Rohn Federbush - Sally Bianco 01 - The Legitimate Way (2 page)

Sally thanked God. Her own husband, Danny Bianco, had retained his mental facilities until the end. Losing a mate to a fog of confusion must be heartbreaking. Sally asked God’s compassion for the gentle lovers leaving the shop.

Three hours later, near
eight o’clock in the evening, Sally was exhausted but not ready to go home. The shop was crammed with Robert’s hoard of friends.

Henry Schaeffer folded his raincoat inside out before placing it over the wooden chair, which faced the drop-leaf writing desk between the
Liberty Street windows. He removed a checkbook from his inside left pocket and a small strap-bound notebook from his right-hand suit pocket. Finally situated behind Robert’s desk, Henry consulted his notebook. He added up a sum of figures from its pages, while taking care to watch the street below for Robert’s return. He wrote a check and placed it under a brass paperweight in the shape of a reclining nude woman engaged in self-gratification; a disgusting piece. Robert said the sculpture belonged to his mother but Sally didn’t believe it. Although he was the same age as Robert, Henry appeared much younger. His blond hair was a bit sparse, his chin line fallen somewhat. His blue eyes dull from living in an unhappy marriage.

According to Robert, the
University of Chicago supplied the art degree and the deferment from the World War II draft. Henry’s father-in-law owned the dry cleaning establishment that Henry managed. Henry’s art was relegated to a weekend hobby. One of his oil paintings of Lake Superior’s shoreline, strewn with stones instead of sand, hung in the upstairs hall of Sally’s condominium. “No one yet.” Henry answered Sally’s unasked question about his latest survey of the street.

Penny Savage draped one leg of her torn jeans over the arm of the chair next to Robert’s desk. Sally could reluctantly accept the fact that young people purchased attire without knees and frayed cuffs. However, Penny carried the style of scuffed elegance to the extreme. Sally allowed herself an inner censoring, ’tsk.’

Ed Thatch arrived with the evening’s libations. He carried bottles of Taylor’s Cream Sherry in each of his hands. Ed lifted the bounty over his head. “The liquor store manager says these are on the house to celebrate Robert’s release from jail. Where is he?” Ed approached Henry, shook his hand sadly and positioned himself to appreciate Penny’s display of tattered glory. “Not returned?” Ed asked Penny.

Penny straightened her posture, as if in deference to the missing Robert Koelz. “Mary Jo is off somewhere flat on her back enjoying…,” she turned her attention to Sally and added demurely, “some view.”

“Right,” Sally said. Sally reminded herself youth held sway in life. Sally’s weight and stamina might want to match theirs, but Sally’s teeth were not as brilliant, her hair was white and thin, and her step not as sure. Even though her heart was steady, Sally knew her time was waning like a withering moon. Sally allowed herself few regrets. Everything she wanted in life she gained for sometimes-shorter periods of time than she would have preferred.

Was Robert Koelz’s fondness unbounded? Sally could accept the gradients of favorites easier than she wanted to consider a bottom to Robert’s well of acceptance, attention and, yes, affection. Perhaps Penny and Mary Jo were jealous of each other. As their audience, Sally found no rancor within herself. Mary Jo was too busy pursuing avenues of escape from the demons within her while Penny somehow claimed Robert’s primary devotion.

Eighteen-year-old Penny’s interest in seventy-nine year old Robert Koelz was recognized and accepted by the bookstore gang as a replacement for her own father’s affection. Her father committed suicide by jumping off the Williams Street high-rise apartment two years earlier. Penny told and retold scenes that explained her father-of-seven’s sad need for a final solution. The telephone was missing regularly from the entrance hall table. By following the landline’s cord, Penny opened the closet door under the staircase to find her crouched father in tears, talking to his married lover, a mother of eight. The booklovers and customers of the Bibliopole held their sympathy for Penny in common.

A momentary break in the group’s conversation, detected
Harvey Clemmons on the stairs to the shop. Ed disengaged a plastic chair from a stack in the back corner for Harvey’s use. “I tried to explain to my slow-as-molasses waitress.” Harvey’s melodious low tones rolled over the group, “I mustn’t keep the peasants waiting.”

Sally recognized
Harvey’s voice, the first time she met him from a radio show based in Minneapolis, which reached her Illinois home. Sure enough, Harvey and his very, very fat wife lived there for a short time. Harvey’s dulcet, seductive tones never failed to illicit a negative response in Sally.

Harvey Clemmons phony affectedness was borne by Robert’s friends because of his worries at home. The couple adopted a baby boy, who ended up being a charming master of deceit and periodically incarcerated. Supposedly unknown to
Harvey until too late, his wife physically abused the child, beating him senseless with a length of rubber hose. She was not arrested and thrown into jail; hence the boy’s continued failure to believe in virtue or justice.

