All in One Piece (26 page)

“From all the years. Save, save, save, what did it get me in the end? My daughter says I’m a fool.” Cookie crumbs tumble into
her lap, and her free slippered foot thumps the thin tweed carpet. Alice cocks her head. “I don’t think this place is nice,
do you?”

“Silver Ridge?”

“They tell me it’s nice. I say it’s a dump. And everything’s gone. Gone.” She chews another cookie, pinches crumbs from her
lap, and eats them. Do I ask point-blank about Steven or let her ramble on and hope to glean something?

Or could the basket lady try a third way? “Alice,” I say slowly, “sometimes in life a person needs a helping hand.”

She suddenly stops as still as a statue. “What’s that you just said?”

“I said sometimes—”

“Helping hand. You said helping hand.”

“I did.”

Her agitation rises. “What do you know about it? Did you give him money too?”

“Give who money?”

“Don’t play bashful. You know who.”

“Was it your tenant, Steven?”

“Stevie. Like a second grandson.”

“He lived in your apartment, didn’t he?”

“Four years last March, sweet as a little prince. Of course, he traveled. Business, always business. That’s when he called
about Helping Hand. We talked about it on the phone.”

“When he was traveling?”

“His phone calls kept me company. ‘I’m checking in, Alice.’ That’s what he said. He stayed in touch. You know that slogan,
‘Reach out and touch someone’?”

“Where did he call from?”

“From wherever he was.”

“Where did he go?”

“In taxis. Sometimes a week at a time. Sometimes a couple of days.”

“Alice, did you see the taxis?”

“That’s a funny question. What else is in that basket?”

“How about a nectarine?”

“I can’t chew nuts. They’re hard on my teeth.”

“How about lemon drops? Can you suck a lemon drop?” I open the decorator tin and set it beside her. “About the taxis, did
any of them say ‘Charlie’s Cab’?”

“How would I know? I’m no snoop. Did he put you in the movie?”

“What movie?”

“He put me in. They came with a camera and bright lights, and it took all day. They dolled me up and stayed for lunch. We
ate sandwiches on the back porch. I never got to see the movie.”

“What was it about?”

She pops two lemon drops. “Make-believe. Pretending to pay my bills.”

“Which bills?”

“These are too sour. Where’s a tissue?” I hand her a Kleenex, and she spits out the candy. “I don’t know why they’re so stingy
with sugar.”

“What particular bills, Alice?”

“Everything. They covered my kitchen table with Verizon, New England Electric, the water bill, credit cards, Filene’s. There
wasn’t room to sit down and eat. That’s why the back porch lunch.”

“Was there a script? Did you say lines?”

“It was a silent movie. That was the joke. They sat me down at the table and put a pen in my hand and ran the camera.”

“What did Steven say?”

“He said the movie would help the return on my investment. As it was, I was happy. The money poured in. Jamie’s college money
was set, and I promised my daughter a new car. And the bathroom magazines that show those new jet tubs… every color in
the rainbow. I had my eye on turquoise.”

“You invested? You gave Steven your money?”

“A wonderful company, Helping Hand for the sick, the old, everybody. You can’t get a live person on the phone nowadays, it’s
‘pound’ this and ‘star’ that. You talk to machines, and you can’t set your own timer on the TV. Jar lids, they won’t budge.
Helping Hand, it was a dream come true, real people to lend a hand. It was better than the stock market.”

“Helping Hand is a private company?”

“Every investor was guaranteed a big return. The checks came like clockwork. I reinvested. Stevie said to make money, invest
all you can. Finally I said Stevie, I gave you every dollar I’ve got. Where on earth would I get more money to invest, and
he said Alice, dear, the house, the house. So he helped me get the new mortgage and promised to take care of everything.”

“And what happened?”

Her watery blue gaze hardens. “My crab apple tree was full of blossoms when the money stopped. That’s what I remember. The
backyard was full of pink spring blossoms. Then the checks from Helping Hand quit. He said it was temporary. Be patient, Stevie
said, Rome wasn’t built in a day. I was patient, I didn’t complain. Now here I am in this dump with my leg and the Hummels,
and my daughter’s mad because I wouldn’t move to Florida.

