3 The Case of Tiffany's Epiphany (25 page)

“What was your fave busta-move to bust?” Tiffany asks.

“This is America, little lady, speak English,” Lloyd admonishes Tiffany, who has no clue what he’s referring to.

I attempt to get the conversation back on track. “This D’Wayne—”

“Is he a big case?” Lloyd spits out an interruption. “Because I only got six months, two weeks, and three days to wrap it up.” Lloyd’s nose is running faster than Tennyson’s
Brook
.

“What happens then?” Tiffany asks. “Are you scheduled to die or something?”

“No, retire.”

“Then what are you going to do?”

“Anything I want.”

I tell Lloyd, with two L’s, Holler, with two L’s, everything I know about Mr. D’Wayne DeWitt, including the Non-Brink’s Brink’s truck, the account at Northern Trust, even the addresses of the places Mr. DeWitt visited the day I tailed him. Holler takes notes, not very many, but a few.

“That’s all you got?” Lloyd loudly spits out again. If this keeps up, there’ll be a puddle of snot on the table big enough to float the Commodore’s yacht.

“That’s it.”

“So, now I got to go out and bust my butt to nail this guy? Don’t you flatfoots ever bring in anybody ready to get scorched?”

“Sorry.”

Lloyd hocks up a goober which, fortunately, he catches in his handy handkerchief before it gets anywhere near us. He exchanges his reading glasses for his walking glasses, gives us a departing scowl, and rises slowly from his chair. “If you ask me, they should have never done away with debtor’s prisons.” He leaves the room without further comment.

“I’ll bet he’s a lot of fun in the carpool to work,” Jack remarks, depositing his gloves in the trash.

“Agent two L’s doesn’t impress me as a guy with a lot of hobbies,” I mention. “I sure hope he takes up some before he retires.”

“Snake charming might be a good fit,” Jack says.

“Or maybe a handkerchief tester,” Tiffany suggests.

“Let’s get out of here before I get infected with some two L bacteria,” Jack says.

As we head for the exit, Tiffany says, “My Daddy is right again.”

Jack and I gaze at Tiffany, waiting for the inevitable big “payoff.”

“He told me IRS guys are meaner than a cripple with no insurance.”

For once I couldn’t agree more.

---

Tiffany is already late for an appointment to waste another three hundred bucks with her life coach, so I have her drop me off at the ‘L’. Before climbing out of her car, she asks, “What do you think of the ‘Nice’ me, Mr. Sherlock?”

The question takes me a bit by surprise. “Well, it’s not really important what I think, Tiffany, it’s what you think that’s important.”

She’s lost in thought for a few seconds, which is a lot for Tiffany. “Well, being free of seeing myself wearing red is certainly a big relief. I can’t tell you the pain that it caused me. And I like that I’m like doing so many good deeds now, especially my relationship advice for the attractively challenged, but …” she hesitates. “I’m just not feeling it.”

“In what way? What’s missing?” I ask.

“I’m not sure.”

“Tiffany, you had a traumatic experience back at the Zanadu. You saw your whole life pass before your eyes,” I tell her. “I’m glad you’re rebounding from that experience in a positive way, but sometimes you have to give things a little time to let life sort itself out.”

“You think I might be moving too fast?” she asks.

“You have to let water seek its own level.”

“What does water have to do with me?”

“It’s an expression, Tiffany,” I explain. “After a flood, water needs time to run off and get back to the level where it’s supposed to be.”

“You want me to run off?”

“No, Tiffany. I want you to take your time, be introspective, really think your life through, and then make decisions on what to do next.”

“Mr. Sherlock, I hate thinking. That’s why I hired a life coach.”

---

I’m sitting in the bleachers, waiting for the Bailouts to take the floor for their final practice of the year. The game on Saturday is our one last chance for a perfect record of 0-8, all lost by virtue of the Slaughter Rule. What an accomplishment for a first year coach.

Mrs. Whiner is seated next to me. She has a stack of paper in her hands from which she reads aloud, describing in extensive detail how to post-up, split the defense, use the fast break, and spread the floor. I have no clue what she’s talking about, because I’m not listening. And it feels really good not to listen, to be on the other side of the fence for a change, so to speak.