Harvey placed his hand on Sally’s pant leg. “Sally, when can we expect our Koelz to be delivered from the jaws of the county’s tin whale?

Brushing Harvey’s hand aside, Sally offered her solution. “Mary Jo calls Robert every morning. When she telephones tomorrow morning, this silliness will be cleared up.”

Not agreeing with her assessment, Edward Thatch pulled at the tip of his dark beard. “If Mary Jo has come to harm, her husband is the best candidate for a murder suspect.”

“He never actually struck her.” Sally remembered.

“You can scare people to death,” Penny said.

Harvey disagreed. “Fear doesn’t usually stop the heart; but, it can shorten a life.”

“See!” Penny flung her arms wide as if to prove her point.

Ed refilled all the glasses with cream sherry. Sally made another pot of coffee. Finally, they heard the footfall they were attuned to, coming up the wooden steps to the shop. Penny beat Sally to the banister rail. They watched Ed run down to hug Robert. Once Robert was in the shop, Harvey clapped both his shoulders and then patted the back of Robert’s head. Penny enjoyed a full-frontal embrace. “Look at this motley crew, Andrew.” Robert hung his suit Harveyet on a hanger inside the storage room door.

“Fairly respectable.” Andrew Sites surveyed the room. “Character witnesses, if we can keep them sober for a day.”

“I don’t drink.” Sally took Robert’s hand and kissed his cheek.

Robert hugged her close, and then pushed past her to his desk. “Did you call everyone, Henry?”

Henry answered him as he rose to relinquish the desk chair, “Mrs. Bianco, handled the matter.”

“Good job, Sally,” Robert said.

Henry made a grand gesture towards Robert’s chair, bowing as if offering the king a permit to his throne. A trick of light perhaps, revealed glistening around Henry’s eyes. When Robert touched Henry’s arm in appreciation for the magnanimous display of solicitude, Henry coughed to cover a sob. Robert and Henry stood cheek-to-jowl. Sally overheard Henry’s reply. “Just until it’s over.” Robert patted Henry’s back in response. Henry hastily gathered his overcoat, nodding his goodbyes.

“Defense strategies need to stay within the confines of this room.” Andrew Sites, who they had ignored in their greeting of Robert, had accompanied Robert into the shop.

Robert placed his hand on his belt buckle, as if to remind himself to pull in his flat stomach. He adjusted the blue silk cravat which nicely matched his shirt and eyes, before he announced. “Andrew promises me this matter will not see the inside of a courtroom.”

Miss Poi arrived from the back room to greet her master. Robert reclined in his creaky desk chair and Miss Poi caressed his pant leg. “Well fed, I see,” Robert winked at Sally.

Andrew continued his legal dictates. “If Mary Jo telephones at her regular hour tomorrow morning, all will be well.”

“She did not, this morning,” Robert answered as the immediate question hung in the air.

“Where was she when she called last?”
Harvey asked, his voice drowning out several attempts at the same question.

“I did not inquire,” Robert said and added, “Our conversation was on a personal matter…of hygiene, if you must know.”

“Herpes?” Penny was indelicate enough to ask.

“No,” Robert said.

Sally watched Andrew casually take out a notebook similar to the one Henry kept his close accounts in.

“It might be relevant,” Ed said.

“I refuse to divulge the nature of her illness,” Robert said. “However, she did reveal the transitory nature of an attempt at reconciliation with her husband may have left her open to infestation. Mostly she talked about her rabbits.”

“Rabbits?” Andrew kept his pen poised for germane information. “Her husband is the man who is giving evidence against you as her possible assailant.”

“Do they have a body?” Harvey asked.

“If they did,” Ed said, “Robert would not be sitting here.”

“Your law studies do provide you some solace,” Robert said, implying Ed was not helping matters.

“What evidence could her husband have?” Sally asked.

“That will be revealed in the indictment,” Andrew said quietly.

“So, Robert was released because right now the case is only a missing person’s report.” Ed’s brain summarized for them.

“Correct,” Andrew said, putting away his notebook.

“How can we help?” Sally asked.

“Well,” Andrew drawled. “My resources are somewhat limited.”

Robert raised his right hand high. It held Henry’s check firmly clutched between his thumb and forefinger. “Ten thousand,” Robert crowed. “Do I hear a higher offer?”

Harvey took out his checkbook, “Five grand more enough to start an investigation?”

“Thank you, that will get things started,” Andrew said. “But what we really need are feet, cars, airplane tickets, and phone calls.”

Penny jumped up. “I’ll search the newspaper for reported deaths in Michigan.”

“Mary Jo originally fled from
St. Charles, Illinois,” Sally said. “I went to high school there. What should I ask?”

“Try to find an address and phone number, once you get there,” Andrew directed. “Her place of work, neighbors, family. Anything might help. Do you know if her family was originally from
Illinois?”

