Dead Head: A Dirty Business Mystery (27 page)

“Mrs. Warren?”

“Oh, you are there. I thought it was a machine.”

“It was a machine, ma’am. I just got to the phone late. How are you?”

“I’m well. Thank you for asking, dear. I thought you might like to know Jeff has regained consciousness. He’s expected to make a full recovery.”

I didn’t know what she was talking about, but I played along. “I’m so glad to hear it, I was worried.”

“He did lose his position with that trucking company, but his uncle Lou may be able to get him his old job at the post office. I expect he’ll call you himself once he gets those tubes taken out and is on his feet again.” Only a hard pinch on the forearm stopped Lucy from making faces that were guaranteed to crack me up while I was talking to the old woman.

“Will he have any lasting health issues?” I asked. I had to keep her on the line until I could ask her some questions without appearing insensitive to her son’s condition.

“Well, I guess you don’t drive a truck into an overpass without shaking up your noggin a bit. He was unconscious for a few days, but they told me not to worry because it was induced—I think they called it—until the brain swelling went down.” Jeff Warren really did have the worst luck. Next she’d be telling me that one of his ex-wives was back in the picture, looking for a big insurance payoff.

“Mrs. Warren, do you remember, we were talking about the Donnelley family. Do you by any chance, know what happened to Eddie Donnelley?”

“Of course, dear, everyone knows that.”

And she would have told me the last time we spoke except I was too impatient and cut her off—that’s what I got for interrupting a sweet old lady.

I had thought it unlikely Eddie Donnelley would have changed much after twenty years in prison, but he did have a jailhouse conversion. Of a sort.

“Folks in town thought it was all that time in prison,” Mrs. Warren
said, “but maybe not. People’s natures are their natures. That’s what I saw on CNN or HBO—one of those new stations.”

I thought of Ellis Damon. Maybe Lucy had been right after all. “Did he get religion?” I asked.

“Oh, no, dear, Donnelleys always had that. His mother used to have the priests over for lunch once a week. No, that wasn’t it.”

Conversion, indeed. Or perhaps
transformation
was a more appropriate word. Eddie Donnelley was now Edwina Donnelley.

According to Helen Warren, rumor had it Eddie planned to use the drug money he’d stashed away for his sex change operation once he got out, but the money was never recovered, so he was making do with hormone therapy and drugstore cosmetics. Some assumed Monica had stolen the money. Others thought Kate Gustafson took it, until her suspicious death. Still others suspected a fourth partner who’d never been arrested. Mrs. Warren was in the latter camp.

“Any idea who that might have been?” I asked.

“Oh, it was so long ago. Coach Hopper got a lot of flack. People said he should have known what was going on. But how can you blame him—our team had a good record that year. Still, folks did blame him. The school never renewed his contract, and he moved away. Ohio, I think. He tried to stay in sports but had a hard time getting another coaching job because of the drug scandal. Last I heard he was a sales representative for an athletic supporter company, in Ohio, I think. Did I say that already?”

I didn’t expect Helen Warren and I to have the same taste in men, but I had to ask. “Mrs. Warren, would you say Coach Hopper was an attractive man?”

“Well, now there’s somebody for everybody, dear. Hop was pleasant looking, but he did have one unfortunate facial feature. I wonder he never had something done about it. I guess he didn’t care and it didn’t seem to keep the ladies away.”

Her own son had a cleft lip and that didn’t hurt his chances with the opposite sex.

“Was it a broken nose?” I held my breath until she answered.

“Well, I don’t really remember his nose, dear. It was something else entirely. I hate to point out anyone’s physical flaws. After all, we’re all God’s creatures—but Hop really did have a nasty set of choppers.”

The next morning, Lucy hated to leave, but she’d already been out of the office two days researching her fugitive story, which she’d been doing on spec. “Text me the minute you hear anything,” she said, clutching the bag with the wig.

After I dropped her off at the train station, I drove to the Springfield police department. The same desk sergeant I’d met when Grant Sturgis and I were brought in was on duty. I made it sound like a personal matter.

“Sergeant Stamos. Is Mike O’Malley here? I’d like to speak with him.”

“He’s on patrol. I can get a message to him to call you. That okay?”

(I had to remember this new strategy the next time I was in the police station.) It had to be. I gave the desk sergeant my cell number and turned the phone on; then I headed for the Paradise.

