“Gentlemen. Sarah,” he said. Vincenzo sounded like he was here to pay a social call.
He shook hands with Officer Jones. “Dave, I heard your son is being scouted by some great colleges.”
Vincenzo knew Officer Jones? That had to be good.
Jones smiled. “He is.” He glanced at Pellner with a bit of a superior smirk on his face. “Everyone from Boston College to USC has been by.”
The look or news didn’t faze Pellner.
“He has a big decision ahead, then,” Vincenzo said. They chatted about the pros and cons of various football teams for a few minutes while I stared in amazement. “I don’t want to keep you, Dave.” Vincenzo turned to the bail clerk. Somehow, I only had to pay a forty-dollar fee and was released on my own recognizance. But only after they set an arraignment date for Monday morning.
* * *
Seconds later I was sliding across the smooth leather of Vincenzo’s Mercedes and greeting his driver. Vincenzo settled in once I was out of the way. The driver took off immediately.
“What happens next?” I asked Vincenzo.
“Jones is an overzealous idiot,” Vincenzo said.
I was shocked. He seemed to like the guy while we were in the station. “So the charges will be dropped?”
“We have a good case, and your association with the district attorney won’t hurt us any.”
“But what if being associated with me hurts Seth? He’s running for reelection. It’s a tight race with that older candidate who keeps mocking Seth’s youth.”
“Seth has proven himself in the past year.” Vincenzo frowned.
“What? Why are you frowning?” I’d rarely seen Vincenzo frown.
“I don’t want you to worry about it.”
“How can I not? Just lay it out there for me,” I said. I sounded way more confident than I felt on the inside. On the inside I wanted to make like an ostrich and bury my head in the sand.
“Okay.” He glanced at me. “In Massachusetts, if the goods were stolen, which it sounds like they were, the prosecution doesn’t have to establish the identity of who stole them originally. Just the fact you had them could be enough.”
My lip started to quiver.
“But the definition of possession will work to our advantage. We will challenge the fact that you were the one in actual possession of the goods. The prosecution will have to prove that beyond a reasonable doubt. We need to find the Greens.” He paused. “And by we, I don’t mean you. I have an investigator who I’ll have work the case.”
“Is that it? Is that all they will need to do to convict me? Prove I was in possession of the items?” What if no one found the Greens?
“No. They also have to persuade the jury that you knew you were selling stolen goods. A person can’t be convicted if she only acted foolishly. You believed the clients who hired you were honest people. I think we have a good case to prove that.”
“Oh great, the world will know I acted foolishly.” Vincenzo gave me a sideways look. “Okay,” I said, “it’s better than being convicted.”
He nodded.
“Is there anything that will help the prosecution’s case?” I asked.
“Yes, unfortunately.”
“Tell me. I’d rather know what we are up against. My imagination is way worse than the reality.”
Vincenzo nodded. “The test of a defendant’s guilt in a case like this is subjective. The prosecution can try to prove you knew you were selling stolen goods based on their price. For example, if you are selling a diamond ring way below its actual value, that could provide sufficient circumstantial evidence that you knew the item was stolen.”
Oh boy. I slumped into the corner of the seat. If Vincenzo thought that, I was in bigger trouble than I thought. “But it’s a freaking garage sale. Everything is sold below its normal value.”
“And we will point that out. We have an excellent case. I don’t like to lose, and I don’t plan to start losing now. If the police contact you, get hold of me first.”
I felt like we’d been down this road together before and not just the one to my house. His driver pulled up in front of my building.
“My car is still in Billerica where the garage sale was supposed to be.” I’d been so relieved to get out of the police station, I’d completely forgotten.
“Give me your keys and I’ll have someone drive it over to you within the hour.”
I handed over my keys and got out of the car. “Thanks.”