I’ve tuned her out while I’m having an epiphany of my own. The obvious has dawned on me like the sun coming up over Lake Michigan. All of a sudden things are as clear as Tiffany’s diamond earrings. I feel a great sense of relief and it feels wonderful.

“Thank you, Mrs. Whiner,” I say to the obnoxious woman, having no clue if she’s even finished with her diatribe. My team enters the gym. They hardly seem happy to be here. “Okay, Bailouts, let’s take the court.”

Kelly arrives, playing with her cell phone. The item has become almost an extension of her hand. I interrupt her thumb sweeping the screen. “Can you get music on that thing?”

“Ah, duh, Dad.”

“Good,” I tell her. “Find some dance music and be ready to play it when I tell you.”

“Hip Hop?”

“Well, certainly not the Bunny Hop.”

“What’s the Bunny Hop?”

I order the girls to line up at half court. “Our last game Saturday is going to be different, girls,” I announce.

“We can’t lose any worse than we’ve lost before,” little Annie says.

“What’s the point of practicing, if we’re going to get slaughtered anyway?” Allison asks.

“Are they going to call the Slaughter Rule halfway through the first half?” Kaylyn asks.

The “Little” Whiner informs the team, “My Mom says we should be using more pick and rolls.”

“On Saturday, we’re going to pick our roles a lot more carefully.”

“What are we going to do, Dad?” Care asks.

“What’s right, for a change.”

The first drill I have the team do is my new Dribbling Dance Drill. “Every time you bounce the ball, you’ve got to bounce your booty along with it,” I explain.

The team looks at me as if I’ve got all my screws loose.

“I want to see more moves than a can of worms on steroids.”

I signal Kelly to start the music, grab a ball and give the team an example of what I want. I shuck, jive, jute and boogie as I bounce the ball before me. I must look like an idiot, but in seconds the girls join in and we have a basketball dance-a-thon. It’s so much fun, even Kelly steps up and in. The girls are throwing one arm up, while dribbling with the other. They swing their hips, tap their toes, and whirl their dervishes to the beat of the song and the bouncing ball. At the end of the awful music, every member of the team is laughing hysterically.

The next drill, which I create on the spot, is the Backboard Bounce Back. I line the girls up a few feet left of the free throw line and tell them to dribble up, toss the ball onto the backboard so that the person behind them can catch the rebound and throw it back onto the board to keep the process going. Each time the ball hits the board, I have the girls count out the number aloud. Kelly gives us a few upbeat tunes and we begin to bounce. It takes a while to get the idea, but we get the number up to six in about five minutes. By the time everyone is winded, we have a record of ten consecutive bounces. Good for us.

Next, we do a singing drill, starting with
Old McDonald Had a Farm
. Every time you are passed the ball, you have to continue singing the song. I call out when to pass. The team loves the E
, I, E, I, O
part the best. To further encourage them, I allow requests: songs by Katy Perry, Taylor Swift, One Direction, and several other acts I’ve never heard of blast out of Kelly’s cell phone. The girls, even Wilma Whiner, love it.

By the end of the practice hour, the girls are exhausted, from the bouncing, the singing, and mostly laughing at what they’ve been doing. But there is no one more spent than Mrs. Whiner who has watched the new drills in absolute horror. I see her sitting back in the bleachers absolutely aghast in what she has witnessed. All she can do is fan herself with her multiple pages of unsolicited basketball strategies to keep from fainting dead away.

“See you Saturday, Bailouts.”

And they cheer back in positive expectation.

This was fun.

---

“Was it Bruno who doped Tiffany’s drink, Dad?”

Homework’s done. Dinner was another complaint fest. And now the three of us sit in front of
The Original Carlo
. “I may never know for sure,” I answer Care’s question.

“Why not?”

“Somebody bashed his head in.” As soon as I say this, I regret it.

“Cool,” Kelly says.

“You’re not supposed to say it’s ‘cool’ when you hear about a murder, Kelly,” I admonish my elder daughter. “And don’t tell your mother you sit around here and discuss my murder investigations, either.”

“Who do you think iced him, Dad?” Kelly continues, not listening to a word I just said.

“I wish I knew.” For some dumb reason I continue the morbid conversation, “To be honest, I haven’t a clue.”

“I bet it was D’Wayne DeWitt,” Care says.

“Why?”

“Because he’s probably got a lot of pent-up anger, having the name D’Wayne.”