Babe welcomed me with a big grin. “You’ve had a busy couple of days, haven’t you?”

“Why do you say that?”

Mike O’Malley and Kevin Brookfield had already been and gone—though not together. “Brookfield thinks you’re cute but crazy,” Babe said. “I told him he was right.”

“He’s got a nice smile, don’t you think?” I said. Babe confirmed that Kevin Brookfield had beautiful teeth. This was good news for the single women in town, and, what the heck, I was one of them, wasn’t I?

“You are a little crazy, aren’t you?”

The night before, in her quiet, methodical way Mama Warren had given me Coach Hopper’s dental history. The poor man had had teeth like a broken comb. At some point he’d gotten cut-rate implants and they all got infected and had to be pulled. The last time she saw him, he just had nubs. “Like candy corn,” she’d said, “that had been sitting out in the rain.”

“Oh, you know who called,” Babe said. “She tried you on your cell, then called here. The bulletin board is one thing, but if you expect me to take messages, too, I’m going to have to start charging you.”

Babe slipped me a piece of paper. It was a number in Massachusetts where Caroline said she could be reached until 10:00 that morning. I looked at the clock—9:45.

Babe tossed me the key to her office so that I could talk to Caroline in private. Again it stuck, but I finally got in, then dialed the number she’d had given me.

“Blue Willow Bakery.”

For a moment I wasn’t sure who I should ask for—Caroline or Monica.

“Is Caroline there?”

“Anyone here named Caroline?”

I heard some shuffling and then Caroline’s voice. “Let me call you back on your number. There’s cell service near the general store.”

A minute later, my phone rang. Eddie Donnelley had gotten in
touch with her—through her brother. He demanded the money he said she’d stolen or he’d testify, once again, that she had orchestrated the whole drug and gambling operation. If he did, Caroline could be sent back to prison for eighteen years.

“I didn’t steal the money, I swear. Maybe…maybe Kate did. Where else would she have gotten all the cash she sent to my brother years ago? Paula, Donnelley knows where my children are.”

“What? How?”

“My mother-in-law must be an idiot. Grant talked to her to see how they were all doing. She said some woman called, saying she was a friend of mine, and told her to send the kids home. Eddie must have gotten a woman to call for him.”

“Well, that’s a bit of a story, Caroline.”

“Stupid woman, she sent Molly and Jason home on the red-eye last night. Their flight landed ninety minutes ago. We’re on our way, but it will take us five hours to get there if we catch a break and don’t get jammed up on that damn bridge. I left a message for O’Malley, but he hasn’t called back. I’m worried about the kids. Paula, if anything happens to them because of me, I’ll kill myself.”

O’Malley had said she should call if anything else happened, and it had. But O’Malley was on patrol. And if his antennae were up, they were up for a man, not a woman. I left another message for him and kept my cell on.

“You look pale,” Babe said when I reentered the diner.

“Sometimes I wish you had a liquor license.” I hoisted myself on the counter stool, wishing it were a bar stool.

“It’s 10
A.M.
”

“I’m going to Caroline’s. I’ve left two messages for O’Malley, but if you see him, tell him to meet me there ASAP. Better yet, call
Channel 8 News anonymously and tell them you saw Caroline Sturgis arrive home this morning. She’s there now.”

“Is she back?”

“No, but Eddie Donnelley is.”

The kids would have used their parents’ black car account to get from the airport in New York to Connecticut, but Caroline hadn’t mentioned which airport they’d flown into. It would take anywhere from two to two and a half hours for them to get home, if they’d flown into a New York City airport and didn’t hit traffic. Less time if they flew to Westchester. I didn’t have the key to Caroline’s, but if I was able to get into her garage, I thought I’d be able to enter the house. Hopefully reinforcements would get there not long after I did. I’d need more than just the element of surprise if something really came down and I was on my own.

Just as I was pulling out of Babe’s, Kevin Brookfield pulled in. I jammed on the brakes and our cars were side by side.

“Smile!”

“What?”

“Nice teeth.”

Brookfield must have really thought I was crazy by now, but he did it. “Does this mean you’re buying me?”

“Follow me. I need your help.”

He turned his rental car around and stayed close all the way to Caroline’s. Once again, I drove on the back roads, taking the water company’s private road to the rear of Caroline’s house. When we got there, I pushed the middle button on the roof of my Jeep and their garage door opened. I still didn’t know how that worked, but I was glad it did. I slid in and Brookfield pulled in alongside me. I closed the door behind us.