CHAPTER FIVE
As soon as I got home at noon, I tried calling the Greens. Still no answer. I grabbed my laptop and searched for any communications from the Greens. Surely, I must have some e-mails. Nope. Nothing. Texts? No. Now that I thought about it, all our conversations had been over the phone, so I had a record of our calls. I called. Again and again. No answer. I left messages even though by now I figured they wouldn’t be calling me back.
Maybe the number was for a burner phone or a stolen one or they used caller ID spoofing. It was then it sank in how very clever they were and how much trouble I was in. While I wanted to give in to the nerves and go all hysterical wailing female, I didn’t have that luxury. I had to find them before they left town and disappeared forever.
Next, I went through Tufts University’s website searching for Alex Green. I even called the school after I couldn’t find him on their website. They hadn’t ever heard of him, which at this point wasn’t too surprising. Did Kate have a job? I can’t remember ever discussing that with them. I combed through a bunch of social media sites. Green was a common name, as were Kate and Alex. I spent over an hour sifting through profiles of people who were Greens, just not the ones I wanted. Why hadn’t I looked them up online before I’d first met them? It was because they’d seemed so trustworthy. A lack of presence on social media would have been a warning, a big red flag telling me something was wrong. I ended up being friends with lots of my clients on various social media platforms. I berated myself again for being so lax.
I made a fluffernutter sandwich of white bread, peanut butter, and marshmallow fluff. It was my go-to meal because of my lousy cooking skills. Fluffernutters were a staple in New England homes and schools. It baffled me that it hadn’t spread across the country. I made a pot of coffee to go with it.
After I ate I started searching virtual garage sale sites in the area. I went to mine first. Maybe that’s how they’d first stumbled on to me. Wait, what had they said to me? I couldn’t remember much more than they said I’d come highly recommended. Apparently, I’m such a sucker for flattery it had clouded my judgment. Then again, they had the fresh-faced, very friendly, Midwestern thing down to a T. They also had mentioned my website. I went to it. Sometimes people left comments, but as I suspected they hadn’t left a trace of themselves there.
In a last desperate attempt, I searched my reviews on other websites. They were mostly good. I had high ratings. What would the Greens have said anyway?
“Completely naive.”
“Excellent fall guy/gal.”
“Sarah’s great at selling stolen goods. Four stars. Highly recommended.”
Ugh, that kind of thinking was getting me nowhere. I had a meeting this afternoon at four with a potential client and wanted to wash off the stink of the morning. After Vincenzo had my Suburban dropped off, I took a shower and lay down with cucumbers on my eyes to try to make some of the puffiness go away. After resting and with a lot of makeup, I didn’t look too bad. At least I hoped I didn’t. I’d been tempted to cancel the meeting and do some more wallowing, but I worried that I was going to need every last client I could scrounge up once word of my arrest got around.
* * *
On the way over to meet my client I decided to make a quick stop at the Dunkin’ Donuts on Great Road, where I’d originally met the Greens. Normally, I drove through the drive-through. But I parked and went in. Part of me hoped they would be sitting in there with a simple explanation of what had happened. No such luck. I ordered a coffee from a
young guy who worked lots of hours here and was often working the drive-through window.
I no longer had to ask him to leave room for cream, he just did it. “Anything else?” he asked.
He knew how much I like their donuts. “No food, but I do have a question. Have you ever seen this couple in here?” I handed him my phone. Please, please, please say yes.
“No.” He handed the phone back to me.
“Thanks for looking.”
“Yeah. The picture isn’t the best. I’m not sure I’d recognize them even if they came in every day.”
“He has a little comma-shaped birthmark on his right cheek,” I said.
He handed me my coffee. “Sorry. That doesn’t sound familiar.”
I took my coffee and carried it to a table. One where I could watch the entrance and the drive-through. This wasn’t a busy time of day. I could sit here for a few minutes before I had to head to my appointment. But of course the Greens didn’t come in. After I finished my coffee, I went to the bathroom. Maybe the Greens had seen me come in and had hidden. That, too, was a dead end.
