Inspector Specter (26 page)

Maxie had taken Melissa's laptop upstairs again to start looking into the idea of Lay-Z as a killer, which seemed awfully unlikely to anyone who had actually met him. But Paul, eager to see what Thomas might make of the latest revelations, was sitting in the refrigerator, mostly, his head and hands sticking out but the rest of him hidden from view. He rested his head on his hand, listening. If I weren't already very much into takeout, this might have turned me off to eating anything that came out of my fridge again.

Paul was looking intently at Thomas, a tall, standard-built, unassuming man, with a soft voice and eyes that didn't seem to miss much. Thomas McElone's tension was evident in his face but not in his manner. There was nothing Paul enjoyed better than hearing what he called “information” from a “subject.” When Paul was a little boy, he'd probably thought
Green Eggs and Ham
was “information” and his mother was a “subject” who channeled Dr. Seuss.

“I know you're not supposed to go on impressions, but Lay-Z just doesn't seem the hit-man type,” I told Thomas. “I met the kid. I'm surprised he can tie his shoes in the morning. Was more upset that he'd been interrogated in front of his mother than the fact that the cops were asking him questions about a murder.”

“Anita didn't seem to think he was a legit suspect, either,” Thomas said. “She'd known him as a minor dealer in pot and a snitch to Marty Ferry. I guess he had everybody fooled. The question is, what now? We can't tell the police that Vinnie said Lay-Z killed Harry Monroe. It won't hold up in court, and I guarantee you he's lawyered up by now.”

But something else was eating at me, and inappropriate as it was, I had to ask: “Thomas, what would the lieutenant be talking about when she mentions the wet handcuffs?” It would give me ammunition the next time I saw Martin Ferry, but there was no point mentioning that to Thomas.

He looked confused for a moment, and then he let out a bark of a laugh. “The wet handcuffs!” he said. “Where did you hear about that?”

It was a good question; Paul was looking at me like I must be insane. “The lieutenant mentioned it the last time I saw her but wouldn't tell me what it meant. Is it something that can help us?” I was sure it wasn't, but I'm not above making myself look like an idiot for the sake of some good gossip.

“No, no,” Thomas said, shaking his head and smiling that special “in” smile you can get when thinking of a private thing. “It goes back to when Anita was a rookie cop and partnered with Marty, who didn't take kindly to her.”

“He didn't want to work with a woman?” I tried.

“He didn't care that his partner was a woman. He didn't want a partner at all, but they got along well enough. It was just—there was this one time, early on, when Marty was waiting for Anita to start their shift, and she's in the ladies' room. He says he's waiting and waiting and she won't come out. The sergeant's giving him a look, and Marty is getting antsy. So he busts into the women's restroom looking for Anita, and finds her rinsing off her handcuffs in the sink.”

I knew McElone to be a fastidious person, but that seemed a little extreme even for her. “Why?” I asked.

Thomas laughed a little harder. “Turned out she had dropped her handcuffs in the toilet, so she was washing them off.” He laughed even more, almost to the point of hysteria. I let out a little burst myself, I'll admit.

“And he still wanted to work with her after that?” I asked.

Thomas grinned. “He said it was the turning point in their partnership.”

Paul, who had been choking back a laugh himself, now looked at me with excess sternness. “Amusing. But that didn't help our investigation,” he said.

“No wonder she was so upset when the detective died,” I said to Thomas, trying to bring things back around. “And now to hear Lay-Z might have shot him, this skinny teenager he was trying to help . . .”

“Lay-Z didn't kill Harry the Fish,” came a voice from above. Alas, not divine inspiration: it was Maxie, coming through the ceiling. “I looked it up. He has an alibi. He was being held by the Seaside Heights police for possession when Harry was being drowned.”

I had to make a show of “finding” the laptop in my oven, of all places (thanks a heap, Maxie!), to show that information to Thomas. He rubbed his chin the way Paul rubs his goatee when perplexed.

“Well, we're back to square one,” he said.

