no time flat.”
I sighed. I believed her on all accounts, but still this had not been a banner day.
“You say you racked up Almond’s bill?” A smile played around Mrs. Presley’s face.
“With the desserts and champagne, I’m thinking by at least a grand.”
“Wouldn’t you like to see the look on his face when he gets that bill, eh?”
I snorted a laugh. “Oh, I’d love to.”
Mrs. P got up and went to Mother’s room and shut the door. I know she made a call or two in there because I could hear the murmurs through the wall. And then this dear sweet little old lady (ha!) told me with all of her usual warmth, “Get out, please.”