* * *
At four o’clock I stood on the doorstep of a cape-style house in Ellington for my meeting with a potential new client. I wore a black pencil skirt with a tailored white shirt, hoping I looked professional and not like someone who’d spent the morning in jail. The morning clouds had left, the sun warmed the air, and on any other day I’d be enjoying the changing leaves on the trees.
The door opened after I rang the bell. I smiled and worked hard not to stare.
“Hi.” A blond woman who looked to be in her early forties answered the door. “I’m Kitty Thompson.”
She had on a bright pink fifties-style poodle skirt, only instead of a poodle there was a silhouette of a Siamese cat. Her blouse was a lighter shade of pink and was embellished with black cats. Her glasses were a cat-eye style with rhinestones on the corners, and her fingers were bedecked with rings with cats on them. She had a white headband in her blond hair that looked like sequined cat ears. I maintained my pleasant smile while wondering if this was the proverbial crazy cat lady. If there was one thing I’d learned since I’d opened my business a year and a half ago, it was there were all kinds of quirky people in the world. And as long as they paid me, I could overlook that. I added a new caveat to the philosophy. And as long as they actually owned the goods they were selling.
I introduced myself.
“I’ve heard so much about you,” Kitty said.
She was about to hear a whole lot more when the news of my arrest hit. I wondered if she’d still want to work with me then. Instead of stepping back to let me in, she stepped out on the small porch with me. Two planters that looked like cat heads were filled with bright yellow mums.
“Follow me. I want to show you my vision.”
Oh boy, from past experience the clients I’d had with “visions” had been difficult to work with. So I was leery of clients with visions. Heck, I was just leery of clients right now. “Sure,” I said. I’d been working on my poker face recently, so I hope I passed.
I followed her down the driveway to the curb, where we turned and looked at her house.
“What do you see when you look at my house?” she asked.
What the heck was the right answer here? “A charming, well-kept cape,” I said. Kitty frowned. “In a lovely neighborhood with a mix of Victorian-, colonial-, and cape-style houses. It’s a wonderful area of town,” I added. And it was. It was within walking distance of some restaurants, Whole Foods, and Marshalls. It’s probably better for my pocketbook that I had to drive to those places. Kitty was still frowning.
I squinted at the house, thought about Kitty and her apparent love for cats. Then it clicked. “The dormers kind of look like a cat’s ears. The windows eyes. The door a mouth.” That was a stretch, but I had a good imagination.
“Yes.” Kitty bounced on her toes. “I’m going to sell some of my collection of cat things so I can make my house look even more like a cat.”
CHAPTER SIX
What? A cat house? I worked hard not to let my jaw drop. I didn’t think her neighbors would love that idea, but I’m not sure what they could do about it.
“I’m going to install a little round pink window above the door for the cat nose. And then I’m going to round the roof so it will look like the top of a cat’s head. I’m working with a gardener who is helping me with some kind of viney plant to wrap around rods for the whiskers. Don’t you just love it?”
“It’s very inventive,” I said. Her poor neighbors.
“If my backyard was bigger, I’d do some kind of addition in the shape of a cat’s tail. But the yard is too small and the alley is in the way.”
Kitty looked so sad I started to feel bad for her. “So what do you have to sell to fund this . . . project?” I asked. Whew, I almost said lunacy.
Kitty started bouncing again. “Come on in.” I followed her up the sidewalk. “I can’t wait for you to meet Duchess and Toulouse.” I smiled politely. “Get it?” she asked. “Two of the cats in the Disney movie The Aristocats?”
“Of course,” I said. I had some vague memory of watching it
“It’s one of my favorite movies along with two oldies, That Darn Cat! and Thomasina.” Kitty opened the door and ushered me in.
We stood in a small foyer with a staircase in the middle and rooms to either side. The pink wallpaper was printed with sleek black cats with their tails curled up. The wall leading up the stairs had paintings of cats in matching brown frames. I climbed up the stairs to study them.