But as it turned out, we were even further back than that. After Mom called to tell me Ferry had not told her and Dad anything useful, Phyllis Coates called my cell from her car as she drove the kids home (Phyllis has Bluetooth) with the opener, “I hear you scared Vinnie the Goldfish so bad he lied about somebody killing his grandfather.”

How could Phyllis have known about Lay-Z's alibi? “Lied?”

“That's how the cops see it,” Phyllis answered. “They say Vinnie's going on about ghosts torturing him with invisible lightning bolts. They think he's the craziest person in the Monroe family, and that's a real competition.”

“What are you saying?” I said. But I knew what she was saying.

“I'm saying they let Vinnie go ten minutes ago,” Phyllis answered.

“So let's sum up,” Paul said after I got off the phone and started to freak out.

“No. Let's not.” I wasn't in the mood for more pontificating.

Thomas had presented me with a thread of hope: “There's a possibility,” he said, when we were done marveling over the wet handcuffs, Lay-Z's alibi in the death of Harry the Fish Monroe and Vinnie's quick exit from the holding cell, “that the Monroe case doesn't have a connection to Marty's murder. And Anita was only investigating Marty's murder. So there's a possibility.”

“You said that already,” I told him.

“Right. Anita had already gone to see Lay-Z, who she thought was working with Buster Hockney. But from what you told me, Vinnie, who works with Buster, is trying to implicate Lay-Z. The last time I talked to Anita—that is, the most recent time I talked to Anita—she was looking into a lead. One that she said had come from Marty's case file. Did Vinnie have the computer that was stolen from your house?”

Paul and I exchanged a look, and it wasn't a happy one. “We never got an answer to that, did we?” he said.

Maxie took that moment to finally notice Thomas, annoyed that her breakthrough hadn't gotten her effusive-enough praise. “Who's this one?” she asked.

“So,” I said by way of an answer, but aimed at Thomas, “the lieutenant, that is,
your wife
, had a lead, and you think the case file could show it to us. Why does it matter if Vinnie has the computer? The files are not on the laptop.”

“No, but he could be trying to find Anita for his own reasons,” Thomas said. “And since he now knows for sure that you can't locate her, he'll start asking around to people we don't know and can't find. He's our best lead to where Anita might have been going.”

“So what you're saying is that we should have followed Vinnie when he left here,” I said. “That's not a tremendous amount of help right now.”

“You might not think so,” Thomas said. “But I noticed a car in your driveway as I was arriving that just had to be Vinnie's, so I dropped a prepaid cell phone into the backseat.”

“How did you get the phone into Vinnie's car?” Josh asked. “Didn't he have it locked?”

Thomas's grin widened a bit. “Vinnie drives a convertible,” he said. “With the right GPS software, which I happen to have on my own phone, we should be able to track him and stop in on all the places he might want to visit after he leaves.” Thomas had a smile on his face that mirrored one I had occasionally seen on his wife; it signaled that he had done something he considered brilliant.

We followed the bouncing GPS signal on Thomas's smartphone for about an hour without leaving my kitchen. For one thing, the guests' last morning spook show—for which Maxie swore she would produce her “special surprise”—was scheduled to take place soon. For another, Jeannie and Tony were coming to pick up their son and hear how I'd completely botched the job of watching him (I imagined Jeannie would think) the whole time they were away.

My mom and dad showed up around eight thirty, by which time Phyllis, warning me that the story “just keeps getting better” but noting that IHOP makes “a hell of a chocolate chip pancake,” had dropped off the children and gone to what she was now referring to as her “day job” running the
Chronicle
. After spending more than six minutes in a row with Phyllis, Melissa was sure to start lobbying for a job delivering the paper, but I was holding out until she was thirteen because that was how old I'd been before I could bike around town throwing newspapers at doorsteps.

Ollie was joyously cruising around the kitchen while I brought Melissa, Mom and Dad up to speed on the morning's revelations. Mom looked particularly concerned about the moments spent with Vinnie, but got over it when Paul told her there had never been any real danger because he was there. Or words to that effect.

