Jeff nodded.
“We’ll do our best to try to track down the person who hurt you, Mr. Resnick.”
Again Jeff nodded. Richard could bet his brother was thinking the same as him: that they weren’t likely to find the culprit or culprits any time soon.
“Can I answer any other questions for you?” Domkowski asked.
Jeff shook his head. “Thank you for taking time out to speak with us. I hope you’ll keep in touch.”
“Count on it.”
Jeff looked toward Richard, who got up and retrieved the crutches and helped him to stand.
“I’ll show you out,” Domkowski said, and the brothers followed him back down the maze of corridors to the station’s lobby.
“Thank you for seeing us,” Richard said, and offered the detective his hand.
“Yes, thanks,” Jeff said and leaned his full weight on his left crutch in order to shake hands with Domkowski.
The brothers left the station and headed for the Mercedes. Once inside, Richard started the engine and lowered the windows, but didn’t immediately pull out of the lot. “So?”
“They’ve got no clue who did this to me. It’s not a priority and we’ll likely never hear from Domkowski again.”
“Is that a gut reaction, or did you get anything from shaking hands with the detective?”
“A little of both.”
Silence fell between them.
“Are you okay after seeing that video?”
“I guess. The details were so blurred, it wasn’t like I could even tell it was me being thrown across the intersection. But I have a feeling the memory of that video is likely to bite me in the ass in the way of nightmares.”
Richard couldn’t think of anything to refute that statement. “What do you want to do next?”
“I suppose I should go to the bank to figure out my next step in reporting the identity theft, although I still haven’t filed an official report with the Amherst cops.”
Richard looked at the dashboard clock. “It’s almost twelve. There might not be anyone available to help you until at least one. How about lunch?”
“Sounds good, but we need to do something for Brenda. She’s been doing more than her fair share of taking care of you, me, and CP, and she hasn’t once complained to me. We—or at least I—need to somehow express my thanks for all she does. I think she’d love to have a date night with you. Unfortunately, I can’t babysit CP the way I am now. Maggie’s got a ton of bricks on her shoulders, but maybe I could convince her to take a night off from packing to be with me and CP. I was sort of hoping she might spend a weekend with me back at my place to give you guys a break. Maybe we could combine the two.”
“Maybe,” Richard agreed. He knew Brenda had been shouldering far too much of the household responsibilities, but his phobia regarding Jeff’s damn cat kept him holed up in his office with the door shut. That closed door had also kept him from spending time with his wife and daughter, and it was unfair to all of them. He’d have to figure out a way to make it up to Brenda and Betsy.
The temperature gauge on the dash told him he could now engage the AC, so he switched it on and closed the windows. “Got a lunch preference?”
Jeff shook his head. “But we should stop to get Brenda some flowers and candy on the way home. She won’t care if they come from the grocery store.”
“I can do better than that,” Richard said.
“Undoubtedly, but it’s the gesture that counts.”
“How did you get so good at figuring out women?”
“Don’t forget, I can read Maggie and Brenda like books. They aren’t into grandstand gestures. Give your wife a kiss or two during the day, and a few kind words, and your life will probably improve a thousand percent.”
“And you do this for Maggie?”
Jeff looked away. “Not nearly enough.”
16
We stopped at a diner, where Richard had his old standby Reuben and I ordered a bowl of Italian wedding soup. I could have done with a cup, because it was all I could do to get down half the serving. I wasn’t eager to admit it aloud, but the video of the SUV actually aiming for me had been far more disturbing than I’d let on. Was I the target or would the psycho driving the vehicle have picked off Dave had he been in my position? I wasn’t likely to ever find out the answer to that.
Considering it was a Monday afternoon, the Amherst branch of Bison Bank was pretty dead. We signed in at the reception counter and soon a woman of about fifty with bleached blonde hair, a long-sleeved blue dress—no doubt worn because of the bank’s arctic temperature—and French manicured acrylic nails, came out of her cubicle to fetch us.
“Sarah Yarnell,” she said, thrusting a hand in Richard’s direction. Dressed in Dockers and a nice golf shirt, he looked a lot tidier than me in my sweatpants and crutches. “How can I help you?”
“It’s me, actually,” I said. “My accounts have been compromised.”
She took in my attire, looked at me skeptically, and I could tell our trip there might be a complete waste of time. Sarah invited us to her cubicle and dutifully told me—in great detail—what the bank would do to try to recover my money, but the vibes I received when shaking her hand told me otherwise. Customers with compromised accounts were looked at as liars and cheats until proven otherwise.
Since we were already there, I shivered while Richard arranged for the bank check to pay for the minivan. That would save time the next morning.
We left the bank and got back into Richard’s car. “So?” he asked.
“My money’s gone. I know how these things work. The money was transferred to one account, and then to another, and another, and to another and another, and they’ll follow the trail only so far and quit, especially since it’s such a paltry sum.”
“You know, with just a little computer sleight of hand, I could—”
“No,” I told my brother. “Two grand isn’t worth you hacking into the bank’s accounts.”
“I’m good,” he said, and I knew it was no brag, but there was no way I wanted anything to sully his reputation—especially on my behalf.
