A DEAD RED MIRACLE: #5 in the Dead Red Mystery Series (12 page)

The insurance man from Sierra Vista looked at my card and smiled. "You're the LB on our reports, aren't you? Ron never said, but we always thought the hired help was doing most of the work."

I would've corrected him on our status as hired help, but I could do that later. "Gee, thanks! All we're asking is that you consider using our services."

He stuck out his hand. "I'll be happy to recommend you to my boss."

I thanked him and turned for the car, a grin on my face and my step lighter for the first time since Ron's death. Maybe things would turn out after all.

My euphoria lasted for about two more steps until a hand grabbed my arm. I turned to face the last two people I wanted to see today. Velma and Zelma, hands on wide hips, sour expressions on their vivid red lips. Wasn't it enough that I had to listen to their squabbling over who got their check first? Maybe Ron hadn't gone from one to the other so much as he simply gave up and gave in. I bet they were sorry now.

"We know you weren't
just
his employees," Velma sneered.

"Yeah, who do you think you are anyways?" Zelma added, looking me up and down.

Who did I think I was? I started to tell her that we were his business partners… then I did a mental head smack. We had it all wrong. The sisters didn't know about the contract, they thought we were fooling around with Ron. As Pearlie would say,
Ewww!

Pearlie and I were convinced it was simply Ron's big ego that made him want to keep our partnership a secret, when the truth was he didn't want his exes to know he was cutting them loose. I had another thought―if they didn't know we still owed him his final payment, did we really want to tell them? I almost laughed. Trust Ron to teach all of us the finer points of bad behavior. No, no. I couldn't let the lie stand. It was hard to swallow, but better now than later.

"I wasn't his employee, Zelma. Pearlie and I were his business partners."

"Whadya mean, business partners? Ron said―"

As far as the two women were concerned, we were merely there to warm his lap? Double
ewww.

"Sorry to break it to you but Ron lied a lot. Three years ago, we answered his ad. He wanted to sell his business. We had experience, but not the kind that the state of Arizona would accept to get our P.I. licenses. We struck a deal. He got a down payment and we split the expenses and profits. After three years of indentured servitude, we'd give him his last check and he'd write us a letter of recommendation to the state of Arizona. He didn't tell you any of this?"

Zelma put her hand to her forehead and groaned. I knew just how she felt.

It took Velma two seconds before all the pieces clicked into place and then her mouth rounded into multiple zeros. "How much did he get? I mean before he was killed?"

"Twenty thousand."

"No!" Seeing that I was telling the truth, the two women looked at each other, triumph glittering in their eyes. "Then we get what you owed him."

"Sorry, no. We insisted on a watertight contract drawn up by a lawyer. In case one of us died, the remaining partners became sole heirs to the business."

"He did no such thing!" Zelma cried.

In any other circumstance, I would've felt sorry for them. Velma patted her sister's shoulder, all the while considering me through narrowed eyes. If I stayed one minute longer the two of them would start peppering me with questions and Pearlie and I were on a deadline.

I heard Pearlie come up behind me and ask, "What's going on here?"

Seeing an out, I took Pearlie's arm and towed her for the car, opened my door, got in and buckled up. "Go!"

"What did they want?" she asked, the car in idle.

I pointed to Velma and Zelma, their offspring trailing behind the women as they charged at us. "We need to leave. Now!"

Seeing this would not end well, Pearlie jammed the gas to the floor and left Ron's angry family in our dusty wake.

On the way back to the office, I explained our predicament. Even with Ron's contract drawn up by an attorney, the two sisters could tie us up in court, making it impossible to get our licenses, much less stay in business.

Pearlie huffed out a sigh and swung into the nearest McDonald's. "As scary as those two are, we gotta come up with a plan. Let's get something to eat."

My stomach churned. The thought of eating made me nauseous, but not Pearlie. I got out and followed her inside.

I was given the job of filling up our drinks, while she carried the heavily laden tray of a double cheeseburger and large fries to a table.

"What we need," she said popping a fry into her mouth, "is a way to distract those two so we can get back to solving these cases, collect our payment from Damian's mother and get our license."

"Good luck with that," I said, my voice wobbling with frustration. "They'll take us to court. This could drag out for years. We'll lose everything we've worked for."

She took a bite out of the burger, swallowed and took a gulp of her drink. "You got me
diet
Coke? Did you know that Aspertame forces your body to think you're using a lot more sugar and that it actually makes you more hungry than if you'd just had regular sugar?"

"No, the thought never occurred to me―probably because all I can think of is what I'm going to do for a living and flipping burgers is not on that tiny list!"

