Cat of the Century (28 page)

“I’ll get it put in before two-thirty.” Liz’s voice rose another notch.

“You did a lot of business with Flo and sometimes with Mariah. What’s going on?”

“I know nothing.” Liz’s voice was angry now.

“It’s occurring to me even as I stand here that if others could work a Ponzi scheme, so could you.”

Liz stuttered, then rage took over. She shoved Inez, who fell backward, fortunately onto a chair.

Erno bit Liz’s calf as Tucker bit her ankle. She shook the dogs off.

“Bite deeper,”
Tucker commanded the vizsla.

Liz pulled a snub-nosed .38 from inside her jacket. She hit Erno over the head, stunning him, then took aim at Tucker, who sank her fangs deep into Liz’s ankle.

She struck down at the dog, missed. Tucker let go but circled to get her again.

Doodles, on Liz’s left, grabbed her forearm. Liz clubbed the Gordon setter with the butt of her gun. As she was harried by Tucker she couldn’t focus on Doodles, but she managed to hit the dog hard enough to stun the beautiful animal.

As Inez stood up, Aunt Tally moved toward Liz. The cats flew off the sofa to help Tucker, but Liz fired, hitting Inez in the leg. The old lady fell down on one knee.

“I’ll kill you!” Aunt Tally screamed.

“You old bitch. You aren’t killing anybody.”

Liz aimed at Aunt Tally, who didn’t flinch. Mrs. Murphy leapt straight at Liz, deflecting her aim just enough that the bullet lodged in the wall.

Inez, in pain but a fighter, crawled toward Liz.

Aunt Tally pulled her sword out of the cane. Before Liz could take another shot at Tally, Tucker sank her teeth deep into Liz’s calf, throwing her off again.

The centenarian struck in that split second. Old but strong enough, she ran the sword right through Liz’s throat.

Blood spurted straight out, showering Aunt Tally.

“Perfect!” Inez said through gritted teeth.

As another gusher shot forth, Liz’s knees buckled, but she got off one more shot. The bullet narrowly missed Aunt Tally, who was preparing to ram the bloody sword through Liz’s belly.

Liz dropped the gun and grabbed her throat, as blood flowed between her fingers. She died choking on her own blood.

Aunt Tally calmly placed her sword on the coffee table, then bent down to lift up Inez as best she could.

Doodles shook her head and took a few wobbly steps to help Aunt Tally, but had to sit back down to recover.

“Let me get you on the sofa.”

“I’m all right, Blossom. Let me see to my dog.”

“You can’t be all right with a bullet in your leg.”

“It’s a long way from my heart.” Inez dragged her one leg as she reached Erno, then knelt down. “Concussion. Get me some ice. It will take the swelling down.”

Aunt Tally put the sword back in the sheath and used her cane to hurry toward the kitchen.

Tucker licked Erno. The cats sat by the dog.

No one gave a thought to Liz or the blood staining the carpet.

The front door burst open. Harry and Little Mim, who’d heard the shots, ran in, froze for a second, then flew to Inez.

Little Mim stared in horror at Liz. “My God, what happened?”

“We’ll explain later. Erno needs help.” Inez, in her element as a vet, took charge.

Noticing the thin but steady stream of blood from Inez’s calf, Harry said, “Inez, you’re hit.”

“Came through the other side. It’ll heal up fast enough. Help me with my dog, will you?”

“Is Liz dead?” Little Mim’s teeth chattered from fear.

“If she isn’t, I’ll finish her off.” Aunt Tally came back with a bag of ice in one hand, her cane in the other.

Harry hurried toward Tally, took the ice, and came back to Inez, who placed the ice on the dog. She lifted up Erno’s eyelids, noticed some pupil movement. She checked his gums.

“Here, I can hold the ice,” Harry volunteered.

“Well, don’t just stand there as useless as tits on a boar hog. Call the sheriff!” Aunt Tally directed her shaken grandniece.

Little Mim pulled out her cell phone and did just that.

Pewter walked over to sniff Liz.
“Notice the scratch on her right leg? I did that.”