“Gibby did it,” Kelly says. “He’s a vigilante trying to clean up his own nightclub.”

“Where’d you ever pick up the word
vigilante
, Kelly?”

“I don’t know. I’m telling you, Dad, my mind’s like a sponge. I absorb stuff without even knowing I’m sucking it up.”

“Well, absorb this: quit spending so much time on that phone of yours. Every time I see you, you have that thing pushed up against your ear.”

“It’s not there now,” Kelly snaps back.

“Is it recharging?” I ask.

“How’d you know?” Kelly asks.

“Your father’s a detective.”

“Want us to move the cards around on
The Original Carlo
, Dad?” Care asks.

“It wouldn’t do any good,” I tell her. “The problem is I can’t find the connection between the crimes.”

“Maybe it’s a woman?” Kelly suggests.

“I don’t think so.”

“Dad,” Kelly says, “I’m trying to think outside the box.”

“How about money?” Care tries again.

“It’s always about money,” I tell her, “because life is always about money.”

“I thought you told us life was about choices, Dad,” Kelly says.

“It is, but if you don’t have any money, you won’t have a lot of choices.”

“So, the Commodore can choose anything he wants while you have maybe one or two picks on a good day?” Kelly asks me.

I hate arguing with any teenager, especially one who is my daughter. “Well, maybe you should ask the Commodore if he’d be interested in adopting you, Kelly?”

“That’s not a bad idea.”

“Does he have kids now?” I ask.

“No.”

“Well, that explains why he’s got so much money.”

“I don’t want to get adopted, Dad,” Care reassures me.

“Thank you, Care.”

“You will when you get older,” Kelly tells her sister, “and your closet is as empty as Dad’s refrigerator.”

I look at the clock. “Time for showers, then time for bed.”

Care doesn’t argue, she yawns.

Kelly says, “Already?”

“Git.”

They shower, get dressed for bed, and, as I come in to kiss them goodnight, Kelly hands me a note. It is addressed
Richard Sherlock
.

“Not again,” I moan.

I read it. “What do you mean you don’t have school next Wednesday?” I ask Kelly.

“It’s one of those teacher service days.”

“Why can’t your mother watch you?”

“She’s busy.”

“What? She has a job interview with a Mr. Salmon on Lake Michigan?”

“She didn’t say.”

“Yeah, right.”

CHAPTER 17

“This is for dragging my ass outta there,” Mr. DeWitt informs me from his hospital bed. His doctor is holding him over to the side to clean out the gunk in his lungs. Another stack of Hamilton’s is laid across my palm.

“I don’t think Gibby Fearn was the one who tried to blow you to kingdom come, Mr. DeWitt,” I tell him honestly.

“Then who the hell do you think it is?”

I really wish I had an answer, a good answer for him, but I don’t. “I’m working on it.”

“Maybe if you spent more time searching for the bomber, and less time following me around you might get somewhere.”

“What do you mean?” I play dumb.

“I can hear that crappy piece of shit car of yours putt-putting behind me.”

I’ve got to get that muffler fixed.

“Gibby had no motive to smoke you,” I say.

“What do you mean?” Mr. DeWitt yells back. “The only person stopping him from running the Zanadu is me. He’s a corporate climbing little weasel who would stop at nothing to get what he wants.”

“So, why didn’t you just fire him?” I ask the obvious question.

“Because it’s complicated at the top.”

By the way he makes this comment, I realize I shouldn’t ask the obvious question of who’s in charge.

“So, what do you want me to do, Mr. DeWitt?”

“Get out of my sight.”

“I can do that.”

“You’re fired.”

Evidently, it isn’t all that complicated to fire me. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more service to you, Mr. DeWitt. If there’s anything I discover from this point on, I will report it to you.”

“Don’t bother.”

I decide to wait for a better time to ask him if I can use his name as a reference. I leave the room. Once outside his door, I pull the stack out of my pocket. It would have been really tacky of me to count it in front of him, but now I rifle though the bills like a gambler in a hurry to place a big bet. Eleven hundred bucks.

Cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching
.

---

“No, no, I do love you, Jack. I was just tired that night.”

“Jack,” Tiffany says, “Neula is telling you how she feels.”

“Well, let me tell you how I feel,” Jack says. “This gout of mine might actually be a case of phlebitis.”