Steeled for Murder (33 page)

Gee, thanks,
I thought.

“You just have to give them enough information to start investigating. He can’t hide everything. Especially after I talk to the lawyer.”

She didn’t need me. What could I do?

“So will you meet me at my house?”

“No point in it. Just tell the lawyer.”

“Please? If he finds me looking at his stuff, I don’t want to be alone.”

I knew this wasn’t a smart thing to do. And if Mandy was right that Gustavus was spying on her, everything she did was likely to get back to Radman anyhow. But I looked at the tears in her eyes and said, “I guess.”

“Good.” She scribbled down an address. “I’ll run in and see how soon they can get someone to cover the desk here. Be over as soon as I can get away.”

I stuffed the paperback books in my oversized jacket pocket and looked at the address. It was a few blocks away. I could get there, look at whatever she wanted me to look at, and then get home in time to get a good day’s sleep.

Mandy’s house was a well-kept older Victorian house with lots of gingerbread. The house she’d inherited from her parents.

I stopped in front of the house and looked around uneasily. Why had I agreed to come there? Kelly was right; I had to stop letting other people make decisions for me. I should have said no.

I had no way of knowing how long I would have to wait until Mandy came. The houses here were set on large lots, with landscaping and fencing surrounding them. They all looked genteel and well-to-do. Looked like the kind of place where, if someone called 9-1-1 to report a prowler, the cops would respond quickly. Not a good place for me to be hanging around.

I heard a car door slam and an engine start up. I turned up the walk to the house. The expansive front porch was partially hidden from the street by bushes.

The porch contained no furniture. Probably put away for the winter. I sat down on the floor in a corner, out of the wind and out of sight from the street.

I had just about decided I had waited long enough when I heard footsteps coming up the walk. Mandy, in her fashionable long coat and warm boots, climbed the stairs and started to open the front door.

I got up and walked over to her.

“There you are.” she said. “I was afraid you’d changed your mind.”

I probably should have. But I said, “No, I been waiting for you.”

“Well, come on in. It’s cold out here.”

It wasn’t much warmer in the house. I followed her into a stone-floored entryway. Closed pocket doors flanked either side of the hall and an ornate staircase led to the second floor.

Mandy led the way through a door at the end of the entryway. We stood in a huge vintage kitchen, with white tile on the floors and the walls. Mandy took off her coat and hat, laying them with her bag on the worn surface of a big wooden table.

“Sterling hid some of the stuff in the pantry,” she said. “He probably figured I wouldn’t be looking in there; I don’t cook much. But I decided to fix dinner for Christmas.” She snorted. “Bad idea.”

She opened a door toward the back of the kitchen. Reaching around, she grabbed a pull chain that turned on a bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling.

Bending down to a bottom shelf, she pulled out a box neatly labeled “First Aid Supplies and Emergency Candles” and set it on the counter that ran the length of the pantry.

“I decided to look for candles for the dining room table for Christmas dinner.” She pulled out several boxes of squat white candles. “And I found these.”

She plucked a manila envelope from the bottom of the box and emptied the contents onto the counter.

Several passports. A California driver’s license similar to the one Reggie had picked up from Mitch’s hidey hole in the fireplace. Several New Jersey drivers licenses, one with Radman’s picture on it. And the name “Quinton Barton.”

I didn’t want to leave my fingerprints on anything. I covered my hand with the sleeve of my shirt and shifted the pile around. A couple of credit cards, two with the name “Quinton Barton.”

Mandy took out another, smaller manila envelope. That one contained a few birth certificates. One of those also read “Quinton Barton.”

“And look at this.” She opened yet another envelope. It contained money. A big stack of hundred-dollar bills. “Do you think Sterling’s planning to run off? And take the money with him?”

“Could be,” I said.

“What should I do?”

She asking me? “Don’t you have an appointment with the lawyer? Take it all with you and show him.”

Mandy looked stricken. “Suppose Sterling comes home and looks for it?”

“How likely is that? Isn’t he at work?”

“I guess. But he’d be furious if he knew I’d found all this.”

“That’s why you’re seeing a lawyer. So you can find out how to protect yourself.”

“Suppose the lawyer tells me not to go home?” Mandy chewed the side of her lip.

Was she dense? Or just really upset? “Then you don’t go home. If you take that money, you’ll be able to stay in a motel or something and buy anything you need for a few days. If you’re not safe here, you shouldn’t stay here.”

Mandy started to get teary again. “My mother’s things are here. All her tableware and her lace and her jewelry. Suppose he does something to all that?”

“He probably won’t. But if he does, it’s just stuff.” I tried to be patient. “I don’t think your mother would have wanted you to get yourself hurt because you were trying to keep her stuff from getting broken.”

“You’re probably right,” she said, carefully returning the envelopes to the bottom of the box and covering them with the candles. She put the box back. ““There are other things in the garage. I don’t even know what they are. Maybe you can tell me.” She slipped her coat on and led me out the back door.

We entered the garage through an unlocked side door. Mandy switched on a light. She went to some shelves stocked with garden tools and flower pots.

“The staff at the library always has a Christmas grab bag.” She reached up and took down a clay pot. “I got an amaryllis bulb. I came out here to find a flower pot for it. Look.”

I peered into the pot. A few tiny baggies. Covering my hands with my sleeves again, I emptied them onto the counter. Little white chunks in some and white powder in others. “Looks like crack cocaine. And crystal meth. Hard to tell in this light.”

“How about this?” She took down another flower pot.

It held a glass pipe and a bit of steel wool. “Crack pipe. The steel wool’s like a filter. Keeps you from inhaling the burning rock.”