“I think
Independence, Missouri, or was that her husband’s?” Robert was pulling on his curls and Miss Poi left the scene of the crime debate.

“I can take that,”
Harvey said. “Kansas City has an invitation to join a symposium on my desk. What was his name?”

“Ricco Cardonè,” Andrew and Robert supplied in unison.

“Is he in Ann Arbor now,” Sally asked.

“Yes,” Andrew said. “The police say he’s ready to stay in town until the case is closed. He swears Robert is the last one to see his wife alive.”

“Well, that’s obviously a lie,” Harvey intoned.

“Robert doesn’t know the location of the supposed reconciliation,” Andrew said, “and Mr. Cardonè is denying anything close to that took place.”

“Are they fighting over custody of the rabbits?” Harvey tried to make them laugh. No one did.

“How long has she been missing?” Ed asked.

“A week, according to the husband,” Andrew answered.

“But I talked to her yesterday.” Robert lifted an empty glass which Ed rapidly filled with sherry.

Penny curled up in Robert’s lap. “That’s why she was so cagey about where she was. She didn’t want her husband to find her.”

“I think she had the bunnies with her,” Robert said.

“Yes?” Andrew made a note. “Penny, check the pet stores. See if anyone knows if she purchased supplies recently, exact amounts.”

Ed put on his coat. “I’m sorry, Robert, I need to get home. Andrew, let me know if my computers at school can track anything down.”

“Wait,” Andrew said. “Robert, did Mary Jo use a credit card when she bought any books from you?”

“Yes,” Robert said, rummaging through his desk’s bottom drawer. Penny necessarily dismounted from his lap. She seemed lost, grief-stricken, cast away. Sally moved her arm as if to invite an embrace from the child, then thought better of it. “Here,” Robert said.

Andrew handed the receipt to Ed. “If you can find a program to monitor her latest purchases we can track her whereabouts.”

“I know an Asperger nerd who will be glad do it,” Ed said to Andrew. “I’ll let you know if we find anything. Robert, I’ll call in the morning.”

Harvey said his goodbye, too. Ten o’clock. Sally needed to get home and pack for Illinois, but she was loathe to leave Robert alone. Andrew took his leave, cautioning Robert not to drink and not to worry. “Penny, make sure he goes to bed early so that he can record Mary Jo’s phone call.”

“I will,” Penny said, shutting off the shop lights.

Sally hugged Robert goodbye at the street door and he clung to her for a moment, sweeping her cheek with a slight kiss. “I need you,” he whispered close to her ear.

“My heart’s always with you,” Sally said. “I’ll call you from
Illinois. Good luck.”

♦
♦
♦
♦
♦

September, Tuesday

Sally Bianco gassed up the Mustang before taking an indirect route to St. Charles from Ann Arbor. She hated Chicago road construction traffic. She claimed to anyone foolish enough to listen to an old woman the cancer rate increased in direct proportion to the amount of new construction on the nation’s roads. All the stalled traffic with engines issuing noxious fumes to trapped motorist had to be a contributing factor. So she sped up route 69 to Ludington, caught the four-hour ride on the Badger Ferry to Milwaukee, and drove the short distance to St. Charles, Illinois.

In the late evening, the day after Robert Koelz’s lawyer sent her to collect data, Sally Bianco checked into Hotel Baker. She unpacked, trying to ignore the view of the Fox River Dam, which gleamed with the multi-colored lights from the 1920 bus terminal on the far side of the river. She was here on business and she meant to tend to it, as soon as she had a warm shower and ordered flowers for the room.

Sally called Art Woods, an old high school sweetheart, to see if he could help. Art decided to become a city cop when his television repair business went under. His father’s hardware shop was still in town. She called the police department to reach Art.

“I can put you through to his cruiser,” the dispatcher said.

“Good enough,” Sally said, wondering if his wife allowed him to lunch with old school mates, really
old
schoolmates, widowed schoolmates, ex-girl friends, really old ex-girl friends. Well sixty-five wasn’t time for assisted living, but Sally needed all the help she could get. She laughed aloud at the thought, scaring the delivery boy, who nearly dropped her dozen yellow roses.

“Hello,” Art’s voice sounded old, too.

“Art, this is Sally Stiles, Bianco, your old girlfriend from high school.”

“I wasn’t in high school at the time and neither were you,” Art contradicted.

“Nevertheless,” Sally insisted. Big deal she had only been nineteen. Art had told her never to call him unless she was ready to give it up. After another year of celibacy, still a virgin, she called him. She remembered loving his hair, the line of his jaw, those blue, blue eyes and tight jeans. However, fate or a very personal God had delivered her. Her period arrived and she didn’t know how to break the date nor how to explain her continued un-acceptance of his advances. This was her first contact after nearly fifty years. “Please help me find a home address for someone I’m trying to get in touch with,” Sally asked calmly, professionally.