“I may just become a curmudgeon who keeps his money in a sock in a drawer and never trust online anything again.”
“It’s an inconvenient way to live, especially since very few enterprises deal in cash these days.”
Neither of us spoke for a long couple of minutes. I stared out the passenger side window while Richard drove. I thought back to a time when two grand didn’t mean all that much to me—that was when my wife Shelley and I were saving to buy a house in New Jersey. It was expensive to live in Manhattan, but we’d decided we would bank as much of her income as we could and live on my salary. It had worked out well—until Shelley became a cocaine addict. She’d once thrown in my face the fact that our savings was basically money she’d earned and so what if she spent it on herself? Yeah, so what if spending that money on drugs brought her closer and closer to death?
No matter what happened with Tom and Maria at The Whole Nine Yards, I already knew that my time there was up. Did I want another penny-ante job that had me depending on tips to live, or did I cave and let Richard support me and Herschel—knowing the very thought of my cat made his skin crawl?
It was an uncomfortable place to be.
“What are you thinking?” Richard asked.
“About how far I’m wedged between a rock and a hard place.”
“I know.” His voice sounded weary. “I’m lucky to be in a position where I don’t need to care about our new business making a profit. I wish you would accept—”
“Please, Rich, don’t go there.”
“We need to go there. You need to look at my money from a different perspective.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Don’t laugh at what I’m going to say.”
I let out a breath. “Okay.”
“In the grand scheme of things, money is just numbers.”
“What?” Where the hell was he co
ming from?
“You just hope that the numbers rise. But if the numbers behind you are higher than what you need to get by, then all is good.”
Was he speaking in tongues? “What?” I repeated.
“It comes down to being family. Family takes care of one another—especially if they care, and you know Brenda and I care about you.”
“I get that, but I have no idea what you’re inferring.”
“Okay, take the whole thing with trading in Brenda’s car. She was prepared to buy the new minivan with her own money—but she shouldn’t have to. Yeah, she’s trading in her car, but she’s doing so to better accommodate Betsy—our child. The minivan needs to be a family purchase. Her savings shouldn’t have to take a hit.”
“So what are you going to do? Split the difference?”
“Not on your life.”
“How did you talk her into it?”
“I didn’t need to. She accepted my offer—perhaps reluctantly—but she did accept my reasoning.”
I didn’t reply. Maybe I’d ask Brenda about it the next time we had a minute or two to ourselves. She wasn’t all that fond of the Alpert’s old money, either.
We stopped at a florist who also happened to sell boxes of Godiva chocolate, so we—or at least Richard—were good to go in expressing our appreciation to his wife for all she’d taken on to help me. And yet as he pulled into the driveway, I knew that something was wrong.
Richard held the storm door open for me and I went inside, crossing the butler’s pantry and heading into the kitchen. Brenda and CP were nowhere in sight.
“We’re home!” Richard called. We waited a few seconds. “She must be upstairs, maybe putting Betsy down for a nap.”
But I knew that wasn’t the case.
“Where do you want to plop?” Richard asked me, placing the bouquet of flowers and the box of candy on the kitchen table.
“The recliner.” Somehow I knew that was the safer answer.
“Do you need to use the john or anything?”
I shook my head. “I’m good to crash for a while. It’s been a long day.” Sadly, I was already exhausted by the errands we’d run and the day was only a little more than half over. I hobbled off toward the living room.
Richard veered off for the foyer. “Brenda! Brenda!”
Still no answer.
I flopped into the welcoming recliner, setting my crutches on the floor. I pushed back until the chair had extended its full length.
“Coming,” Brenda called, and I heard her footfalls on the stairs. I closed my eyes and tried to relax, but I already knew that sparks were about to ignite. I could hear the murmur of voices, and even from a distance could feel Brenda’s tension rise.
“How could you let this happen?” Richard said sharply, obviously upset.
And then I knew the cause of his agitation.
Brenda spoke in hushed tones but nothing she said seemed to placate my older brother. He practically stomped down the hall and then I heard the door to his study slam shut.
I pushed myself forward until I was sitting. “Brenda?”
A few moments later, Brenda appeared before me. “Do you want a pillow under that leg?” she asked, her voice subdued.
“Yeah, thanks.” Ever the good nurse, she settled one of the king-sized pillows under my leg before she sat on the couch. “Herschel’s loose in the house somewhere, isn’t he?”
She nodded wearily.
“How’d it happen?”
“The door to the craft room must not have caught. I was going to get something from the freezer for dinner and he was behind the butler’s pantry door. He shot out of there at a gallop. By the time I got to the living room, he was nowhere in sight. I’ve spent the last hour looking under beds and couches. I can’t find him.”
I nodded. “He wants to be with me. I suspect if I hang out for a while, he’ll come out to join me.”
“Did you know he’d gone missing when you walked into the house?”
“I had a feeling. Rich is about to have a stroke, isn’t he?”
“He’s not pleased,” Brenda said quietly, which was an understatement. She shook her head. “This was bound to happen sooner or later.”
“I know,” I said guiltily.
She let out a breath. “This may actually be a good thing. It might be an opportunity for Richard to face his fears.”