“So he’s using drugs?” She looked perplexed.

I shrugged. “Maybe. He don’t look to me like he’s got a bad habit. Good color and healthy.” I thought of some of his irrational statements at work. “But he might be a recreational user.”

“How about dealing?”

“I suppose he could be. There’s not enough here to make it worthwhile. Looks like a personal stash. But you got to be real careful. If the cops find this on the premises, they can ask the court to make you forfeit the property.”

“But it’s my house. And Sterling’s drugs.”

I shook my head. “Can’t speak to that. Talk to the lawyer. But you have to do something. I’d flush the drugs. And toss the pipe.”

She had that scared and stubborn look on her face. “I’ll think about it.” She put everything back in the flower pots and flower pots back on the shelf.

As we left the garage, a movement caught my eye. The kitchen door we had come out of not ten minutes ago opened. I grabbed Mandy’s arm and pulled her back.

Gustavus stepped out onto the back porch. He turned and locked it behind himself with a key. He held a manila envelope.

I tried to pull Mandy back into the garage, but she pulled away from me.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she asked Gustavus. “And where did you get a key?”

Gustavus smirked. He didn’t look the least bit surprised or upset to see us there. I didn’t remember seeing him at the library. Had he followed Mandy here?

“Mr. Radman, he sent me to pick up something for him. He done gave me the key. A long time ago.”

“He had no right to do that. You just give me that key right back. Now.” Mandy held out her hand.

One of these days, Mandy’s tendency to expect us lesser beings to do her bidding was going to get her in trouble. If it hadn’t already.

Gustavus grinned and shook his head. “Mr. Radman, he wouldn’t like that.” He pocketed the key. “Ain’t you s’posed to be at work?”

Through her thick coat, I could feel Mandy tense up. “Come on,” I told her. “You got an appointment. Let’s get you there.” I tugged at her arm.

“My purse is in there.” She took a step toward the house.

Gustavus stood his ground, blocking the door.

“Forget the purse,” I said. “Let’s get going.”

Finally, Mandy let me steer her around the garage and into the alley. “Where’s this lawyer’s office?” I asked.

“Down by the courthouse,” she said. “But now I can’t pay him or anything. I ought to go back and get my purse. My checkbook’s in there. And my credit cards. He’ll take them.”

“The lawyer can bill you.” I continued to propel her down the alley toward the street. “If Gustavus has had the key for a while, why would he start stealing things now? Especially something like your checkbook.”

She shook my hand off her elbow. “I can walk by myself.”

I let go but continued to walk with her. “I’m gonna walk you to the lawyer’s office,” I said. “I want to see you get there.”

Mandy cast a baleful look toward me, but she let me accompany her the few blocks to an old brick office building past the municipal building. A shingle hanging in front listed the names of several lawyers.

I stood on the sidewalk as she went in. Through the glass in the front door, I saw her talk to the receptionist. She was escorted through an inner door.

I turned and headed toward home. I hoped Mandy came to her senses and told the lawyer everything. And then listened to what he told her to do. She had to start making some smart choices about how to take care of herself.

I shoved my hands in my pockets. The thought occurred to me that that she wasn’t the only one who needed to start doing that.

Chapter 19

Another shift out of the way. Another day closer to getting a paycheck. Where would I have been without Tiffany’s extra sixty dollars?

Maybe stirring up less suspicion for dealing drugs.

Since I was new at this, I took a little extra time with the end of shift checklist to make sure I’d finished everything up and the lift was charging for later in this shift.

Mac stood back, watching approvingly. I didn’t get paid beyond my eight hours, but I didn’t want some stupid oversight to cost me this job.

The day shift was in full swing when I clocked out and gathered my jacket and lunch box. The weak winter sun glinted off piles of dirty slush by the sidewalks. I headed toward home.

A group of elementary school students huddled at a bus stop in front of a vacant storefront. A little girl shivered in a short jacket, her legs bare between her socks and skirt. One boy huddled into his hoodie, his hands jammed into the pouch pocket. They probably all lived in the rundown apartments over the stores. A bedraggled looking mother, wrapped in a threadbare coat, supervised listlessly, a cigarette dangling from her reddened fingers.

An old car hugged the cracked curb, engine idling. The driver slouched in studied nonchalance behind the wheel, his eyes hidden behind wraparound mirror shades.

Was he scoping out the kids? None of my business, really, but I kind of wished more adults were out there keeping an eye on the kids. I glanced at the car’s license plate. It was covered in mud, and I couldn’t read it. Cold as it’d been, I wondered if the mud had been deliberately smeared on the plate.

Where were the police when they could serve a real purpose? I didn’t have a cell phone. I could call in and report a suspicious character lurking around the bus stop when I got home. If Belkins found out about it, he would probably think I was mocking him. Maybe I’d better forget about it. Unless I could find a pay phone. Not too many of them left in this part of the world.

Instead of crossing the street to avoid the throng on the sidewalk like I usually would, I continued on a course that would take me right next to the car.

I tried to see what the driver was doing without being obvious about it. I didn’t have the advantage of mirror shades.

I saw the man’s head move slightly. He was looking in the rearview mirror. The kids were up ahead. What could he be watching?

Me.

I felt his eyes on me as I walked by. I tried to keep my back straight, but I felt myself hunch into my jacket. I stepped into an alleyway next to a closed liquor store. Striding quickly, I circled back around the store, coming out a walkway down the block and behind the car.

The driver was leaning forward, peering intently toward the alleyway where I’d disappeared. He glanced around. As soon as he caught sight of me in his mirror, he slouched down again behind the wheel.