“Another man?” Art asked, up to his old tricks.

“Nope. Mary Jo Cardonè,” Sally said. “She’s a missing person, according to a very abusive husband.”

“What’s your phone number,” Art asked, apparently ready to help.

“I’m staying at the Hotel Baker. Any chance we can lunch together, tomorrow?” Sally tried to keep her voice upbeat, confident. “I could fill you in on why I need help.”

“Let’s wait until I can offer something,” Art said with what Sally was sure was an Elvis mimic of a sneer.

“When will that be?” Sally asked.

“Let’s say dinner, tomorrow.”

“Won’t Gabby object?” Sally asked, innocently, sort of.

“I’ll bring her along, if that’s okay?” Art said.

“Fine with me,” Sally lied. Heck, where was the romance in that. At least he was willing to help an old friend. Sally counted her blessings.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Sally rang Robert Koelz at ten o’clock in the evening to let him know she was on the job in Illinois and to see if Mary Jo had called. She would not mind if her trip was not necessary to clear Robert’s name.

“Sally.” he answered her hello, “It’s not Mary Jo,” Robert called out, probably to Penny or Andrew.

“Well, you answered my question. Maybe I should get off the line so that Mary Jo can reach you.”

“Are you okay?” Robert asked.

“Absolutely,” Sally said. “A friend of mine in the police department is running down Mary Jo’s address for me. I cannot remember what sort of car she drove.”

“Penny,” Robert asked, back in
Ann Arbor. “What kind of car did Mary Jo drive?”

“A van,” Sally heard Penny’s answer.

“Right,” Sally remembered. “Blue it was and a VW. I’ll call you tomorrow. Good luck, Robert.”

“Yes, of course,” Robert said. “Be careful.”

Sally meant to be. If Ricco Cardonè could falsely accuse harmless Robert with the murder of his wife, maybe Ricco was capable of worst villainy…like making sure the truth wasn’t pursued in Illinois.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

September, Wednesday

The next day, Sally Bianco ordered creamed tomato soup for lunch in the empty but snazzy Hotel Baker dining room. The linen-covered tables were set among art-deco pillars. Moorish sculptured windows faced the muddy
Fox River dam. She hoped Gabby and Art Woods would choose the hotel for the evening meal, because she planned to eat in the round, ballroom dining room, where tables surrounded the balcony. Perfect, if one had an eye for prying into the business of St. Charles’ residents.

Apparently, her glorious retirement plans had boiled down to snooping out criminals and saving the day for friends. She hoped her wardrobe was more up-to-date than Miss Marple’s. Sally wore sensible but elegant shoes, flat but expensive. Today her blue leather Harveyet was softened with a matching silk scarf, chosen to hide a few neck wrinkles. Her cashmere slacks were blue, too. Who was she kidding? She doubted she would be of help to anyone. She was at the age when the public took no further notice. She might easily walk away from robbing a bank or offing an espionage victim, with no one stretching out an accusing hand in her direction. Invisibility should have some benefits. Sally dropped her soupspoon on the marble tiled floor.

The courteous, older waiter jumped at the noise, but regained his dignity, gliding to Sally’s side with a fresh utensil. “Please.” Sally gestured for him to take her unfinished bowl away. “If you’re not busy, could I ask you a few questions?”

“Sure, Sally,” the waiter said. “You don’t recognize me, do you?”

“Noo…,” she demurred. He was around the same age as herself. “High school?”

“Exactly,” the man said. “John, John Nelson.”

“But you and your twin brother,” Sally stalled, ‘are rich’ were the next words on her tongue, but she had enough sense not to utter them. “…are st, still in town?”

“We own the hotel,” John sat down at her, no his, table. The handsome identical twins were the football hero and class president of her graduating class. Not that she could ever tell which was which, unless they stayed in her vicinity shortly after identifying themselves.

“James is at the bank. He’ll be glad to see you.” John started to rise, “More coffee?”

“Yes,” Sally said, worrying no amount of hot could warm up her cold cup.

“I’ll get you a fresh cup, too,” John said.

This was good. These two would know the town gossip. So Sally asked him when he returned, “Mary Jo and Ricco Cardonè, did, do you know them?”

“Last name sounds familiar.” He rubbed his baldhead, where luxurious black hair once existed. “James will know. His memory was always better than mine.”

“Were you the football player?” Sally asked, thinking he’d probably knocked his brains around too much.

“I am,” he actually blushed from what he thought was flattery, “I mean was. You remembered?” Sally couldn’t lie, but she did nod with her shoulder dipping to show it was no big deal. Apparently high school acquaintances revert a person’s psyche immediately back to the imbecilic days of high hormones and no sense. “James,” John called out, at some noise in the hall Sally’s hearing aid had not detected. “Look who’s here.”