“She says none of this would have happened if I moved after my husband passed away. But I’m not crazy about her hair. It’s
orange. I told her it looks sun-kissed. Get it, Sunkist? That made her even madder. Ruth never could take a joke. Jamie, now,
he’s different. He’s good in school. He wants to go to college, but the money’s gone. That’s why I need sleeping pills. That’s
the crime.” Her blue eyes focus somewhere deep inside, and her voice softens. “My grandson’s future, that’s the crime.”

I pause. The furnace blasts. Alice wipes a tear. Yes, this is crime in more ways than Harold Collier’s widow possibly knows.
How many clients got burned along the way? How many out there never made their peace with Steven’s scams and weren’t safely
stowed in a nursing home with a broken leg and fractured spirit?

Suppose just one victim smoldered inside until rage reached a murderous flash point.

Or did an insider get too scared or furious?

Or too greedy?

“Alice, did you meet Steven’s friend Alex? Alex Ribideau?” Her shrug could mean yes, no, or maybe. “Or perhaps Andrew—Drew
Vogler?”

“He had friends in and out. Nice young men. I wasn’t strict about that as long as nobody made too much noise at night. I need
my sleep.”

“These were very special friends. Alex is dark-haired. He’s athletic, a dancer.” She nods, but her gaze is fading. “Andrew
is tall and blond. He and Steven owned a horse together.”

“The horse, yes, Stevie carried a picture of it… in his wallet.”

“So you met Andrew?” I lean foward as if to charge her up.

She hesitates, perhaps collecting her thoughts. “Maybe he was in the wallet too.”

“Or did you see a teen boy named Luis?”

“Louise?”

“Luis. Luis Diaz. He’s Latino. Steven tried to help him.”

“Sounds like a foreigner.”

“He’s in high school.”

“They’re taking over, you know. I’ll tell you this—”

“Tell me.”

“My neighbors got miffed when cars parked up and down the street. That’s why Stevie shoveled the O’Learys out in winter. And
the Bollingers too.” Alice crumples the tissue and licks her finger, her gaze wandering to my face. “You brought me a basket.”

“I did.”

“Next time, I want Three Musketeers.”

“I’ll remember.”

“And cream sherry too. My Harold made sure there was cream sherry in the house. He said it was the mark of a respectable home.”

I
’m in a McDonald’s off the Stoughton exit. I have a Big Mac, fries, and a Coke, and it’s all delicious, the special sauce,
lettuce and pickle and cheese, and the fries bathed in ketchup from a half dozen packets. My fingers are greasy, and I’m wolfing
every bite. The icy Coke slides down my throat in fizzy perfection. Little kids are squealing and crawling like gerbils in
the play pods, and construction workers are lined up six deep at the front. It’s lunchtime, and I’m in time-out heaven.

It lasts to the very last bite, till I crush the wrappers and tilt my tray toward the trash can and get a coffee to sip for
ten minutes before the Beetle takes me on the last leg of the trip from the Brockton Silver Ridge Village to Barlow Square.

What did I find out from Alice Collier? That the financial bonanza moved her to sink every last dollar into Helping Hand,
and finally to mortgage her home—thanks to Steven Damelin’s investment “advice.” In short, Alice was indeed beckoned, stroked,
and comforted by a hand that proceeded to choke the financial life out of her.

Helping Hand. The very phrase sounds neighborly. It would be irresistibly seductive to the Alice Colliers of the world who
are bewildered by PIN, passwords, downloads, robot voices, and so-called customer service that’s a joke. Imagine, investment
in real live personal services to provide aid and assistance with everything from fixing the toaster to straightening out
those monthly Bank of America or Citi statements. Helping Hand, it sounds like a mix of the Red Cross and a valet. You wouldn’t
have to be gullible to invest, just stressed. And overwhelmed. And frightened by the demands of modernity.

Or idealistic? As idealistic as Josephine Cutter? No, my Aunt Jo was neither gullible nor greedy. But she was superaware of
how others struggled, how thin the resources to help them. She was the world’s greatest believer in public, civic assistance.
But this is the age of privatizing. The balance long ago shifted to the market. That’s what Steven pretended to offer, a private
business whose mission was to help others. He could have persuaded Jo that, as an investor, her money supported a humane good
cause in the era of the market. As for the promised investment returns, Steven could have shown Jo how she could help her
niece and nephew and also donate money to any number of worthy causes, including the Roxbury clothing consignment shop that
helped poor women get on their feet. Win-win-win.