Thomas, who had been introduced around, was making a careful list on a legal pad of places the GPS noted Vinnie having visited after his departure from the police impound lot. At least I hoped that was what he thought, because I certainly didn't want him coming back again. Thomas checked his list against some of his wife's files, which he'd printed out from whatever computer trail she'd left him, and what I'd gotten from my printer via Maxie, claiming I'd done the work myself. Maxie snorted in amusement but understood why I wasn't giving her credit.

“He started at the Crunchy Crisp Donuts on Route 35,” he reported. “I'm guessing it wasn't for caffeine, because I doubt he needed an adrenaline rush after the time you gave him.”

“If not for refreshment, then what?” I asked.

“He probably has someone there who launders some money for him, or at least keeps a stash in the store safe,” Thomas guessed. “He's going to need some ready cash to pay informants for the information he needs. He might not know where Anita is, but now he'll keep going until he finds somebody who'll tell him, so he can tell Buster Hockney.”

I marveled at the man. “You're not a cop?” I asked.

Thomas grinned. “Never made it through the academy,” he said. “I work for the PBA, the police union, in the accounting department. That's how I met Anita.” I wasn't sure how crunching numbers led to meeting a uniformed cop, but that was a story best left for another day. “The kids are more like her, you know. I had to take them to their uncle's house in Totowa, drove almost an hour and a half, because they were threatening to work the streets trying to find their mom.”

“Where'd Vinnie go after the donut place?” Melissa asked. Melissa is the chairgirl of the getting-things-back-on-track committee. Her grandmother beamed at her.

“You're so smart,” she said. Oliver was right next to my bar stool, paying no attention to me but plenty to the turkey baster Liss had taken out for him to play with, which had inevitably gotten left on a low shelf under the microwave cart. He reached for the next stool, grabbed hold and continued on his way.

Thomas put up his hands to acknowledge that he'd strayed from the task at hand. “From there it was an address in Asbury Park, which is listed in Anita's notes as the home of Lamont Mancini, someone who had some connection to Harry the Fish but wasn't considered terribly important.”

“Mom,” Melissa said.

But I was on a thought. “Lamont,” I said to Thomas. “That's Lay-Z.”

“Yeah, but the owner of the building is listed as Lenore Mancini,” Maxie reported.

“Probably his mom,” I muttered. Thomas was poring over the list and didn't react.

“Mom,” Melissa said a trifle more urgently. I looked at her. Nothing seemed urgently wrong, so I held up a finger to indicate I'd be with her in a minute.

“Possibly,” Thomas said, reacting to my comment about Lay-Z. “It would make sense for Vinnie to go looking for Lay-Z after you questioned him; he made a show of not caring, but clearly there's a connection. Marty thought he was a good source of information.”

“
Mom.
” Okay, I looked. Melissa pointed toward the floor.

Oliver was walking toward the turkey baster, so engrossed in his task he probably didn't even realize what he was doing. Mom gave a delighted squeal, and Maxie actually applauded.

“Go, Ollie!” she shouted.

Melissa rushed to Oliver, who looked up at her, got the message he was standing and immediately sat down. Everyone had a chuckle over that until I said, “Just make sure he's not doing that when Jeannie gets here.”

The gathered assemblage agreed, and Liss propped Ollie back up to see if he would walk again. He got down and crawled over to the baster, which he picked up and showed to us. What the hell; we applauded again.

“It's always amazing when they do that,” Thomas said softly. He got a faraway look in his eye. We had to focus on getting his wife back.

“The list,” Paul said. Paul has no use for babies because they can't help him solve cases. It's a good thing we had Paul.

I looked over at Thomas. “Okay, so after visiting Lay-Z, assuming that's who Lamont becomes when he walks out his mother's door, where did Vinnie go?”

Thomas propped his forehead on his right hand and looked over his spreadsheet data. “Long Branch,” he said. “An address that doesn't appear on Anita's records at all.”