“Mighty puss.”
Mrs. Murphy, half in jest, meant it.

“She must have been crazy.” Having made the brief call, Little Mim knelt next to Harry by Erno.

“Greedy.” Inez then turned again to her dog. “Erno, Erno, come on, sweet boy.”

His eyelids fluttered and he opened his eyes.

Tucker licked the side of his face.

“What’s that cold stuff on my head?”
He staggered up, shook his head, and seemed none the worse for wear.

“Harry, go out and check her car, will you?” Aunt Tally, mind always clicking along, commanded.

Harry returned within minutes, carrying a jar. “They’re in the trunk. Obviously the meeting with Merrill Lynch was a ruse, or if it wasn’t, she came back for them.”

“Let’s just see what this is all about,” Aunt Tally ordered. “Into the kitchen.”

They walked into the kitchen. Inez limped in, keeping an eye on Erno.

Harry plucked a paring knife out of the drawer, ran it around the wax, then carefully lifted out the large cork.

“Oh, boy!”

The three other women peered in as Harry plucked out bag after bag of cocaine.

“Smells awful.” Little Mim crinkled up her nose.

“Sooner or later we’ll figure this out.” Inez leaned against the kitchen counter, because her calf stung.

“Let’s get you to the ER,” Harry said.

“Wait for the sheriff,” Inez commanded.

Little Mim, not wanting to face the truth, said wishfully, “Could be sugar.”

Sharply, Aunt Tally said, “Don’t be a ninny. Who smuggles sugar in jars?”

A siren in the distance told them they wouldn’t have to wait long.

W
hen Tim Filmore disembarked from his transatlantic flight, the authorities were waiting for him. He remained silent until he was taken to the downtown Richmond police station, where he was informed that his wife was dead as well as the circumstances leading to her death. He collapsed, then spilled everything they needed to know. He and Liz had created a fairly sophisticated Ponzi scheme, which ran like a top for four years. Liz took special pride in fooling Flo Langston. Then again, when the profits roll in, folks tend not to be suspicious or ask too many questions.

As with so many things in life, a small event had begun the fall of the carefully constructed house of cards. Mariah D’Angelo became nervous when a steady customer told her she had been contacted by a representative of Patek Philippe doing a survey. Mariah, in the business for years, had never heard of an elite chronography company doing satisfaction research. It was a grand watch, not a Frigidaire, was Mariah’s response. Of course, in a sense, it was a Frigidaire.

Mariah sensed that Flo was behind this, but she didn’t panic yet. Given that she had followed Flo’s investments as best she could through gossip with Liz, she then checked her own investment portfolio against each stock’s buy-and-sell amount with
The Wall Street
Journal.
Every day, the stocks’ highs and lows were recorded. She could see the exact time one of her stocks was traded.

She was the first to recognize that her portfolio had been falsified by Liz using accurate information. But when Mariah contacted the company, the trade had never been made. She found out that her bank, SunTrust, had no record of the purchase. Painstakingly, Mariah checked each of her trades without tipping off Liz. This took two weeks. Still, she couldn’t quite accept the horror of it.

Her first mistake was withdrawing money from the alumnae account. Her second was in loudly accusing Flo of setting her up for losses. The third and fatal mistake was confronting Liz after the classroom meeting. Flo had left. Mariah dogged Liz, who denied everything but recognized she had to silence Mariah.

Tim, who’d sold cocaine in college to pay his way, still had some of his old contacts left. They’d succeeded in their “profession,” as had he. When the market crashed, he started selling again, but with much higher volume, to cover some of the payouts to clients. They shipped in cocaine through small boats that landed in the many coves of the Chesapeake Bay. He and Liz figured they could stay afloat for perhaps seven or eight months while they shifted their money to Costa Rica. Business was good—Tim repented of not sticking with it when he’d graduated from college.

Terri was paid five thousand dollars a month to allow the pots to be delivered to her store. Although she was frightened of having drugs come through her place, she was wildly happy with the money. She didn’t pay much attention to Mariah’s death, but when Flo died, Terri began to get nervous. Ultimately, she became unreliable, too scared, plus she was taking too much toot herself. What begins as a good thing—increased concentration, feeling great—winds up as a bad thing. This seems to be the progress of any addiction.