So suppose Jo’s “deal” with Steven was investment angled at philanthropy. His charm and the very name Helping Hand probably
dulled her judgment just enough to lull her into skipping background checks on the business and on its young entrepreneur.
As sharp as she was, Jo couldn’t resist the notion of helpful outreach. She took Steven’s word. Her “skeptic” switch was off.

But unlike Alice Collier, Jo got sick. My guess: she got her diagnosis just at a point when Steven was ready to hit her up
for major money, her pension, and the mortgage on the Barlow Square town house. Everything she had would be sucked into his
scheme. Jo’s illness aborted the plan. She was “saved” by terminal cancer.

And I was saved. My home, my rental income, are the result of fateful timing. Had Steven lived, I, too, might have been subjected
to his pitch, this helpful and charming young man offering me a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to mortgage my inherited property
to increase wealth while supporting my nearest and dearest. Would I have resisted? I like to think so. Can I say one hundred
percent for sure? At this point in life, total certainties are rare.

Steven Damelin, that charming young man. A con man, a crook. What did Matt Kitchel say? That Steven’s goal was to check the
box that says “self-employed.” A self-employed white-collar criminal, is that it? Is that the end point of the Damelinskis
who toiled in the Lawrence mills and huddled in the kitchen bar of the Plains in the dead of winter to plan the strike for
living wages and self-respect? Did the enterprising immigrant family who launched the kitchen bar get warped over the generations?
Did their initiative turn corrupt, as if the very chromosomes broke down? In the twenty-first century, does it come down to
financial crimes at Corsair and a side business bilking older women? Is that the American dream of today?

But how exactly did he operate? I go to the counter for a coffee refill and decide to sit for another few minutes, then shut
my eyes to picture the Deary Street house. Steven rented a back apartment, no doubt with its own private entrance. But it
was close quarters, and he could have talked with Alice often, person-to-person. A bottle of cream sherry would be a passport
to her home day or evening.

Yet Alice says he talked about Helping Hand on the phone when he traveled, that his phone calls kept her company. Did he simply
keep her pacified while on the road? Did he check in with his various victims, coaxing, cajoling, issuing veiled threats as
necessary to keep the checks coming? As attractive as he was in person, the suave Steven was perhaps especially effective
on the phone, a disembodied voice. Maybe it was simply more efficient to make calls.

Somehow I remember the cell phones—old Motorolas and Nokias—when Stark and I moved furniture to my basement. I’d thought it
was a touching sign of a techie guy infatuated with the latest models and happy to discard the old. At that moment, it reminded
me of my son, Jack, collecting e-gadgets the way Steven apparently collected phones. But maybe there was more to it. Maybe
the phones were precision tools of Steven’s vile trade.

And what about the movie? What kind of movie? It was Luis who first asked about it that rainy day in Jamaica Plain. Luis was
disappointed to be offered the gift of a Lava lamp instead of a movie or video. Did he, too, play a part for a camera, perhaps
firing a pass or throwing a baseball? Would a Latino boy be useful for Helping Hand, perhaps for a link to tutoring or ESL?
Or was he to be the image of a yard worker who’d also provide a helping hand in winter by shoveling your walk and driveway?
Was Steven producing a cassette or DVD for potential Helping Hand victims? Shots of Alice at her table befuddled by a sea
of bills would surely inspire investors readily identified with her plight.

But who killed him?

I stand and toss out my coffee cup and head for the Beetle. Outside, it’s gray and cold. I ought to go home, exercise Biscuit,
and work on “Ticked Off.” Instead, I head for the Charles.

The Renfrew Rowing Club is a two-story clapboard barn affair, with double doors facing the Storrow side, sliding doors and
ramps on the Charles River. Under a rooftop gable, an insignia of crossed oars flashes orange and green. The inside smells
of wood, oil, sweat, and river. A Nordic blond guy lifts a pair of oars.

“I’m looking for Dani Vogler.”

“Dani’s sculling. Out there.” He points midriver to a single woman rowing a boat as narrow as a knitting needle. A crew of
eight lines up to lift a long boat—is it a shell?—being lowered on a crane. They’re like a precision team, or pallbearers.
“Starboard, one foot in and down… ports… hold for cox—”