"Keep your voice down, will ya?" Pearlie picked the onion out of her burger. "I told them no onions. What was I trying to say before you gave me that poisonous diet drink? Oh yeah, what can we give those two that will make them back off?"

I took in a deep breath and blew it out, trying to calm my mounting panic. "That last twenty grand we owed Ron, but don't have?"

"And what do
we
want?" she asked, taking the last bite of her burger.

"Money to pay our bills?"

"Oh, come on. You're so wound up, you're not hearing yourself," she said, wiping her lips of the last of her burger. "Have some fries."

I pulled a fry out of the bag and chewed. It might as well have been sand in my mouth. "There's nothing wrong with my hearing. We're screwed five ways to Sunday and it's all Ron's fault."

Pearlie sighed. "Of course it's his fault, but there's nothing we can do about it now."

"We don't have the twenty grand to pay them and it's too late to kill Ron for all the crap he's put us through."

Pearlie put another French fry in her mouth and chewed. "Did you know that they both got laid off from their jobs?"

"Fascinating. At least they'll get unemployment. We get nothing."

"Right. But back to what I was sayin'. What if we offer to pay Zelma and Velma the last of what we owed Ron, but they have to work it off by helping at the office?"

"You're the super financial wiz in the family, so where do we get the money to pay for secretaries?" I was beginning to sound a bit squeaky.

"They've got unemployment, don't they? We got two cases to solve. They can answer phones while keeping an eye on us. If nothing else, they'll see for themselves that we're not withholding anything from them."

I felt my stomach turn over. "You really think it'll work?"

"Might as well ask them," she said, nodding at the two women and four teenagers coming through the door.

"Oh crap! They followed us?"

"Everybody's gotta eat," Pearlie said, waving the sisters over.

So do rattlesnakes and poisonous spiders, but that doesn't mean we have to be on the menu.

The two accepted Pearlie's invitation to join us. Burgers all around seemed to calm the suspicious sisters and settle their offspring long enough for Pearlie to outline her plan.

After firing off questions, they looked at each other, nodded and stuck out their hands.

"You want a contract?" Pearlie asked.

Zelma cracked a grin. "What for? The sooner we solve these cases, the sooner you can pay us."

"We'll take the kids home and meet you at your office," Velma said.

An hour later, they joined us in the office where we showed them our evidence board.

I was impressed when the sisters whipped out identical notebooks and jotted the particulars of each case.

"Even if Wade did kill Ron, we still have the cold case to solve on Damian's father."

"What time tomorrow?" Velma asked.

"Do we get a key to the office?" Zelma asked.

"We don't want to be seen standing around in the hallway," Velma said.

"We'd look like criminals trying to break in," Zelma finished.

"And where do we sit?" Velma asked, looking around the office space.

"Use Ron's desk, or ours, when we're not here," I said.

The sisters gave Ron's desk a baleful look and I took pity on them. "I'll pick up folding tables and chairs tonight and you girls can fight over who gets what tomorrow."

Pearlie reached into her handbag and handed Zelma her key. "Nine a.m. is fine, and I'll get another one made tomorrow."

Satisfied with the arrangements, they left.

"They'll have gone through everything in this office by the time we get here tomorrow," I said, wearily.

"I sure hope so. Maybe they'll come up with some more business."

She was right, of course. While our file cabinets held nothing but closed cases, the sisters might yet be able to squeeze some new business out of those old files.

"What're you going to do for a key?" I asked.

Pearlie, well aware that I was unable to break my early morning habit as an aero-ag pilot, said, "Someone will be here at nine a.m. It just won't be me."

"It's already five-thirty. I'd like to think that I could go home and enjoy a nice dinner with my husband but I'd rather not tell Caleb I’m looking into a rumor about his best friend. I think I should make that call and see if I can drive up there now."

"Sooner the better," Pearlie said, flipping through the newspaper.

"Do you have any plans for tonight?"

"Like you said, any other day I'd be having dinner," she said, opening a drawer and smacking a file folder onto the desk, "but tonight I'll be here going over the old photos of the shoot-out. Call me if the woman has anything concrete on Andy Sokolov."

I had my doubts. Why had she kept quiet all these years? Had someone interviewed the daughter and decided the girl had lied? Hormonal teenagers had been known to tell tales for the attention. Or had she been paid off?

I left a message for Caleb telling him I was working late, then left for the hour-and-a-half drive to Tucson thinking if she wasn't at home or had changed her mind about seeing me, I'd stop by Costco and pick up supplies for the office and home.

I enjoyed my solo drive listening to National Public Radio instead of country western music, but at the Kolb exit, I hit the Blue Tooth and dialed Margaret Painter's number. She answered the phone as if she'd been sitting on it.