As to Terri being laid out where Ralston Peavey was killed, Liz thought it would shunt people to the wrong track. She’d heard stories about the old murder. Unsolved murders stay in people’s memories, providing curiosity. The Black Dahlia murder certainly proved how potent a strange unsolved crime can be. It was quite cunning of her to
place Terri on that road. She never figured on Inez being so angry about her investments, which she would have put into Inez’s account as soon as she and Tim sold a little of the cocaine. Selling cocaine in a wealthy community is easy. Charlottesville was no exception. Tim’s old contacts had given him a few numbers. They in turn gave him more business through their friends, since the stuff was high quality.

Cooper relayed all this at the supper table at Harry’s on Saturday night. Inez, released from the hospital, sat in the living room along with Aunt Tally, who was only too happy to get out of her house. She’d spent last night at Little Mim’s. Liz’s blood all over the living-room rug upset her, and she didn’t want to stay there until the rug was carried out. She sent it to Rudy’s Dry Cleaners with the instruction that, once cleaned, it was to be given to Goodwill. She couldn’t bear to look at it, but it was too expensive to toss.

“I would have never figured it out,” Harry admitted.

“We’re not finance people. I guess you don’t know something’s wrong until you can’t pay your bills,” Fair replied quietly. He was horrified that Inez had been shot.

“You all know I don’t know beans about money.” Aunt Tally stroked Doodles’s glossy head.

“We knew something was off with Liz. That nasty smell,”
Tucker said.

“It was sharp,”
Erno agreed.

“Is there any money left?” Inez asked Cooper.

“Tim had managed to get a lot of their money out of the country. It will take some time to get it back,” the officer answered. “Of course, they blew a lot, too.”

“How much?” Aunt Tally inquired.

“Tim says they took out twelve million. Whether one can believe him or not is another matter. He says—if you can stomach this—that Liz stole such a small amount compared to Madoff that he should receive a light sentence.”

Fair drummed his fingers on the table. “If the Richmond police and whoever Tim hires for his lawyer think there’s still a lot of money, some of them might be bought off. One doesn’t like to consider such things, but Mafia dons can run their empires from prison. The corruption
is within. Few people can resist a huge sum dangled under their noses. Why do you think drugs come into this country, and why do you think they don’t get legalized? The nontaxable milk train will dry up for a lot of people in law enforcement and government if drugs are legalized. The louder a congressman shouts about the evils of drugs, the more you can bet he’s on the take.”

“Makes me sick.” Cooper was an honest person, an honest cop.

Harry put her feet up on the old coffee table. “So there’s probably more money somewhere else.”

“I expect so. He’ll serve his time. After all, he didn’t kill anyone—Liz did that. When he’s out, he’ll go to the money and live like a king.” Cooper put her drink down on the table.

“That’s disgusting.” Inez pursed her lips.

“Doc, I’m afraid that’s the world we live in. Money sanctifies just about anything.” Cooper sighed.

“So why do you remain a cop?” Aunt Tally, forthright as always, asked.

“I don’t rightly know. I keep hoping I can do some good against the avalanche of evil out there.”

“Poor people.”
Erno came and rested his head on Inez’s knee.

“Their own fault, Erno. Don’t waste a minute feeling sorry for them.”
Pewter nonchalantly cleaned her tail, holding it in one paw.

Cooper asked Aunt Tally, “Were you scared?”

“No. In fact, I felt wonderful, energized. When Liz shot Inez, I suddenly felt forty again and I wanted to fight.” She beamed.

“You weren’t afraid to die?” Cooper put her own feet up on the coffee table. As a dear friend she could do that, but then, Harry didn’t care much about the old furniture.

“Cooper, if you’re afraid to die, you’re afraid to live. You can’t have one without the other.” Aunt Tally smiled.

Inez giggled, then, as though Harry and Fair were her parents, asked, “Can Tally spend the night?”