“I’m sure he’s not looking at the situation in that light.”
“I don’t like spiders, but I deal with them,” Brenda said firmly.
“Yeah, but how would you feel if there was a snake loose in the house?”
Brenda frowned. “I’d freak out, and much louder and crazier than Richard,” she admitted.
“I guess we have to look at it from his perspective.”
Movement caught my eye and as I’d predicted, Herschel strolled into the living room as though he owned the place. He jumped up on my lap and let me pet him. “You’re a bad boy, Herschel.”
“He sure is,” Brenda said, annoyed. “I chased all over the house looking for you and you have the audacity to just saunter in here?”
Herschel turned his back to her and began to purr—loudly.
“I’m sorry. I’m—we’re—” I corrected, but she didn’t let me finish.
“You’re both a pain in the ass,” she agreed, “but if the situation were reversed, Richard and I know you’d be there for us—and Betsy.”
Yeah. I would.
“I hate that Rich wants me to choose between him and Herschel. If push came to shove, you know I’d choose Rich. But this is just a temporary situation. I can’t abandon Herschel, either. Do you think I should board him?” Not that I had any money, and my new credit card hadn’t yet arrived, either.
Brenda shook her head. “Back in Pasadena, I had a friend—Sally Schmidt—who took a three-week cruise. She boarded her cat at her vet’s office—a place she trusted. And yet that poor cat was so stressed out it died from missing her. She never forgave herself. You love Herschel. If that happened, you’d never forgive yourself, either.”
Yeah, but I could go visit him. It would be time consuming and difficult—and I’d have to depend on Richard or Brenda to take me there, which would be extremely inconvenient—but it could be done.
I changed tacks. “Would you guys trust me on my own at night back across the driveway?”
Again, Brenda shook her head. “I wouldn’t feel comfortable with that arrangement. The truth is, if you fell and hurt yourself in the middle of the night, you wouldn’t call us until morning, and I can’t allow that to happen.”
“Then I don’t see how we can solve this problem.”
Brenda’s gaze shifted to the floor as Herschel made himself comfortable, wedging himself between my left leg and the side of the chair. “Let me work on it,” she said thoughtfully.
“Okay.”
She scrutinized my face. “You look wiped. But did you learn anything today to help with your investigations?”
“Only that it looks like someone deliberately slammed that SUV into me and my bike.”
“Oh my God,” Brenda said, appalled.
“I don’t mean I was specifically targeted, just that it was a malicious thing to do. Witnesses weren’t able to provide the cops with a license number, so whoever did it as a lark is likely to get away with it.”
“What kind of sick person could do that?”
I yawned. “You just said it—a sick person.” I closed my eyes and must have fallen asleep, because when I opened them again, it was Richard who sat on the couch, holding a glass of Scotch, just staring at me.
“Why are you looking at me when I’m asleep?” I asked, still groggy.
“I wasn’t watching you—I was watching the cat.”
“Herschel,” I told him for the millionth time, which caused my boy’s ears to twitch in my direction.
“Whatever,” Richard said, and sipped his Scotch.
“Why?”
“Brenda put me in tim
e out.”
“She’s punishing you?”
“It sure feels that way,” he muttered and took another sip. “She thinks I need to at least get used to looking at the cat—Herschel,” he corrected himself.
I reached over to pet the little guy’s head, which usually made him purr—but not then. He stared intently at Richard as if he knew he could unnerve him by just doing it.
I looked at the mantle clock; part of me was surprised to see it was almost six. Then again, Richard had that glass of Scotch, which meant happy hour had commenced.
I yawned. “What have you been up to all afternoon?”
“Genealogy.”
“I didn’t know you were interested.”
“Not ours—Alice’s.”
“How far back?”
“Not back; forward. I wondered if she had any living relatives we might be able to talk to.”
“And?”
“After her mother’s death; her father remarried.”
“We already knew that, right?”
“Yes. His second wife was much younger than him.”
“By how much?”
“Almost thirty years.”
“You say that like you disapprove. You’re thirteen years older than Brenda.”
“Hiram’s new wife was only a year or two older than Alice would have been.”
I shrugged. “I guess you’re right; that is kind of creepy. What else?”
“They had two children: Arthur and Thelma. They’d be elderly now. I’ve been able to track down the last known address of the son and his children, but not the daughter. She got married and had a daughter, then seems to have dropped off the face of the earth.”
Herschel stood and yawned, as if our topic of conversation had bored him. He walked across my lap.
“Where’s he going?” Richard asked, sounding panicked.
“Probably to get something to eat or go to the can.”
Sure enough, Herschel jumped down and sashayed off in the direction of the kitchen. Richard set his glass down, grabbed my crutches, and practically yanked me out of the chair. I stumped along after my cat.
CP sat in her highchair, smearing a gummy cookie through her hair, while Brenda sliced a tomato for the salad she was preparing. She looked up as the male parade entered the kitchen. Herschel seemed to glide through and into the butler’s pantry, with Brenda suddenly in hot pursuit. He entered the craft room and she quickly shut the door behind him.
Shattered Spirits Page 17