Her home was a single story ranch house south of the University of Arizona and I no sooner put a foot out of the car than she was at the door, waiting. She was calmly observing me, as I was her. I got out, closed the car door and waved.

She waved back.

As I got to the porch, she looked up and smiled. "It's still hot out here," she said, backing her wheelchair up to make room for me to come inside.

Someone forgot to tell me Andy Sokolov's accuser was in a wheelchair.

.

Chapter Eighteen:

Margaret Painter wheeled her chair aside and I slipped into the cool house while she closed the front door. "Some years I keep the A/C on almost to Thanksgiving. Can I offer you some iced tea or a soda?"

"Water would be great," I said.

"Have a seat in the living room and I'll bring it out."

I thanked her and stepped into her living room. The house looked to be tiled throughout, the grout worn in a few places, making me think the house had been tiled some years back.

There was no clutter to trip a wheelchair and the furniture was simple and spare. The dining room had an oak dining table with dusty and never used place mats, a sofa against the window, the soft indentation in one corner and a TV tray on wheels pushed to the side. Pictures in frames on the walls appeared to be the only decoration. All of them of her and a child who progressed in age until the last one where she looked to be about fifteen.

"One water for you and a Sprite for me," she said, setting the tray on the coffee table and handing me the cold glass of water with ice. "They grow up so fast. Do you have children, Ms Bains?"

Unable to think of a suitable reason other than my own personal tardiness, I simply said, "No, I'm sorry to say, I haven't."

I stood where I was, waiting to see if she would transfer to the sofa or if she wanted me to stay long enough to be seated.

She motioned me to the sofa and picked up her glass. "You're not with social services?"

"No, I'm a private investigator."

"How much were you told about my allegations against Andy Sokolov?"

"Not much. We have another case, totally unrelated, but his name came up and I'd like to hear your side."

"You won't be able to do anything with it. He'll deny it all. He's very good at denial. A real charmer our Andy."

I brought out my notebook a little powder pink mini-recorder. It looks just enough like toy to appear non-threatening.

Holding it in my hands, I said, "Would you mind if I recorded our conversation? I can take notes, but my handwriting is so bad, sometimes even I can't read it."

She stared at the recorder for a minute. "It's just for your notes, right? What I tell you won't get back to him, will it?"

I put the notebook and recorder on the table and leaned back into the cushions. "That depends. What would you like to see happen to Andy Sokolov?"

Her face scrunched into a mask of pain. "I'd love to see him go to prison for what he did to us."

"I thought you might say that," I said, picking up the recorder. I turned it on and laid it on the coffee table. When we finished the preliminaries, I asked her to tell me her side of the story.

"I've been sober for fourteen years, eight months and twenty days. That's almost fifteen years to the day since he molested my daughter." She paused, taking another sip of her drink before continuing.

"I deeply regret the years I was lost in self-pity and alcohol. AA taught me that nothing but sobriety would give me a chance at life again.

"My husband left when Bonnie was five. We were both drinkers then. Fighters too, not all of it his fault, some of it was mine, but it took a toll. Drinking leads to spiteful, hurtful words, and then someone cheats on someone and it all ends in divorce court. He paid child support, but I gave him such a bad time about the money, that after a while he just stopped with the visits, the phone calls and the child-support. I tried the courts but a man can go off the grid and just vanish, you know."

In a voice filled with self-loathing, she continued. "I didn't care. I had a job. I had my work, my kid and my booze. In case you've never heard the term, that's called a functioning alcoholic. Two steps one way or the other and I would've been a falling down drunk. And if I hadn't had Bonnie, I'm sure I would've been found dead in a gutter. Yet, for all my self-pity, my self-serving grandiose opinion of myself, I had no idea my poor baby would think it was her fault that her daddy wasn't here. We never really know what little kids think. I sure never thought to ask her. Too busy.

"When Bonnie turned fifteen, she decided it was my fault that her daddy never came around, or sent birthday or Christmas gifts. I knew having a teenager is like doing hard time. She was already difficult, all over the place with black lipstick and seventeen-year-old boyfriends. I was at my wit's end. Then Andy showed up and asked if Bonnie would like to join his softball team, I was elated. Softball? Yeah sure, why not?"

"How did you find out?" I asked.

"She started coming home late from practice. I would have dinner waiting and her excuse was that she and Andy's family went to pizza or she had to wait for him to finish a meeting with the other coaches. I think it was about the third time she waltzed in at nine o'clock on a school night and I told her I'd have to talk to Andy about these late nights. I remember thinking how I would regret not having his help if he dropped her. I was thinking of me. Not my daughter.