“Those are the fur babies I’ve owned over the years.”
“Who is the artist?” I asked. “They’re very good.” Very lifelike. “I can almost hear them purring.”
“I painted them. It’s one of my hobbies.”
“Is this what you do for a living?”
“Oh, no. I’m an accountant,” Kitty said. “I work with numbers all day long.”
“I think you could make a lot of money painting people’s pets.”
“Do you really?” Kitty started bouncing again.
I wanted to put my hands on her shoulders to stop her. “I do. Are you planning to sell these?”
“I couldn’t. They are my heart.”
I nodded. “Okay, so why don’t you show me what you are thinking about selling.” I trotted back down the stairs.
“You are going to have to help me. I don’t want to part with anything. But between you and me, the place is getting a little crowded.”
“I have to warn you I can be tough.” I grinned to soften my words.
“That’s just what I need.”
Two cats pranced out just then, one orange and one gray. Kitty picked up the orange one. “This is Toulouse.” She thrust him into my arms. I hadn’t told her I was allergic yet. “And this sweet girl is Duchess.”
Toulouse started purring, and I cuddled him close for a minute before setting him down and trying to subtly wipe my hands on my black pencil skirt. “They are adorable. You just have the two cats?”
“Yes. I’m not one of those crazy cat ladies.” Her cat earrings swung as she said it. “Toulouse is the more social of the two. Duchess is leery of strangers and sticks close to me.”
“Obviously,” I said.
“Follow me,” Kitty said. We walked through room after room decorated with cat items. Toulouse followed us, but Duchess had disappeared. There were throw pillows, curtains, rugs, clocks, lamps, dishes, glasses, placemats, refrigerator magnets—all decorated with cats. There was even a coat tree that looked like a cat. You could hang your coat on the whiskers, ears, and tail. And that was all on the first floor.
We headed up the stairs. Up here it was shower curtains, tub decals, soap dispensers, bedspreads, pillowcases, more throw pillows, paintings, lampshades, and even a cat night-light. In Kitty’s office there were cat paper clips, curtains, and a desk chair upholstered in a pink fabric with white dancing kittens. Instead of spots in fron
t of my eyes, I had cats in them. You name it and it came with cats on it. I felt like I’d fallen asleep and woke up in kitty city. More surprising is that Kitty made it work for the most part, and the place was pretty cute.
“Is that it?” I asked when we came down from the second floor.
“There’s the basement,” Kitty said.
Moments later we stood in a low-ceilinged unfinished room. The walls were cement block. It was dingy, musty, and I just wanted to get out of there. Boxes were stacked floor to ceiling and made it even creepier.
“How long since you’ve opened any of these boxes?” I asked.
“Awhile.” Kitty looked reluctant.
“Define awhile,” I said.
“At least a year. Maybe two.”
“It’s all filled with cat items?” I asked.
Kitty nodded.
“Then this can all go.” I gestured with my hand.
Kitty gasped. “All of it?”
“Do you want to redo the outside of your house or not?” I asked. I headed back upstairs and blinked in the bright light of the kitchen. There was a whole wall of cat clocks. Most of them had eyes and tails that moved. Individually, I loved these kinds of clocks. But together they were a bit much—make that too much.
“You’re right,” Kitty said when she came upstairs. “The project is more important.”
“Think of all the cat lovers you will make happy,” I said as I walked to the front of the house.
Kitty grabbed my arm. “I hadn’t thought of that.” She smiled. “I’ll be helping other people, too. Thank you, Sarah. You have a great cattitude.”
I laughed politely. “I’m going to need you to go through the upstairs of your house and put stickers on the things you absolutely can’t part with. I’ll come back tomorrow.” If I wasn’t in jail. “And help you make the tough decisions.”
“Okay. Can you come up with a great name for the sale that will draw more people?” she asked.
I thought for a moment. “How about the Biggest, Most Cat-tastic Garage Sale Ever?”
Let's Fake a Deal Page 3