Chances are Grant had left the door inside the garage open—many suburbanites did—but even if he hadn’t, Caroline had once told me there was an extra set of keys in the garage. We just had to find them.

“I hope there’s no one here,” I whispered as I got out of my car.

He sidled up next to me. “Are we breaking in?”

“Not exactly.”

Just then we heard a car door slam. Caroline and Grant weren’t due for hours. I hoped it was O’Malley or the reporters that I’d asked Babe to summon. I pressed my face as close to the narrow garage windows as possible, but I was an inch too short to get the right angle. All I saw were the fringes of a sticker with a company logo and a taxi-and-limousine issue plate. Then I heard kids’ voices and a woman’s. Damn, they weren’t alone.

I hoisted myself onto a narrow counter, flattening myself and holding on to a cabinet handle. I craned my neck just in time to see a tall slim woman shepherding the Sturgis kids into the house.

“Don’t worry, Edwina will look after them.”

I turned around slowly, struggling to keep my balance, and saw a very handsome but toothless man pointing a gun at me. In his other hand were two hunks of plastic and porcelain.

“Still want to buy the horse? Bridges. They have excellent dentists in Chicago when you have enough money. Once Caroline gives me my money, I’m getting implants. Good ones. Get down!” he ordered.

I did as he said, but hung back as far as I could, clinging to the edge of the counter.

He slipped the dentures back into his mouth and all I could think of was how I’d like to knock them down his throat. What would the Main Street Moms think about their new friend when they found out he was really a thief, a drug dealer, and quite possibly a homicidal cheerleading coach?

Kevin Brookfield banged on the door that led to the house and yelled for Eddie/Edwina to open up. He grabbed my arm and shoved me toward the door in case Eddie got nervous and shot first before looking to see who it was. “Eddie, let me in. It’s me, Hop.”

Nothing I had at my disposal could match a gun, except maybe my brain. At least that’s what I was hoping. I clutched the car keys in my pocket. I could stab him with them but only if I could get close enough. Not likely. And Caroline’s garage was so much neater than mine. There were no tools strewn about that I could use as weapons. Just a color-coordinated assortment of metal boxes that I knew held her neglected craft supplies, but I couldn’t tell if any of them was heavy enough to deliver a knockout punch. What was her last unfinished project—origami, shell art? Dammit, why was she so neat? I tried to think like Caroline. The pastel boxes probably held light stuff—felt, rickrack, calligraphy brushes. Then I remembered something Caroline had made for me. She’d painted the word
PEACE
once on a nice flat river stone. I guessed the gray box, three feet away from my right hand.

“Don’t do this,” I said. “There’s nothing in this house except a couple of kids. They don’t know anything. And Caroline didn’t steal your money. Kate probably did. She probably hid it somewhere before she died and it’s never been found. C’mon, you used to be a coach—you must love kids.”

“I hate kids. I only took that job so I could ogle young girls in short skirts. Then one of them fell off the human pyramid and broke my nose. Kicked out my last few good teeth, too. Dumb broad.”

Oh, brother—that was a tactical error. Overhead we heard footsteps and scuffling. Hopper called out again, but this time I did, too. And louder.

“Springfield police! Open up, Springfield police!” I wasn’t even sure we were still in Springfield, but it had terrified Grant and me when we were in the nursery, so it was worth a try.

“Shut up, bitch!” He screamed at me and slammed me against the counter and his dentures slipped. He yelled again. “Eddie, it’s me!” but it was so garbled, I wasn’t surprised Donnelley didn’t understand and respond.

“Eddie Donnelley, Springfield police! Come out with your hands up!
We know you’re in there!” I hit the panic button on my car keys and the car alarm went off, giving a passing imitation of a police siren. Hopper pushed me away from the door to bang on it again with his right elbow. For a few seconds the barrel of the gun was pointed up. I picked up the gray metal box and slammed it in his face. Rocks spilled out of the box. Hopper’s nose was spouting blood, broken again, and he was choking on bits of his smashed dentures. The gun fell out of his hands and I was able to kick it away underneath one of the cars. I climbed into my Jeep, locked the door, and pressed the button to raise the garage door. As I did I saw a crew from Channel Eight news and an oh-so-beautiful Springfield police car.