"But then she looked at the half-empty glass in my hand and lifted her chin in that way she would do when she was feeling defiant and she said, 'You're not ever going to take me away from Andy. Not like you did with Daddy. Andy won't allow it.'

"I put down my drink, got out of my chair and slapped her across the face. Wasn't that what a mother is supposed to do when her fifteen-year-old daughter smarts off to her? But I wasn't listening, was I? Not with two-fifths of vodka swimming through my veins. But I thought about those words all the next day at work and when I came home, there was a note on the kitchen table that said Andy had picked her up for practice. I called his wife. No practice tonight, his wife said. I was too proud and too scared to say the words, what I suspected, so I went looking on my own. My last option was the backside of the Lavender Pit mine. You know that place where the kids go to park? He had a '57 Chevy he'd remodeled and the damn thing was rocking. The bastard. I flew out of my car, ran to the passenger side and yanked her out of that car so fast she didn't have time to cover herself. I was a mad woman, screaming profanities at them both, telling him I was going to ruin him as I shoved her toward our car.

"Bonnie was crying and buttoning her dress when I started the down-hill drive and home. I told her to buckle up, but I don't think she heard me, or maybe it was just another way to defy me. It was her last," she said, unable to finish, she swiped at the tears running down her cheeks.

"Then what happened?" I asked.

"He came after us. I felt the bumper nudge up on mine. He backed off, flashing his lights. He wanted me to stop. He wanted to talk. Bonnie laughed and waved at him. 'Pull over,' she said. Like it was all some crazy game that I refused to play.

"When I wouldn't pull over, he continued to follow us down the hill. By this time, Bonnie and I were yelling at each other, me accusing, her blaming. She swore at me and grabbed at the wheel. He must've seen us struggling and this time his nudge caught a corner, shoving the car into the side of the mountain. Naturally, I yanked the wheel back the other way and before I knew it, we were going off the road and over the cliff. Over and over and over. Three hundred feet they said, to the bottom."

"The wheelchair―is it the result of your accident?"

"Or you can call it my just desserts," she said reaching over and picking up a music box in the shape of a boat with a sailor boy in it. "I was legally drunk."

"And Bonnie?" I asked quietly.

"That picture of her on the wall? That was her sophomore prom. It's the last picture I have of her. I was convicted of negligent manslaughter, got probation and court ordered rehab. Andy got off scot free. So what do you think, Ms. Bains? Any ideas on how you can nail Mayor Sokolov for having sex with a fifteen-year-old?"

I shook my head. "Do you know if there were other girls he might've molested?"

She put the music box on the table. "I haven't kept in touch with anyone in Wishbone. Not for the last ten or so years. I have a job at the library in Tucson and I attend AA, but child molesters are never really rehabilitated, are they?"

"I wish I knew the answer," I said, and stood. "But I'll certainly see what I can do. I have a long drive home. Could I use your bathroom before I go?"

"Sure," she said, "there's only the one and it's at the end of the hallway."

I used the sound of the flushing toilet to open her medicine cabinet. Bottles lined up like little soldiers ready to battle viruses and bacteria of the wheelchair bound. The one I was looking for was also there; oxycodone, a strong painkiller favored by addicts. Looking at the date, the quantity in the prescription and the number of tablets left in the bottle, I was relieved to see that she hadn't exchanged one addiction for another.

When I came back into the living room, she was winding up the music box. "He came to the hospital while they were still working to save my spine. He brought flowers and this music box and told me how it was all going to play out. He'd retained a lawyer and he'd do everything he could to see that I got probation, but it wouldn't do me or my case any good to accuse him of sexual abuse, not when everyone knew I was an unreliable mother and a drunk. Then he put the music box on the over-bed table where it was out of my reach and flipped the switch. I had to lay there in traction, tears streaming down my face while the music box played,
My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean
. You know that song? I keep it to remind myself," she said, releasing the switch and letting a verse tinkle out before turning it off. "That's the kind of man Andy Sokolov is."

She opened the front door and once again wheeled aside to allow me to leave. I turned to her and held out my hand. She took it and looked up at me, the question in her sad eyes.

"You understand," I said, "I can't guarantee anything."

"Bringing Andy Sokolov to justice would take a miracle, but I can hope, can't I?"

I should regret leaving her with any kind of hope. A miracle would be a long shot, yet, I would never again hear that children's song without thinking of Andy Sokolov's cruelty. If it took me a lifetime, I would find a way to make that miracle happen.

Now I had to take this sad tale home to my husband. Would I be able to convince him that his friendship with Andy Sokolov was tragically wasted?