“That seems like the place to look,” Mom said. “You've looked everywhere the lieutenant had listed and you haven't found her. Maybe Vinnie found her.”

“Maybe,” Thomas said. “But anything that gives us new information is helpful; we should look there first.”

Paul nodded his approval; I think he was considering offering Thomas a job at his detective agency. The fact that there is no detective agency means very little to Paul.

“I can't actually leave right now,” I told Thomas. “I have obligations here at the guesthouse, and Oliver's mom and dad are coming to pick him up soon.”

Ollie looked up. “Ma?” he said.

“Soon, baby, very, very soon,” Melissa told him. “And you can walk for her. She'll love that!” Ollie squeezed the rubber ball on the turkey baster, and air shot out the other end. He laughed.

“It's okay,” Thomas told me. “I'll go check it out. I'll keep in touch. If Anita's there, I'll let you know. If not, we'll decide where to go from there.”

I agreed to that, feeling just a little guilty that I wasn't dropping everything to look for the lieutenant just when she might actually have needed help for the first time since I'd met her. But I told myself the woman would most likely prefer to see her husband when she was under duress.

Thomas left almost immediately after, as did Maxie, mysteriously saying she had to go get ready for the morning performance. Maxie gave the laptop to Melissa, because it was Melissa's computer, which led me to wonder why she hadn't simply done that before. I didn't ask. With Maxie it's always better not to ask.

“Did you check on that thirty grand that Detective Ferry has in his bank account?” I asked Paul.

Paul looked quite smug, like the smartest boy in the class being asked what two plus two equals. I could have asked Oliver, but he was busy squeezing the ball on the baster. “As a matter of fact, I did contact the detective, and he confirmed what I'd already deduced,” Paul said.

Maxie stopped just before the ceiling. She loves to see me get shown up, and besides, this was good gossip.

“So?” I asked.

Paul glanced surreptitiously (he thought) toward Maxie. “So?” he repeated.

“You first.”

“The lieutenant got the money from his ex-wife,” Paul said. “You'll recall that Elise is doing quite well for herself. He was behind in some bills—things were difficult after the divorce—so she sent him some of the money she got from selling the house they'd owned, especially after she'd parlayed the profit from the sale into her soup business.”

“Wait. She gave him thirty thousand dollars from their home sale, and then got mad when he didn't send child support payments on time?” Mom was confused, and I couldn't say as I blamed her.

“He says she thinks it's the principle of the thing.” Paul turned toward me and folded his arms like he was a genie about to grant my wishes for great wealth, a handsome prince and a team of elephants. “She knew he needed the money, and it wasn't for gambling debts or frivolous spending, so she gave it to him because she could. Every marriage is different.” He raised an eyebrow. “So now you tell me what
you
know.”

“What?” Maxie asked. “What does she know?”

“Why you're acting weird,” I said.

“I'm not acting weird.
You're
acting weird!” She flew up into the ceiling in a typical dramatic Maxie exit, and we all turned our heads up to watch. Except Josh, of course.

“What's up there?” he asked.

“What was up there isn't up there anymore,” Mom told him. “But she'll be back.”

Josh nodded. Sure.

“So what's the big secret?” Paul said.

I looked at Melissa. Maxie and I have a complicated relationship, but we don't really want to hurt each other. This looked like it was important to Maxie, for reasons I couldn't understand yet. Liss smiled a tiny bit and shook her head an even tinier one.

“I've got nothing,” I told Paul. “I thought I could get her to talk if I pretended I knew what she was up to.”

“I knew it,” Paul said, but he's not the type to gloat. He caught himself and put up his hands to indicate it was all right. “You tried.”

Sure, dead boy.

Ollie suddenly looked up, opened up his arms and took three steps toward the back door. “Ma!” he shouted. I saw Liss reach into her pocket.

Sure enough, a beaming Jeannie was standing in the doorway in shorts and a T-shirt that read, “I Survived the Bermuda Triangle.” Tony, eyes fixed on his son, stood behind her, naturally, carrying two large shopping bags.